Whitehall

by W. J. Loftie

“‘He nothing common did nor mean

Upon that memorable scene.’”

Whitehall, from the River.

From Ogilvy’s Map, 1677.

This fact—for it is not merely an opinion—seems to answer a question that is often asked: Did the coolness of Charles on that last day at Westminster Hall, and again on the scaffold at Whitehall, betray any feeling, any certainty that he would be respited or rescued? A moment’s thought dispels the idea. Charles was manly, dignified, truthful before Bradshaw and before the crowds which had assembled to see him die, because he recognised that all the finessing, the double meanings, the secret understandings, and the thousand miserable subterfuges which he imagined to be “statesmanship,” and with which he had endeavoured to impose on the Scots and on the authorities of Carisbrooke and of Hampton Court, had done nothing for him, and if renewed now would have ensured that the fate which he foresaw had at last overtaken him would be justified by a large section of his contemporaries. He rose to the occasion. During those few hours at St. James’s he saw that all he could do would be to save the throne for his son, and he succeeded, but it was by a line of conduct wholly different from that by which he had lost it for himself.

The place of execution was most carefully chosen. Though called “the open street of Whitehall,” it was far from being really open. On the south were buildings pierced by the narrow archway of [Holbein’s Gate]. On the west were the walled tilt-yard and the barracks and other buildings, ending with Wallingford House. On the north was the comparatively open roadway to Charing Cross. On the eastern side were long rows of gabled buildings already described, with, just south of an archway into the old courts of the palace, the Banqueting House. It was sworn at the trials of the Regicides, a few years later, that Oliver Cromwell superintended the arrangements. The evidence is not well supported, but, owing to Cromwell’s great military reputation and to his subsequent elevation to the Protectorate, everything at this conjuncture was attributed to him. It is not very easy to reconcile the conflicting details of different stories. It neither adds to nor detracts from Oliver’s guilt, neither adds to nor detracts from his fame, whether he was at Westminster or at Whitehall on that fatal day.

The crowd coming into the narrow court from Charing Cross saw an empty space in front of the hall. The palace and the barracks, and the innumerable passages and lodgings, were lined with “the sour-visaged saints” of the various Roundhead regiments—men to whom the death of Charles would be a latter-day miracle, a sign from Heaven that their cause was won—that the Millennium, the Fifth Monarchy, was about to begin. Even when their own turn came such men believed, till they were actually “dancing on air,” that they would be supernaturally rescued. The crowd which swarmed into the street saw only a few soldiers round the black scaffold which, at the height of the first floor, stood in front of the hall, a little to the northward. The better sort of spectators were on the roof of Wallingford House, not directly fronting the scaffold, but near enough to see. Here was stationed the venerable Archbishop Ussher of Armagh, who is reported to have fainted as he saw the King led forth. Below was a man whose account of the scene would have been invaluable now. He only alludes to it in a note written in October, 1660, This was Samuel Pepys; and he remarks, after witnessing the death of General Harrison, “thus it was my chance to see the King beheaded at White Hall, and to see the first blood shed in revenge for the blood of the King at Charing Cross.”

The Banqueting House is clearly described for us in a note, probably by Inigo Jones, which was printed a few pages back. It answers most of the questions raised in a long correspondence in the papers a few years ago. The situation, the problem to be solved, was briefly this. The scaffold was before the two windows next to Charing Cross. A hole was broken through the wall to admit of a passage to the platform direct from the interior. The regicides saw that there would be great danger in taking the King out by the only door, which was at the back or east side of the hall. They would have had to conduct him by a narrow open-air passage northward to the palace gate. After passing through the gate he would have had to go several yards through the crowd before he could reach the scaffold, wherever it was placed.

But many asked, in the correspondence just mentioned, Why did they break through the wall? Why did they not go through the window? Simply because there was at that time no glazed window on the western front of the hall. A great window was at the “upper end,” probably that toward Westminster. There was, also, it is probable, a central window looking into the palace court on the eastern side. But toward “the street of Whitehall” there were no open windows, all being built up—as, indeed, the lowest tier remained until a couple of years ago. It is unlikely, though some have asserted it, that the upper tier had been opened and glazed at this time. In any case, these upper windows, if they existed, which is unlikely, would have been of no use to the contrivers of the King’s death. They were too high up and inaccessible except through a narrow balcony within the hall, where one man might have successfully resisted hundreds. The window “at the upper end” may have given light enough, as the hall was not built for use in daylight. It remained in this twilight condition until George I. opened it as a chapel about 1724. Then windows on the first floor became necessary. At first, as on the eastern side, only the centre window was opened. As late as 1761, the third and fifth were still built up. It was probably not until 1830, when the hall was “thoroughly restored” by Sir John Soane, that all the windows on the western side were opened, except those on the ground floor. The ground floor windows were opened first for the United Service Institution. It was asserted in the daily papers that they were re-opened, but, as a fact, they never were opened before.