- King Charles I lost his head twice. The second time, of course, we all know about, it was on a scaffold in 1649, but the first time, when he was the Prince of Wales, is much less well known. As a 23 year-old wearing a wig and a very dodgy beard, a false one, and taking the name of Mr. Smith, he rode across the whole of
France with three companions, and arrived in Madrid,
completely unannounced. It was a mad and
incredibly dangerous thing for the only surviving son of a king of England and Scotland to do. And my lecture this
evening tells the story of that mad-cap adventure, and reveals why it was so important in shaping the early
Stuart court in England. My story actually starts in the second year of
the reign of James I. Protestant England had been isolated from the Catholic powers of Europe ever since the excommunication
of Queen Elizabeth by the pope in 1570. And in fact, England had been at war
with Spain for 19 years. The Treaty of London,
signed in August, 1604, ended the war that had
dominated England's politics for nearly two decades. Spanish territories spread across more or less the whole of Europe, including most of Italy, and although France wasn't
formally at war with England, travel abroad anywhere
in the mainland of Europe was dangerous and ill-advised. Negotiations for the
Peace Treaty of London took place at Somerset House in a series of protracted meetings, commemorated at their conclusion by this wonderful and
very well-known painting. It shows all the participants
of the peace treaty on both sides. James I signed the treaty in London, but the plan was for
King Philip III of Spain to ratify it in person in Spain, in the presence of Charles
Howard, the Earl of Nottingham, and around 500 English courtiers. And here you see Charles Howard, actually, this doesn't work, he's the one with the white top on, second to the window
on the right-hand side. And of course, he was the admiral who
had led the English fleet to the defeat of the Spanish Armada, so it was quite a nice symbolic moment when he was chosen to
lead the ratification. So this vast English embassy made its way to the court of King Philip, and because this was the first time Europe was open for such a long time, it was the most splendid
and extravagant appearance of the English court abroad since the Field of the
Cloth of Gold in 1520. A trip to Spain was a journey to visit the
center of the European world, the capital of Europe's largest
and most powerful empire, and, as the English
wagon train of 800 mules made their way across the
sun-scorched landscape, the cream of the Jacobean court were exposed to a novel
set of cultural influences. They assembled at Valladolid, the Castilian city to which king Philip III
had moved his court in 1601. As the capital of Castille, it was a fine place, with an ambitious, but unfinished
16th century cathedral, and many large houses,
churches, and colleges. The royal palace was
originally a private mansion built between 1526 and 1534, and in 1600, it was acquired
by the Duke or Lermer, who sold it to King Philip
III the following year. The palace remains, but it's been much altered
from its 17th century form, and it's now a military headquarters, and I'm showing you an
old postcard of it here. Since the postcard was made, there have been further alterations to it, eroding more of its historic character. But what the English
visitors saw was this: a double-courtyarded residence with an Early Renaissance
style architecture, very similar to henry
VIII's houses in England, much smaller than Hampton
Court or Greenwich, but I think very familiar
to the Jacobean courtiers in the arrangement of rooms, which graduated from the public to the private quarters of the king. It must have been an immensely
exotic and exciting time, because the Spanish laid on
magnificent entertainments: a triumph, bull fights,
a tournament, a parade, masques, and feasts. It was noted by the English visitors that the royal palace was, and I quote, "furnished with many excellent pictures, "all the good ones made by
the Italians or out of Italy." Despite embodying the future
hopes of king and country, in his teens, James I's second son, Prince Charles, who you see here, was a lost figure at court. He'd been robbed of his elder brother, Prince Henry of Wales, in 1612, and the following year, his beloved sister Elizabeth had married Frederick IV,
Elector of the German Palatinate. When they left England, Charles was left to his own
devices at St. James's Palace, where he continued to receive
his princely education, devised for him by the king. James made little or no effort to involve him in the
governance of the land, and Charles had no political influence. Worse still was the fact that in 1614, the king's licentious eye
fell upon a new favorite, George Villiers, who you see here, who accelerated himself
into James's affections, and capturing them
completely by early 1616. Charles was now, more than ever, a bystander at court, his father's attention completely
