View The Spot Outside Banqueting House Where Charles I Was Executed | Historic Royal Palaces Charles I’s execution site Stand in the spot where Charles I was executed, outside the front of the Banqueting House The place where a king was killed Outside the Banqueting House, on the pavement of Whitehall, is the site of Charles I's execution on 30 January 1649. Though the wooden staging erected for the execution has long been dismantled you can imagine the scene on that cold winter's day... Charles I had lost the Civil War. His enemies convicted him of high treason and decided that execution would be the best fate for him. On the day of the execution Charles said goodbye to his children at St James's Palace before being escorted to the Banqueting House. It was bitterly cold. Charles wore a second shirt so not to shiver from the cold, in case it was misunderstood as trembling from fear. He was also persuaded to drink a glass of claret so that he would not faint before he reached the execution block. Charles was led out of an upper window onto a temporary scaffold stage especially erected on Whitehall. He was composed on the scaffold and died with dignity.

Charles I's famous last words Charles I’s famous last words contributed to the later cult of the king as royal martyr: 'I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be’. Remembrance The execution of King Charles I is remembered each year on 30 January with a service in the Banqueting House. You may also be interested in... Oliver Cromwell and Charles I London Execution Sites - Travel Darkly Oliver Cromwell and Charles I London Execution Sites / 3 Comments /in Murder and Execution /by Sophie Collard January 30th is the anniversary of both King Charles I’s execution and Oliver Cromwell’s second death, by ‘posthumous execution’. Travel Darkly went to visit the Oliver Cromwell and Charles I London execution sites and burial sites, as well as a burial site in Cambridge, to mark the anniversary… Background In the seventeenth century England was a Protestant country. It was ruled by King Charles I between 1625 and 1649 (when his head was chopped off). Charles I brought in all sorts of church reforms which seemed a bit too Roman Catholic for people like Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell was a Puritan who had converted in his late twenties.

He went to a iiammar school – where the Cromwell Museum that needs saving is now – and later to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge – where his head is buried in a secret location. Sidney Sussex College © Sophie Collard Cromwell hated authority and powerful churchmen like the Bishop of Ely. He defended the rights of fenmen in Ely – who depended on the surrounding wetlands to make a living – against those who wanted to drain their land without compensating them. This earned him the title ‘Lord of the Fens.’ Following this, he was elected Member of Parliament for Cambridge. He would later raise armies to fight against King Charles I in the English Civil Wars. These broke out when Parliament could no longer stand the changes Charles I was making to the church, or his insistence on running the country without having to consult them. On one side was King Charles I and his supporters, on the other, men like Oliver Cromwell who thought the King was an oppressor. War spread to Scotland, Ireland and Wales and lasted nearly nine years.

Charles I and his supporters believed God put him on the throne, by Divine Right, but Oliver Cromwell believed he was chosen by God to stop Charles I – a bit like Joan of Arc and John Falstof in the Hundred Years War (beautifully portrayed in the Simpsons when Lisa is Joan of Arc, leader of the French army and Groundskeeper Willie is John Fastolf, leader of the English army. They have a quarrel about how both have been chosen by God to fight the other, and God says, ‘well I never thought you two would be in the same room’). When Charles I with his supporters, and Parliament with their supporters, came to a head in 1642, private armies were raised up by both sides to fight against one another at battles across the UK. Parliament’s armies were lead by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell realised after much fighting that in order to win all the battles, he needed to create a national army. He called the newly united forces the New Model Army, and they thrashed Charles I’s forces at the battle of Naseby in 1646. Charles I never recovered.

After his army had been destroyed Charles I was captured, but he refused to negotiate. Parliament’s anger at him grew; he escaped and ran away to make a deal with the Scottish, who provided him with an army to invade England. It was quickly defeated and the English paid the Scottish £400,000 for the handover of the King, who was then put on trial for treason. Parliament were desperate to get rid of him, and made up their own laws to do so. Charles I was found guilty of treason, with 59 Commissioners (or judges) signing his death warrant (including Cromwell, number three on the warrant). He was beheaded from a scaffold at the Banqueting House in London on 30th January, 1649. The death warrant of King Charles I, with the 59 wax seals of the Commissioners A bust commemorating the spot outside the Banqueting House, Whitehall where Charles I was executed from a makeshift scaffold © Sophie Collard England was now a Commonwealth, ruled by Parliament sans monarch. What was left of the pre-Civil War Parliament ran the country for four years until Cromwell dismissed them.

