Qualla: Banqueting House

Banqueting House: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit VirtuallyLondonBecky, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the morning of 30 January 1649, Charles I stepped through a window of the Banqueting House on Whitehall onto a scaffold built against its outer wall and was beheaded in front of a crowd. The building behind him had been commissioned by his father, designed by the architect who introduced English builders to Italian classicism, and ceilinged with paintings by Peter Paul Rubens. It was, in 1649, less than thirty years old, the first proper Renaissance building in England. It is also the only large part of the once-vast Palace of Whitehall still standing today.

Read more: Banqueting House on Qualla

Image: VirtuallyLondonBecky | CC BY-SA 4.0

Banqueting House: Wolsey's Marble, Henry's Palace

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit en:User:ChrisO, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Palace of Whitehall began as York Place, the London residence of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, until Henry VIII forced Wolsey out and made it his own. Henry expanded the palace using stone and marble stripped from a college Wolsey had been planning for his home town of Ipswich. The...

Read more: Banqueting House on Qualla

Image: en:User:ChrisO | CC BY-SA 3.0

Banqueting House: Inigo Jones Returns from Italy

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Edward Rooker / Paul Sandby, Public domain. James I built a stone banqueting house in 1607, but it burned down in January 1619 when workmen tidying up after New Year's celebrations decided to incinerate the rubbish indoors. James turned to Inigo Jones for the replacement. Jones had spent years in Italy studying the buildin...

Read more: Banqueting House on Qualla

Image: Edward Rooker / Paul Sandby | Public domain

Banqueting House: The Double Cube

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Artist Anthony Highmore, Public domain. Inside the Banqueting House is a single room: a perfect double cube, twice as long as it is wide or high, every proportion mathematically related. That austere geometry was the point - the same principles Palladio had been working with at the Villa Rotonda outside Vicenza, now im...

Read more: Banqueting House on Qualla

Image: Artist Anthony Highmore | Public domain

Banqueting House: Rubens Overhead

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Allreet, CC BY-SA 3.0. Charles I succeeded his father in 1625 and was a more ambitious patron of art than James had been. In 1623, before his accession, he had visited Spain and been overwhelmed by Titian, Velazquez, and Rubens. He wanted painters of that calibre in England. When Rubens came to London ...

Read more: Banqueting House on Qualla

Image: Allreet | CC BY-SA 3.0

Banqueting House: Out Through the Window

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dough4872, Public domain. Charles I's reign ended outside this building he had decorated so carefully. After he was defeated in the Second English Civil War, Parliament tried him for treason, condemned him to death, and the execution was set for 30 January 1649. A scaffold was built against the outer wall...

Read more: Banqueting House on Qualla

Image: Dough4872 | Public domain

Banqueting House: Whitehall Vanished

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thorvaldsson, CC BY-SA 3.0. In January 1698 fire raged through the Tudor palace for seventeen hours and consumed almost everything. The Banqueting House, Whitehall Gate, and the Holbein Gate were all that survived. Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor were asked to design a replacement palace; nothing ca...

Read more: Banqueting House on Qualla

Image: Thorvaldsson | CC BY-SA 3.0