There is nothing to connect Edward VI. with Whitehall during his short reign. But Mary, his successor, was constantly there. She is said to have preferred St. James’s, and the first separate mention we have of it in a State paper is in December, 1556. She died there in November, 1558.
Elizabeth made much use of Whitehall, but her buildings and improvements at Windsor must have proved a powerful attraction. She went about a good deal, and her State papers are signed in a great variety of places. She left no mark on Whitehall, although, at the very end of her reign, instead of Henry the Eighth’s “palace of Westminster,” we have “Whitehall,” pure and simple, one or twice. We have seen how York Place became the Palace of Westminster. How it again changed its name, and became Whitehall, we do not know. The change seems to have been made by Elizabeth shortly before her death, and the name may have already been in popular use. After her death, at Richmond, in March, 1603, her body lay in state at Whitehall, and was buried in the Chapel of Henry VII.
With the Stuarts we have a new epoch in the history of Whitehall.
CHAPTER II
Accession of the Stuarts—Wallingford House—Henry, Prince of Wales—Masks at Court—Inigo Jones—The Banqueting House—The Great Design of 1619.
The accession of the Stuarts marks a new epoch in the history of Whitehall. In spite of edicts against building, Charing Cross had become a populous place, and one of James’s first acts had been to build new stabling and a barn in the Mews on the site now occupied by Trafalgar Square. North-east of Whitehall, the Strand had become a continuous street, which ended with what we remember as Northumberland House, then called Northampton House, and subsequently Suffolk House. South of the palace, King Street had also been completed, and in a house there Edmund Spenser, the poet, died “for lake of bread,” as Ben Jonson reports. He “refused 20 pieces sent to him by my lord of Essex, and said he was sorrie he had no time to spend them.” East of King Street, where now we see Mr. Norman Shaw’s fine police office and Richmond Terrace, were green fields and gardens sloping to the Thames. The curious old Gothic gate made an entrance to King Street, and stood just at right angles to where we see the chief entrance to the Foreign and India Offices. The Palace garden, with its sun-dial lawn, was separated from the King Street slopes by the Bowling Green, where is now the house of the Duke of Buccleuch. On the other side of the roadway of Whitehall, beyond, that is to the northward of, the Tilt Yard and Horse Guards, Sir William Knollys, who was Treasurer of the Household to Queen Elizabeth, built himself a house to be near the Court. James I. made him a peer, as Lord Knollys, in 1603. In 1616 he became Viscount Wallingford, and his house long bore this name. Ten years later he was advanced to the earldom of Banbury, and died in 1632. There were complications as to his marriage, in 1606, with Lady Elizabeth Howard, and his titles have been claimed unsuccessfully, at intervals ever since, by his reputed descendants. We shall have more to say about Wallingford House presently.
The King Street Gate.
From the Engraving by G. Vertue, 1725.