Eventually when nothing was working power was signed over to him and he became Lord Protector of the UK and head of state (having refused the crown). Under Cromwell England was a Puritan country where basically no fun was allowed at all. Puritans believed that to get into heaven you had to work hard. Time spent on frivolous activities like drinking in pubs, going to the theatre or playing football, were banned. Going for a walk to anywhere but church on a Sunday could lead to a rather hefty fine. Women wearing make up would have it scrubbed off them in the streets. Cromwell’s deathbed scene at Cromwell House, Ely © Sophie Collard The Cromwell family moved to London where they lived for twelve years before Oliver got sick following the death of his favourite daughter, Elizabeth Claypole. Cromwell is likely to have suffered from malaria as well as other ailments. He died on 3 September 1658 aged 59 and was buried at Westminster Abbey, where he remained for just two years before King Charles II, who had spent the majority of his life in exile, returned to the throne.

Understandably, Charles II was not in the best mood after all that time, and wanted revenge for his father’s untimely death. He ordered that the body of Oliver Cromwell and the other regicides (king-killers who signed the death warrant) be exhumed from the abbey and posthumously executed. The plaque on the exterior of St. Margaret’s Church beside Westminster Abbey – ‘This tablet is erected by the Cromwell Association to the memory of the undermentioned whose remains were disinterred from Westminster Abbey at the time of the restoration of King Charles II and were in September 1661 buried in this churchyard of St Margaret’s’ The body of Oliver Cromwell and two other regicides, once dug up, were ‘executed’ at Tyburn, the site where for many centuries the criminals of London were hanged. The site of the Tyburn Tree on the traffic island by the Odeon Marble Arch at night © Sophie Collard The bodies of the three men were buried beneath the Tyburn Tree in a pit, but the heads were put on spikes at Westminster Hall. At first this served as a grisly warning to others, but over time they became simply objects of morbid curiosity.

Oliver’s head remained there until 1685, when it blew down in a storm. It was picked up and passed around until it eventually reached the hands of Sidney Sussex College Cambridge, where it was buried in a secret location. The plaque near to where the supposed head of Oliver Cromwell is buried at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge How to visit Execution of Charles I Execution of Charles I Share Intro On 30 January 1649, King Charles I was beheaded outside Banqueting House in Whitehall. The assembled crowd is reported to have groaned as the axe came down. Although the monarchy was later restored in 1660, the execution of Charles I destroyed the idea of an all-powerful and unquestionable monarch. Disagreements between Charles I and Parliament had been simmering for several years. Charles had been exercising too much power, such as raising taxes unreasonably and imprisoning without trial those who did not pay up. Civil war broke out in 1642 and although Charles’s Royalist army had the upper hand at first, his advantage did not last for long. By May 1646, Charles surrendered.

Parliament claimed the King ‘had a wicked design totally to subvert the ancient and fundamental laws and liberties of this nation’ and that he had ‘levied and maintained a civil war in the land’. It was decided (after the Royalists had been removed from Parliament and the opinion of the House of Lords ignored) that he would be executed. This image is from a German engraving, published in 1649. 1000+ images about Whitehall Palace on Pinterest | London, Magazines and King charles Forward Banqueting House - the only remaining section of the vast Whitehall Palace, the ceiling was painted by Peter Paul Rubens. In front of this building in 1649, King Charles I was executed. It was a cold January morning & he wore two under-shirts to prevent shivering, which he did not want misinterpreted as fear. SW1, Charing Cross Tube. See More Westminster Abbey » Charles I Died: 30 Jan, 1649 Coronation Date: 02 Feb, 1626 Charles was the second son of James I and Anne of Denmark and was born on 19 November 1600.