captured by his new love. Soon, the king had adopted
Villiers as his son, so he called him, and the king became Villiers's dear dad. The only way forward for Charles was to join this new extended
family as its junior member, which is what he did in 1618, being called by both them Baby Charles. For the last six years of James I's reign, England was effectively governed
by this triumvirate of men. After the death of his brother, Charles became the focus
of intense speculation about his marriage. These centered on the possibility of him marrying Philip
III of Spain's daughter, the Infanta Maria Anna, who you see here, a project which had strategic
benefits to both nations, but which was beset with problems. The marriage was promoted by the Spanish ambassador in London, Don Diego Sarmiento de
Acuna, Count of Gondomar, and also by George Digby, Earl of Bristol, the English ambassador in Madrid, who painted such an attractive
picture of the infanta that Charles completely fell
for the idea of marrying her. In early 1623, with marriage negotiations bogged down in matters of religion, Charles and Buckingham conceived a plan: to appear unannounced at
the Spanish court in Madrid, and win the hand of the princess, blasting away the contractual niceties. Like his dead brother,
Henry, Prince of Wales, who had been obsessed
with chivalric exploits, Charles had been seized with visions of chivalry and romance, and saw himself embarking
on a princely quest to win his bride. And this quest may have been given
additional romantic allure by the fact that his
father, as a young king, had made the hazardous
journey across the North Sea from Leith Docks, in Edinburgh, to rescue his bride in Norway, as she was then, Anne of Denmark, in 1589. But the young Charles's scheme
was infinitely more perilous than the choppy sea crossing
braved by his father. It was winter, and it was Lent, and Charles and Villiers planned to ride incognito across France, with only three servants, arriving unannounced at Europe's most splendid
and formal court, wearing nothing but their riding clothes. Well, in March, 1621, King Philip III had died, and his heir, Philip IV, was a youth of just 16, dominated by his tutor, Gaspar de Guzman, count of Olivares. Philip's was an enormous
but fragmented monarchy that stretched across the world, and you see the European
part of his empire here, colored in green. In Iberia alone, he wore three crowns, and to these had to be added sovereignty over the Spanish Netherlands, the Duchy of Milan, the
kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, and of course the
territories in the New World, somewhere off my map over there. Philip was El Rey
Planeta, the Planet King, an epithet that not only
referred to his vast territories, but to his personal glory, because Olivares ensured that Philip was a model
of princely magnificence: reserved, dignified, pious, and excelling in all princely virtues, from hunting to connoisseurship. The reception the Prince
of Wales would receive at this mighty court, breaching every known diplomatic protocol, was completely unknown. The importance of the eight months that Charles was away from England can't be overestimated. The prince's trip was
no weekend mini-break, he lived at the Spanish
court for 5 1/2 months, completely immersed in its etiquette, entertainments, architecture, and observing firsthand
its religious practices. To get there, he had, of course, traveled across France, and his first stop was Paris, where he'd spent a day sightseeing. In fear of being
unmasked, he and Villiers, who were traveling as
Jack and Thomas Smith, rather unimaginatively, bought new periwigs, and, in disguise, obtained access to the
French court at the Louvre. There, they saw the queen
mother dining in public, the king in his gallery, and the queen and her ladies
practicing for a masque. Leaving Paris, they embarked on a 10-day, 500-mile dash for the Spanish border, which they crossed, and three days later, on March the 7th, they reached Madrid. Having ridden on ahead, Charles and Villiers arrived at the house of the English
ambassador to the Spanish court, The First Earl of Bristol, with only one servant. His surprise was absolute, and his consternation was extremely deep. Madrid, which you see here
in a 16th century view, had become the principal seat
of the Spanish court in 1561, and had begun to acquire the appearance of what I think we would
today call a capital city. It was not a particularly
promising location: at the center of the landmass, if you think of it in your mind, in the middle of that big
bulge of the peninsula, it had a very meager river, it was boiling hot in summer, it was freezing cold in winter, but nevertheless, by 1623, there were some 10,000 private houses, including many fine mansions
belonging to the nobility. King Philip III had commissioned
his court architect, Juan Gomez de Mora, to build a huge civic square, symmetrically lined with
