44 EARLY LIFE OF INIGO JONES 



The Banqueting House must not be regarded as a step in the 

 normal development of English design ; it was something out- 

 side, the work of a specially trained and exceptionally gifted 

 man, who achieved in 1619 what less learned and less skilful 

 men were striving after, consciously or unconsciously, for nearly- 

 half a century afterwards. 



The ultimate influence of Inigo Jones on English architec- 

 ture was so important that it is desirable to know something of 

 his training and of his history. He was born in 1573, in the 

 parish of St Bartholomew, Smithfield. 1 The church register 

 records his baptism : " Enego Jones the sonne of Enego Jones 

 was christened the xixth day of July 1573." His father was a 

 cloth-worker in good circumstances at that time, but when the 

 lad was sixteen years old, the father was obliged to compound 

 with his creditors. There were other children, but it would 

 seem that only Inigo and three sisters survived their father, who 

 died in the early months of 1 597 ; as he left his property to be 

 divided among his four children, he must, to a certain extent, 

 have recovered from his financial embarrassments. In any event 

 it would appear that Inigo the younger was left to make his 

 own career. It is not known where he received his education,. 

 nor how thorough, or otherwise, it was : but it was apparently 

 up to the average bestowed upon youths of his condition, and 

 probably of much the same character, mutatis mutandis, as 

 would be acquired by boys of the upper middle class to-day. 2 

 That he was a man of culture is indicated by a copy of rhymes 

 in Latin written by Thomas Cariat (Coryat) of Brasenose 

 College, Oxford, in 1611, and preserved among the State 

 Papers. 3 They describe a philosophical feast, among the 

 guests at which was Inigo Jones. There is a tradition, but 

 without evidence to support it, that he was apprenticed to a 

 joiner in St Paul's Churchyard. If this were so, it would at 

 least give him an amount of practical knowledge which would 

 be of material assistance in his later career. But his early train- 

 ing is really a matter for conjecture. He says in the preface to 

 "Stone-Heng Restored": "Being naturally inclined in my younger 

 years to study the arts of design, I passed into foreign parts to 



1 "Lives of the British Architects," by E. Beresford Chancellor. 



2 It is true that his spelling, especially that of the notes in his sketch- 

 book, is eccentric, even for those days. 



3 "Cal. State Papers, Domestic," Sept. 2, 1611. 