As his elder brother Henry had died Charles succeeded his father in March 1625. He was a great patron of the arts but he had trouble with Parliament over financial, political and religious issues. The King dissolved Parliament several times and decided to govern without it. This was an unpopular move with the people and he eventually fled London and civil war was inevitable. The Royalist and Parliamentary (Roundhead) forces met many times from 1642. Charles surrendered to the Scots in 1646 and was handed over to Cromwell's forces and imprisoned on the Isle of Wight and then tried in Westminster Hall. On 30 January he was beheaded in Whitehall outside the Banqueting House. Marriage On 1 May 1625 he married Henrietta Maria, daughter of the King of France. Coronation Charles I was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 2 February 1626. Due to religious difficulties his wife was not crowned with him For the first time ever at a coronation the anthem "I was glad" was sung but it would be the last time that the ancient coronation regalia were used as it was melted down or sold by Cromwell's Parliamentarians after Charles was executed.

Burial Banqueting House (Whitehall Palace) (Pepys' Diary) History The old Palace of Whitehall, showing the Banqueting House to the left The Palace of Whitehall was the creation of King Henry VIII , expanding an earlier mansion that had belonged to Cardinal Wolsey , known as York Place. The King was determined that his new palace should be the "biggest palace in Christendom", a place befitting his newly created status as the Supreme Head of the Church of England. [6] All evidence of the disgraced Wolsey was eliminated and the building rechristened the Palace of Whitehall. During Henry's reign, the palace had no designated banqueting house, the King preferring to banquet in a temporary structure purpose-built in the gardens. The Keeper of the Banqueting House was a position enhanced by Queen Mary I by designating it in relation to a building of the same name at Nonsuch Palace , near the south edge of Greater London , which has since been demolished and instead marks the site of a footpath junction of the London Loop . This house was used to entertain the French agent in London and ambassador Gilles de Noailles and his wife in 1556.

[7] [8] The first permanent banqueting house at Whitehall had a short life. It was built for King James I , but was destroyed by fire in January 1619, when workmen, clearing up after New Year's festivities, decided to incinerate the rubbish inside the building. [6] An immediate replacement was commissioned from the fashionable architect Inigo Jones . Jones had spent time in Italy studying the architecture evolving from the Renaissance and that of Andrea Palladio , and returned to England with what were, at the time, revolutionary ideas: to replace the complicated and confused style of the Jacobean English Renaissance with a simpler, classically inspired design. His new banqueting house at Whitehall was to be a prime example. Jones made no attempt to harmonise his design with the Tudor palace of which it was to be part. Architecture Inigo Jones' 1638 plan for a new palace at Whitehall, "one of the grandest architectural conceptions of the renaissance in England"; [9] the Banqueting House is incorporated to the near left of the central courtyard The design of the Banqueting House is classical in concept.

It introduced a refined Italianate Renaissance style that was unparalleled in the free and picturesque Jacobean architecture of England, where Renaissance motifs were still filtered through the engravings of Flemish Mannerist designers. The roof is essentially flat and the roofline is defined by a balustrade . On the street façade, the engaged columns, of the Corinthian and Ionic orders, the former above the latter, stand atop a high, rusticated basement and divide the seven bays of windows. The building is on three floors: The ground floor, a warren of cellars and store rooms, is low; its small windows indicating by their size the lowly status and usage of the floor, above which is the double-height banqueting hall, which falsely appears from the outside as a first-floor piano nobile with a secondary floor above. The lower windows of the hall are surmounted by alternating triangular and segmental pediments , while the upper windows are unadorned casements. Immediately beneath the entablature , which projects to emphasize the central three bays, the capitals of the pilasters are linked by swags in relief , above which the entablature is supported by dental corbel table .

Under the upper frieze , festoons and masks suggest the feasting and revelry associated with the concept of a royal banqueting hall. [10] Much of the work on the Banqueting House was overseen by Nicholas Stone , a Devonshire mason who had trained in Holland. It has been said that, until this time, English sculpture resembled that described by the Duchess of Malfi : "the figure cut in alabaster kneels at my husband's tomb." [11] Like Inigo Jones, Stone was well aware of Florentine art and introduced to England a more delicate classical form of sculpture inspired by Michelangelo 's Medici tombs . This is evident in his swags on the street façade of the Banqueting House, similar to that which adorns the plinth of his Francis Holles memorial .