houses above arcades. This, the Plaza Mayor, according to Sir Richard Wynn, one of the English sent by sea to attend Prince Charles
on his arrival was, and I quote, "the only thing in that town "which a man could stand and look at." A broad street, the Calle Mayor led up to the Alcazar, the royal residence, situated in a large medieval
fortress on rising ground to the west of the city. Bristol, in conference with Gondomar, who was in Madrid at the time, decided that Villiers should
pave the way with King Philip, and he was taken by
Olivares to the Alcazar, where, by the back stairs, he was ushered into the
king's private apartments, where he had an audience
with the 18 year-old monarch. If you see on this facade here, there are three towers. The one on the right of those three towers contains the private staircase, up which Villiers, who later on became
the Duke of Buckingham, went to see the king. The Spanish court was gripped
with a crisis of etiquette. Charles couldn't possibly
meet the king's sister, Maria Anna, without considerable preparation, and so it was arranged that he should first spy her out of a chink in a shuttered carriage, the princess wearing a
prominent blue ribbon to mark her out from her ladies. She was beautiful, and the glimpse of his future wife further inflamed Charles's desire. The protocologists convened a council to determine the proper steps for the reception of this
English prince at court. The cost of doing so would be enormous, and it was joked that Charles
had managed to sack Madrid without an army. Before he'd left England, James had furnished Charles
with letters of presentation for King Philip, which explained that his son was, what were described in these letters as, a prince, the sworn king of Scotland. This ingenious piece of
mumbo-jumbo was to guarantee that Charles would be
treated as a sovereign, and not just as a prince of the blood. And it worked: the preparations at the
Spanish court were advanced on the basis that Charles
had equality with the king and members of the Spanish royal family. And the key to this was
his introduction to Madrid by the way of a public entry, the mechanism by which Spanish royalty took the public stage. And on March the 16th, Charles was accorded this honor, and remarkably, we have a print showing it happening. And here you see Charles
and Philip passing through the carefully-swept and
richly-decorated city streets beneath a canopy, carried high by 12 gentlemen, you can see that in the foreground, accompanied by drummers and trumpeters, and surrounded by foot guards. Behind them rode Olivares and Villiers, and an assortment of
ambassadors and nobles. And this print shows them
arriving at the Alcazar, where they were met by the
queen in her audience chamber. Charles was then escorted
to the prince's quarter, where he was delivered to
his very bedroom by the king, and within an hour, the queen's lord chamberlain arrived, laden with valuable gifts. Now, although the Alcazar of Madrid was an ancient Moorish fortress in origin, it had been adapted and
extended by the Habsburgs to form a large, double-courtyarded palace with a new facade, which had only been completed two years before the
arrival of Prince Charles. And I think you can see it
very clearly on this painting, you can see the new facade planted on the front
of the medieval palace. Sir Richard Wynn thought that this facade, which you see here in this engraving, was very fair, although he thought the rest of the palace was not worth much observation. Lord Roos, who had seen it
only a couple of years before, thought it not very large, but beautiful, commodious, and stately. In truth, I think this
facade was more impressive by its size and its apparent regularity than by any sophistication
of its architecture. But in plan, the Alcazar would have
been of a familiar type to the English visitors. It comprised two courts, which I think you can see there, one for the king, on the left-hand side, and the other for the queen,
on the right-hand side. The royal family occupied
the principal floor, and below were not only offices of state, but there were various
commercial enterprises tucked in the vaults. Access to the royal apartments
was via a grand stair, you can see it marked there,
great stair, in the middle, so it occupied the block
between the two courts, and this gave onto an upper cloister, which ran round the
interior of each court. The first chamber on the
king's side, marked A, just to the left of the great stair there, was for the royal guards, and this led to a smaller hall, which was where the king dined in public, that's marked B. Beyond this was the king's
principal reception room, known as the ante-chamber, marked C, and in here, there was a canopy of
state, and a chair of state, in which he received counselors, and which, on Maundy Thursday, he washed the feet of 12 poor men, a ceremony that Charles himself observed. Then came F, the principal audience
