66 THE DESIGNS FOR WHITEHALL 



The generally received opinion was that two designs were 

 prepared for the palace, one of which was published by Campbell 

 in 1722, and the other by Kent in 1727. Authorities have 

 differed as to which was the earlier to be devised, but both are 

 attributed to Jones. Both designs include the well-known 

 Banqueting House, and it has been taken for granted that they 

 must have been designed before that building was erected. The 

 date of its erection is on record. It was begun on ist June 

 1619, and completed in March 1622. The assumption, therefore, 

 was that James I. contemplated either the vast palace illustrated 

 by Kent, or the smaller version of Campbell, but that the only 

 portion actually built was the Banqueting House. 



As a matter of fact, James can have had nothing to do with 

 either of these designs. Campbell states that the design which 

 he published was submitted to Charles I. by Inigo Jones in 1639. 

 The accuracy of this statement has been questioned, but it was 

 evidently made on the authority of a formal inscription written 

 by Emmett on one of the drawings. If true, it disposes of the 

 idea that this design was made prior to the building of the 

 Banqueting House. But that idea is in any case not tenable, 

 for the Banqueting House was built to replace an older building 

 which was burnt down in January 1619; it was built immediately 

 after that catastrophe, and built on the same site. As only 

 some three months elapsed between the destruction of the old 

 building and the completion of the design for the new one, any 

 idea of the conception of so vast a scheme as the new palace in 

 that space of time must be abandoned. Moreover, there are 

 preserved at Chatsworth Jones's own drawings for the new 

 Banqueting House, which is there shown as an isolated structure 

 (Figs. 36, 37). Further, although the accounts for the new 

 Banqueting House are preserved, together with a detailed 

 description of it, and a record of a payment to Inigo Jones for 

 the " model " of it, there is no mention of any other buildings 

 in connection with it, contemplated or otherwise. Nor is there 

 any contemporary reference to the projected palace of any kind 

 until the one presently to be mentioned. 



In the Smithson collection there is an interesting drawing 

 which shows a plan of the old Banqueting House previous to its 

 destruction, and an elevation of the ground story of the new 

 Banqueting House (Fig. 38). They are obviously not drawn to 

 the same scale, inasmuch as the new building was too ft. long as 

 against 120 ft. for the old. The fact that Smithson thought it 