A contemporaneous print showing the 1649 execution of Charles I outside the inaccurately depicted Banqueting House In 1638, Jones drew the designs for a new and massive palace at Whitehall in which his banqueting house was to be incorporated as one wing enclosing a series of seven courtyards, visible on the monumental main façade as only a small flanking wing. These revealed the ideas behind Jones' concept of Palladianism. However, King Charles I , who commissioned the plans, never amassed the resources to execute them; [12] his lack of funds and the tensions that eventually led to the Civil War intervened and the plans were permanently shelved. In January 1698, the Tudor Palace was razed by fire that raged for 17 hours. All that remained was the Banqueting House, Whitehall Gate, and Holbein Gate . [13] Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor were asked to design a new palace, but nothing came of the scheme.

It has been said that the widowed King William III never cared for the area, but, had his wife, Mary II , been alive, with her appreciation of the historical significance of Whitehall, he would have insisted on the rebuilding. [13] Interior The Banqueting Hall The term Banqueting House was something of a misnomer. The hall within the house was, in fact, used not only for banqueting, but also royal receptions, ceremonies, and the performance of masques . [14] The entertainments given there would have been among the finest in Europe, for, during this period, England was considered the area's leading musical country. On 5 January 1617, Pocahontas and Tomocomo were brought before the King at the Banqueting House, at a performance of Ben Jonson 's masque The Vision of Delight . According to John Smith , James I was so unprepossessing, neither of the natives realized whom they had met until it was explained to them afterward. Such masques were later augmented with French musicians, whom Queen Henrietta Maria , the wife of Charles I, brought to the court.

[15] The masques began a slow decline, however, after the death in 1625 of Orlando Gibbons , who ironically died on a trip to meet the newly married Henrietta Maria and her musicians. Inside the building is a single two-storey, double-cube room. The double-cube, in which the length of the room is twice its equal width and height, [16] is another Palladianism , where all proportions are mathematically related. At the upper level, the room is surrounded by what is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a minstrels' gallery . While musicians may have played from this vantage point, its true purpose was to admit an audience; at the time of the Banqueting House's construction, Kings still lived in "splendour and state", or publicly. The less exalted and the general public would be permitted to crowd the gallery in order to watch the King dine. The lower status of those in the gallery was emphasised by the lack of an internal staircase, the gallery only being accessible by an external staircase. The building was, however, later extended to accommodate an internal staircase.

The Apotheosis of James I, the central panel of the ceiling, by Peter Paul Rubens James I, for whom the Banqueting House was created, died in 1625 and was succeeded by his son, Charles I. The accession of Charles I heralded a new era in the cultural history of England. The new King was a great patron of the arts—he added to the Royal Collection and encouraged the great painters of Europe to come to England. In 1623 he visited Spain where he was impressed by Titian , Rubens , and Velázquez . [17] It became his ambition to find a comparable painter for his own court. Rubens while in England as a diplomat was asked to design and paint the Banqueting House ceiling which was sketched in London but completed at his studio in Antwerp due to the scale of the job. The subject, commissioned by the King, was the glorification of his father, titled The Apotheosis of James I , and was an allegory of his own birth.

[18] To the King's chagrin Rubens took his knighthood and decamped back to Antwerp , leaving Anthony van Dyck, lured not only with a knighthood but also a pension and a house, to remain in England as the court painter. [18] The panels for the ceiling were all painted in Rubens' atelier in Antwerp and sent to London by ship. Inigo Jones later designed another double-cube room at Wilton House , to display Van Dyck's portraits of the aristocratic Pembroke family. Given the attention and effort which were lavished by Charles I on the Banqueting House, his end was not without irony. On the afternoon of 30 January 1649 he stepped out of a first floor window of Banqueting House onto the scaffold which had been erected outside for the purpose of his execution. [19] The actual window no longer exists as it was not in the main hall but just outside it in an adjacent part of the building which has now gone and, pictured from the outside, would have been the next window along at the north end, roughly above the current visitors' entrance.