chamber, the camara, containing a ceremonial bed in its corner. Ambassadors were generally
received in this room, and the royal counselors
attended to kiss the king's hand. All these rooms I've described, at the top left-hand
corner of that courtyard, were part of the outer
rooms of the palace. Everything beyond the camara door was highly restricted in access. Only the gentlemen of the bedchamber and a small number of
named court officials were allowed into the rooms on the left-hand side of this plan. And this, actually, was not at all unlike
the Elizabethan court, where a tiny proportion of courtiers had access to Elizabeth I's
and Henry VIII's lodgings. The access that Prince Charles was given to Philip's private apartments, on the west and southwest of the Alcazar, was exceptional. And on this side, you see, to begin with, there are three small rooms for the private reception of ambassadors, and beyond these, at the
end of a long gallery, was the king's study, so right at the bottom there is N, the king's private study, where virtually no
courtiers ever penetrated. But next door to N is M, which are the private backstairs which led directly to Prince
Charles's quarters below. So his quarters were linked
by a private staircase to the king's own private study. Philip generally ate alone, served by his groom of the stool in an alcove off the gallery, and I've marked that K, that little alcove you see there, and his bedchamber, L, which is next door to it there, was only accessed by
the groom of the stool and a small number of menial servants. Spanish kings lived a
much less private life than had become the norm
across the rest of Europe. On the south side were
the great public rooms, the grand saloon, and Q, a new room which was built for hanging the king's
picture collection in. Philip decreed that Charles
be served exactly as he was, and he sent him a major-domo to be in charge of his household. He enjoyed completely unrestricted access to these rooms on the left, and he was presented with
two solid-gold pass keys, which let him into every single room in the king's apartments, which he passed on to
Villiers, to Buckingham, and to the Earl of Bristol. The king saw to it that there were entertainments
every single day. In quieter times, and here you see Madrid, and up here you see the Alcazar, and next to it, you see the hunting parks, which continued on the
other side of the river, so he was taken hunting, but there were also bull
fights, music pageants, feasts, firework displays, processions, picnics, tourist trips to places of interest, a fun-packed itinerary, in fact. On his third day in the Alcazar, the Prince of Wales was
taken on a private tour of the king's painting collection, and he was able to examine
the 2,000 paintings in the Spanish royal collection. Two of his servants who had
ridden across Europe with him were, in fact, art historians, Francis Cottington and Endymion Porter, and they all took copious notes
on the paintings they saw. Charles got very, very covetous, and kept on dropping hints that he would like some of these paintings to be given to him. And in fact, remarkably, he was, in fact, given
this amazing Titian here, the portrait of Emperor Charles V, which is now in the Prado. Various other paintings
were collected and bought on the open market in Madrid, the prince getting
incredibly enthusiastic, particularly for the Titians, and he packed this beautiful and erotically-charged
painting by Titian, "Woman with a Fur Coat," which is now in the
Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, into his baggage. Charles also went to the Escorial, the colossal palace-cum-monastery 28 miles north of Madrid. It had been started by
Philip's grandfather, and was rather an odd building
that combined a monastery, which you can see right
in the center of the plan, with a royal palace, which is the tiny little bit at the top. The English were rather bemused by this, and in fact, one of the visitors,
Sir Richard Wynn, said, this was never intended
as a king's palace, but for the godliest
monastery in the world, which, in fact, it is. Well, at the end of their tour, the royal party, and their
swollen baggage train, managed to make their
way across the hot plains to the coast, and sailed back to England. But these negotiations for a marriage between a Protestant prince
and a Catholic princess was never going to be straightforward, and nor were the European power politics that lay behind the dynastic alliance. Discussions were
detailed, they were vexed, they were lengthy, and as negotiations dragged on in Spain, and while Charles and Buckingham
consumed 30,000 pounds, which is what they'd brought with them, preparations were afoot in
England to receive the infanta. In fact, the day after
Charles and Buckingham arrived in Madrid, there was a discussion at court about which houses in London
would be most suitable for receiving the infanta
and her entourage, and it was decided that St.
