294 History of the English Landed Inter'est. 



Holt, the two Stones, and Inigo Jones were the chief archi- 

 tects. Many great landowners sent their builders to study in 

 Italy, and often imported foreign workmen to carry out the 

 designs that they brought back. The old mystic and symbolic 

 system of the former stjde was sometimes carried over into 

 the succeeding Renaissance architecture, though in future 

 it was more often prompted by loyalty or egotism than by 

 religion. Accordingly the Tudor draughtsmen shaped their 

 ground plans into anagrams and parabolic figures. John 

 Thorpe, for example, designed a house whose basement formed 

 the initial letters of his two names, and others showed their 

 loyalty by adopting as a ground plan the E which formed the 

 first letter of their sovereign lady's name. Buckhurst, part of 

 Knole, Kirby Hall, Holdenby, and WoUaton were built by 

 Thorpe. The last named, belonging to Sir Francis Willoughby, 

 is especially interesting, since it probably initiated the foohsh 

 custom of erecting by means of funds derivable from mineral 

 royalties an edifice out of all proportion to the size of the 

 estates, which could but prove an endless source of extrava- 

 gance to less wealthy successors, who would derive no benefit 

 from the exhausted mines, and could ill afford to keep up the 

 state required by the great block of building. Holt designed 

 many of the Oxford colleges, which, unlike most of his work for 

 private persons, have survived the ravages of time. The elder 

 Stone built Lord Danby's house at Cornbury, aiid carried out 

 many of the designs from the pencil of Inigo Jones, The 

 latter, born in 1573 at Smithfield, studied in Italy, acquired 

 his reputation in Denmark, and on first settling in England 

 employed his talent in designing theatrical costumes and 

 scenery. His work properly belongs to the succeeding Stuart 

 period, as he did nothing great in architecture before 1G15. 

 He is supposed to have designed part of Whitehall, the porch 

 of St. Mary's, Oxford, a portion (since burnt) of St. Paul's, 

 Houghton Hall and Dorfold in Cheshire, Castle Ashby, Stoke 

 Park, Amesbury, Gunnersbur}^, and other country seats of the 

 landed gentry ; but, like the works of other early Renaissance 

 architects, fire and storm have swept them away. The lesser 

 gentry seem to have clung fondly to the old Gothic style ; and 