[20] Legacy Unlike the architecture of the more southern European countries, English architecture went through no period of evolution to classicism. Through Jones it arrived suddenly and fully formed. Before this, English architecture had still been based on the styles of the Middle Ages , if for the previous century influenced indirectly by the Italian Renaissance, which had resulted in an English renaissance style during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. [21] However, as can be seen at Hatfield House , one of England's first purpose-built "Renaissance" houses, even during this era, English domestic architecture never quite lost its "castle air." Thus, through Inigo Jones' work at the Queen's House and the Banqueting House, English architecture was transformed. The overthrow of the monarch and establishment of the puritanical Commonwealth caused the style to be seen as Royalist , which delayed its spread; but within a few years of the Restoration almost every English county was to have some buildings in the classical style. The Banqueting House and its features became much copied. A much-favoured motif was the placing of pediments above not only the focal point of a façade but also its windows.

The use of alternating segmental and triangular pediments, an arrangement employed by Vasari as early as 1550 at the Medicis' Palazzo Uffizi in Florence , [22] was a particular favourite. Provincial architects began to recreate the motifs of the Banqueting House throughout England, with varying degrees of competence. Examples of the style's popularity can be found throughout England; the then-remote county of Somerset alone contains three 17th-century versions of the Banqueting House: Brympton d'Evercy , Hinton House , and Ashton Court . [23] Following the fall of the monarchy, Jones' career was effectively ended, his style seen as royalist. He died in 1652, never having seen the popularity of the architectural concepts he introduced. James II was the last monarch to live at Whitehall; William and Mary preferred to live elsewhere and eventually reconstructed Hampton Court Palace . Following the fire which destroyed Whitehall Palace, the Banqueting Hall became redundant for the purpose for which it was designed, and it was converted to a chapel to replace the Chapel Royal of Whitehall, which had been destroyed in the fire and was used to host concerts.

It remained a chapel before being given to the Royal United Services Institute by Queen Victoria in 1893. [10] Highly controversial plans to partition the large mansion house space in the service of offices for the Institution were quickly dropped in favour of the creation of a museum which displayed personal items of famous commanders and included the skeleton of Napoleon's horse. The museum closed in 1962, and the great south window, closed up by the RUSI, was restored. [24] Today, the banqueting hall is open for tours and use as a venue space. The Electric Light Orchestra shot the cover photographs for their debut album here, in 1971. Notes ^ While the Queen's House at Greenwich is often referred to as England's first consciously classical building, its completion was delayed until 1635, some thirteen years after the completion of the Banqueting House.

Halliday, p 149 ^ Coppelstone, p 835 ^ William, p 47 ^ Banqueting House | The Lost City of London The Lost City of London Before the Great Fire of 1666 Menu Leave a reply On this day in 1529, the Tudor King, Henry VIII appropriated the thirteenth-century York Place, which had originally been built for the Archbishops of York, from the then Archbishop, Cardinal Wolsey, and he renamed it Whitehall Palace (whence, from Shakespeare’s “King Henry the Eighth”, “You must no more call it York Place: that is past; For since the Cardinal fell that title’s lost. ‘Tis now the King’s and called Whitehall”). Whitehall Palace essentially came to take the place of the Old Palace of Westminster, large parts of which had been rendered unusable by a fire in 1512 (see also here ). It was considerably extended by Henry VIII and later by his daughter Queen Elizabeth I, and by the Stuart Kings James I, Charles I and Charles II.

It was undamaged in the Great Fire of 1666, but substantially burnt down in another fire in 1698. Essentially only the Banqueting House, built for James I by Inigo Jones in 1622, and notable as the first Renaissance building in London, with a ceiling by Rubens, still stands (together with “Henry VIII’s wine cellar” in the nearby Ministry of Defence building in Horse Guards’ Avenue, the site of his tilt-yard in Horse Guards’ Parade, part of his tennis court in the Cabinet Office at No. 70 Whitehall, and “Queen Mary’s Steps”, built in 1691, on the Embankment). The Holbein Gate, built in 1532, and notable as the probable place of the clandestine marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn in 1533, survived both fires, but was demolished in 1759. Charles I was executed outside the Banqueting House in 1649. The site of Whitehall Palace is visited on our “St Paul’s to Westminster Abbey” standard walk, and on our “Tudor and Stuart London” themed special.

The Banqueting House, where Charles I was executed, is also visited on our “Rebellious London” themed special. Further details of all our walks are available in the Our Guided Walks section of this web-site. Bookings may be made through the “Contact/Booking” section of the web-site, or by e-mail ( lostcityoflondon@sky.com ). Share this: 1 Reply On this day in 1660, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary: “[I]n the morning … I went out to Charing Cross, to see … Major-general Harrison hanged, drawn and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition. He was presently cut down, and his head and heart shown to the people, at which there was great shouts of joy. … Thus it was my chance to see the … first blood shed in revenge for the blood of the King [Charles I] at Charing Cross”.

Thomas Harrison was one of a number of the signatories to the death warrant of Charles I at the end of the Civil War in 1649 to be hunted down and executed by Charles II after the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 (see Don Jordan and Michael Walsh’s “The King’s Revenge – Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History”). The Banqueting House, where Charles I was executed, is visited on our “St Paul’s to Westminster Abbey” standard walk, and on our “Tudor and Stuart London” and “Rebellious London” themed specials. Further details of all our walks are available in the Our Guided Walks section of this web-site. Bookings may be made through the “Contact/Booking” section of the web-site, or by e-mail ( lostcityoflondon@sky.com ).

Share this: 1 Reply On this day in 1649, having bid a heartbreaking goodbye to his young children, Charles I was executed for treason outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall … It was a freezing cold day, so he put on an extra shirt, that no-one might see him shiver, and think him scared (“the season is so sharp as probably may make me shake, which some observers may imagine proceeds from fear [and] I would have no such imputation”). Eventually, after what must have been a harrowing wait, at 2pm, he delivered an almost inaudible address to the crowd, and at the end proclaimed “I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world”. He then made a silent prayer, laid his head upon the block, and had it stricken from his body. Whereupon, according to an eye-witness account by one Philip Henry, “there was such a Grone by the Thousands there present, as I never heard before & desire I may never hear again”.

The usually ubiquitous John Evelyn was pointedly not among those who bore witness to the event, writing in his diary: “The Villanie of the Rebells proceeding now so far as to Trie, Condemne, & Murder our excellent King … struck me with such horror that I kept the day of his Martyrdom a fast, & would not be present, at that execrable wickednesse … ”. The site of the execution is visited on our “St Paul’s to Westminster Abbey” standard walk, and on our “Tudor and Stuart London” and “Rebellious London” themed specials. Further details of all our walks are available in the “ Our Guided Walks ” section of the web-site. Bookings may be made through the “ Contact/Booking ” page, by e-mail lostcityoflondon@sky.com , or by phone (020-8998-3051).

Share this: Leave a reply November 2nd – On this day in 1529, the Tudor King, Henry VIII appropriated the thirteenth-century York Place, which had originally been built for the Archbishops of York, from the then Archbishop, Cardinal Wolsey, and he renamed it Whitehall Palace (whence, from Shakespeare’s “King Henry the Eighth”, “You must no more call it York Place: that is past; For since the Cardinal fell that title’s lost. ‘Tis now the King’s and called Whitehall”). Whitehall Palace essentially came to take the place of the Old Palace of Westminster, large parts of which had been rendered unusable by a fire in 1512 (see also here ). It was considerably extended by Henry VIII and later by his daughter Queen Elizabeth I, and by the Stuart Kings James I, Charles I and Charles II. It was undamaged in the Great Fire of 1666, but substantially burnt down in another fire in 1698.

Essentially only the Banqueting House, built for James I by Inigo Jones in 1622, and notable as the first Renaissance building in London, with a ceiling by Rubens, still stands (together with “Henry VIII’s wine cellar” in the nearby Ministry of Defence building in Horse Guards’ Avenue, the site of his tilt-yard in Horse Guards’ Parade, part of his tennis court in the Cabinet Office at No. 70 Whitehall, and “Queen Mary’s Steps”, built in 1691, on the Embankment). The Holbein Gate, built in 1532, and notable as the probable place of the clandestine marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn in 1533, survived both fires, but was demolished in 1759. Charles I was executed outside the Banqueting House in 1649. The site of Whitehall Palace is visited on our “St Paul’s to Westminster Abbey” standard walk , and on our “Tudor and Stuart London” themed special . The Banqueting House, where Charles I was executed, is also visited on our “Rebellious London” themed special .

Further details of all our walks are available in the “ Guided Walks ” section of this web-site. Bookings may be made through the “ Contact/Booking ” section of the web-site, by e-mail ( lostcityoflondon@sky.com ), or by phone (020-8998-3051). Leave a reply November 2nd – On this day in 1660, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary: “So to White Hall, where when I came I saw the boats going very thick to Lambeth, and all the stairs to be full of people. I was told the Queen [Henrietta Maria of France, the widow of the executed Charles I, and the mother of the then recently restored Charles II] was a-coming [home from the continent, where she had been in exile since her husband’s execution]; so I got a sculler for sixpence to carry me thither and back again, but I could not get to see the Queen; so came back, and to my Lord’s, … and I supt with him, he being very merry … . [Eventually] … I took leave of my Lord and Lady, and … coach … home … .

So to bed. I observed this night very few bonfires in the City, not above three in all London, for the Queen’s coming; whereby I guess that (as I believed before) her coming do please but very few”. Anthony van Dyck’s portrait of Henrietta Maria On a related note, Somerset House, which was once owned by Henrietta Maria, is passed on our “St Paul’s to Westminster Abbey” standard walk , and on our “Tudor and Stuart London” themed special (see also below). Further details of all our walks are available in the “ Guided Walks ” section of this web-site. Bookings may be made through the “ Contact/Booking ” section of the web-site, by e-mail ( lostcityoflondon@sky.com ), or by phone (020-8998-3051). Somerset House The original Somerset House was built for the Lord Protector Somerset in 1547-50.

After Somerset’s execution in 1552, it came to owned, occupied and modified in turn by the then-future Queen, Elizabeth I, in 1553; by the then King, James I’s wife, Anne of Denmark, in 1603; by the then-future King, Charles I, in 1619; and by the then King, Charles I’s wife, the French Henrietta Maria, in 1626. It then survived the Civil War and Commonwealth of 1642-60, during which time it was temporarily appropriated by Parliamentarian authorities, as well as the Great Fire of 1666. In 1669, the then King, Charles II’s wife, the Portuguese Catherine of Braganza, acquired it, and in 1692, shortly after Charles II had died and James II, who was a Catholic, had been deposed, she relinquished it, fearing for her safety there in the midst of what by that time had become a fiercely anti-Catholic populace. It was then allowed to fall into disrepair, and substantially demolished to make way for the present building in 1775.

Of the original, only some headstones from the former – Catholic – chapel, survive, in the “Dead House”- see photographs in gallery below. Blasius Nunes Manhans, Portuguese doctor to Catherine of Braganza (d. 1673) Catherine Guilermet, French servant to Henrietta Maria (d. 1633) Edmund Fortescue, usher to Henrietta Maria and Catherine of Braganza (d. 1674) Fr Hyacint(h), priest (d. 1692) Jacques d’Angennes, French ambassador (d. 1637) Share this: 2 Replies July 5th – On this day in 1598, the Moravian aristocrat and gentleman-traveller Baron Waldstein wrote in his diary, on a visit to London: “We … went into the royal residence known as … White Hall.

It is truly majestic, bounded on the one side by a park which adjoins another palace called St James’s, and on the other side by the Thames, and it is a place which fills one with wonder, not so much because of its great size as because of the magnificence of its … rooms which are furnished with the most gorgeous splendour. First you come to a vast hall which leads through into a very large walled garden where they keep deer and all kinds of other animals. We then went to see the rooms, every one of them furnished and arranged with perfect taste and elegance, with all sorts of statues and pictures to add to their beauty … There is … a portrait of Edward VI in 1546 at the age of nine – note the artist’s ingenuity in perspective … Another room has … some very rich hangings. A portrait here shows Queen Elizabeth when she was still young, in the dress which she wore when going to attend Parliament … In another place we saw … the Queen’s couch which is woven with gold and silver thread … . The Queen’s bed-chamber has rich tapestries all around: The adjoining room is reserved for the Queen’s bath: the water pours from oyster shells … .

In the next room there is an organ on which two persons can play duets … . The next room to this was the one where the Queen keeps her books, some of which she wrote herself … From here we were taken into a large and lofty banqueting hall … In another room Henry VII and Henry VIII and their wives are painted … ”. The site of Whitehall Palace, which was substantially destroyed in a fire in 1698, is visited on our “St Paul’s to Westminster Abbey” standard walk, and on our “Tudor and Stuart London” themed special . The surviving incarnation of the Banqueting House, designed by Inigo Jones for James I in 1622, and notable as the first Renaissance building in London, is also visited on our “Rebellious London” themed special (it being outside this building that Charles I was executed in 1649). Further details of all our walks are available in the “ Guided Walks ” section of this web-site.

Bookings may be made through the “ Contact/Booking ” section of the web-site, by e-mail ( lostcityoflondon@sky.com ), or by phone (020-8998-3051). Share this: 1 Reply Close-up of the Banqueting House ceiling by Rubens January 28th – On this day in 1547, Henry VIII “dyed at hys most princely howse at Westminster, comenly called Yorkeplace or Whytehall” (Stow). The house, or rather palace, was originally built for the Archbishops of York in the thirteenth century, circa 1240, when it was known as York Place. It was acquired by Henry VIII from the then Archbishop of York, Cardinal Wolsey, in 1529 (see also Whitehall Palace posting here) . This was not long after a fire had rendered parts of the nearby Old Palace of Westminster unusable, in 1512 (see also Westminster Hall posting).

The Banqueting House General view of the Banqueting House interior – from the entrance Under Henry, the palace was renamed Whitehall, and the populace was reminded “You must no more call it York Place: that is past; For since the Cardinal fell that title’s lost. ‘Tis now the King’s, and called Whitehall” (Shakespeare, “King Henry the Eighth”). The palace was extended both by Henry and by James I. It was undamaged in the Great Fire of 1666, but substantially burnt down in another fire in 1698. Essentially only the Banqueting House, designed by the Neo-Classical or Palladian architect Inigo Jones in 1622, and notable as the first Renaissance building in London, with a ceiling by Rubens, still stands (together with: “Henry VIII’s wine cellar” in the nearby Ministry of Defence building in Horse Guards’ Avenue; the site of his tilt-yard in Horse Guards’ Parade; part of his real tennis court in the Cabinet Office building at No. 70 Whitehall; and “Queen Mary’s Stairs”, built in 1691, on the Embankment).

General view of the Banqueting House interior – looking back towards the entrance Charles I was executed outside the Banqueting House in 1649 (see also here ). The Holbein Gate, built in 1532 and notable as the probable place of the clandestine marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn in 1533, survived both fires (i.e., 1666 and 1698), but was demolished in 1759. The site is visited on our “St Paul’s to Westminster Abbey” standard walk , and on our “Tudor and Stuart London” and “Rebellious London” themed specials . Further details of all our walks are available in the “ Guided Walks ” section of the web-site. Bookings may be made through the “Contact/Booking” page, by e-mail ( lostcityoflondon@sky.com ), or by phone (020-8998-3051).

(All photographs included in this blog taken by Bob Jones) Close-up of the Banqueting House ceiling by Rubens Share this: The Famous Execution Of Charles I Took Place At Banqueting House | Historic Royal Palaces Execution of Charles I The Banqueting House is probably most famous as the site of the execution of King Charles I. Sentenced to death In 1649, after years of struggle between the authority of Parliament and the power of the King, which culminated in the Civil War (1642-9), Charles I was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. After his trial and condemnation carpenters began setting up a scaffold against the walls of the Banqueting House. A grim procession At 10 o'clock in the morning on 30 January a grim procession set off from St James's Palace to Whitehall, the King surrounded by an escort of halberdiers. At the appointed hour he was led out through the galleries of the palace and into the Banqueting House. From here he stepped directly on to the scaffold from an upstairs window, specially removed for the occasion.

Although the King was hidden from the majority of the crowd by black drapery, neighbouring rooftops were thronged with spectators. Iron staples had been hammered into the floor for ropes to restrain the prisoner should force be necessary. The King’s final speech Finding it impossible to address the crowd, the King spoke to those about him on the scaffold including shorthand reporters who were able to record his final speech. He asserted at length the principles for which he was to die and his personal loyalty to the Church of England. His last words were 'I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be.' The execution Then the King took off his cloak, giving it to Bishop Juxon, the Bishop of London, and laid his head upon the block. After a little pause, stretching forth his hands, the Executioner at one blow severed his head from his body.

Question: Outside of which building in Whitehall was King Charles I executed?
Answer: The Banqueting House