James's and Somerset House should be given to her, but her usual residence should
be at St. James's Palace. And preparing St. James's Palace was going to be a complicated issue because it was necessary to provide for her Catholic religion. The pope had granted a dispensation for her to marry a Protestant on the condition that her
religion could be freely practiced in her own establishment, and this necessitated the
building of a new chapel, and both Somerset House and St. James's were inspected by the Spanish ambassador, who was insistent on the construction of new
Catholic chapels immediately. And these were required, by a distinguished panel
of Spanish theologians, not just to be private chapels, but to be public churches, which were, and I quote from the document, "sufficiently large "in which all the divine
offices may be celebrated, "and where Catholics may be buried "with the ceremonies that are customary." Well, work went ahead very quickly to try and construct a chapel that was satisfactory to
the French theologians, and would fit in with the
Palace at St. James's, and you will all know
that this building here was the building that
eventually was begun, but not completed at this point, because, as the Spanish match collapsed, and James and Charles
started to be interested in a French princess, work slowed down and eventually halted. On March the 27th, 1625, King James died, and the day after, the Privy Council met
at St. James's Palace to kiss the new king's hand. At first, of a mark of respect, Charles kept to his bedchamber, but a few days later, he slipped through St. James's Park, and took up residence at Whitehall. In 1625, Charles's reign started with a revolt against the
behavior of his father's court. A proclamation of May that
year stated, and I quote, "In the late reign of our most
dear and our royal father, "we saw much disorder in
and about his household "by reason of the many idle persons "and other unnecessary
attendants following the same, "which evil we, "finding to bring much
dishonor to our house, "have resolved the reformation thereof." Charles was a small, neat, private man whose world picture was ordered,
moral, and hierarchical. He'd been repulsed by the Jacobean court's
disorder, coarseness, and sexual ambiguity, and was uncomfortable with his father's lack
of dignity and majesty. Within days of his accession, he reasserted court regulations that had dated from Tudor times, establishing regular times and
days for all his activities, a habit he kept to the end of his life. The emphasis on dignity and order was reinforced by his marriage to the moralistic and prudish French Princess Henrietta Maria, and, crucially, by his
experiences at the Spanish court, because it was only two years
before he came to the throne that he had been exposed to the extreme privacy and asceticism of the Spanish monarchy. Order, dignity, and
deference reigned in Madrid in a way that he had probably
never thought possible in the chaos of James I's Whitehall. Returning to England, Charles even briefly adopted the extremely sober Spanish
fashions of court dress, and this is a portrait that was done immediately on his return from Spain, and he's dressed in this very,
very sober Spanish fashion, which had captured his
imagination at the Alcazar. No wonder John Chamberlain, a close and acute observer
of the court thought, and I quote, that the court was, "more straight and private
than in former time." And in 1701, Sir Philip Warwick could call it, "the most splendid and
regular court in Christendom." A slightly more skeptical
observer was Lucy Hutchinson, daughter of the lieutenant
of the Tower of London, and she could recall that, "King Charles was temperate,
chased, and serious "so that the fools and
bawds, mimics and catamites "of the former court grew out of fashion." But she also noticed that, "the nobility and courtiers "did not quite abandon
their old debaucheries, "but yet had the reverence to the king "to retire into quiet
corners to practice them." (audience laughs) Well, historians are very rude generally about Whitehall Palace, it's generally considered to be incoherent, confusing, and old-fashioned. King James had had very
little time for Whitehall, but it was, in fact, a well-ordered, carefully-maintained, and smoothly-functioning royal residence. And when, in 1625, Charles came to the throne, and took control of Whitehall, what was in the forefront of his mind were the buildings he'd seen in Spain, in particular the Escorial, which had made a huge impression
on him and his companions. And so within just one
month of his accession, it was common knowledge that he wanted to knock down all this and rebuild Whitehall in
a more dignified manner. A drawing that's now at Chatsworth House shows a design which probably
dates from that year, showing perhaps what
was in the king's mind. We'll return in just a moment to discuss the King's plans Whitehall, but in 1625, it wasn't just Whitehall that had been shown up
by the Spanish king, it was London itself. Just over a month after
Charles I came to the throne, he issued his first proclamation regulating building in London, because he had seen firsthand how royal intervention in a
capital city could shape it. He'd been profoundly
impressed by the Plaza Mayor, and I've shown you this already, but here you can see, here is the great square
in the center of Madrid, many of you will have been to see it, there's the royal palace, and he'd been very, very
profoundly impressed by this. And in this great square, he had been treated to the most spectacular
festival of his stay, a tournament in his honor
attended by 50,000 people, and memorialized in a series of paintings, one of which is here. This is actually Charles being
feted in the Plaza Mayor. This was the centerpiece of
Philip's remodeling of Madrid, and you can see the way
that people lived above, a colonnade down below, and you can see people are
looking out of the windows, watching the great festivals
in the center of the square. And in 1629, an opportunity arose for Charles to emulate the
Spanish and French monarchs in London. The one part of the
vast Westminster estate that wasn't held by the Crown was the 40-acre area on the
west side of Westminster known as Covent Garden. This was to be developed
by John, Baron Russell, the First Earl of Bedford. As the opportunity arose, Charles I instantly took an
interest in the development, and viewed the site with Inigo Jones. The earl's plans, he thought, weren't ambitious enough, and he ordered Jones to
take over the design. And as building commenced, Jones and the king continually
interfered with the designs to try and achieve something
that looked a bit like this. And in fact, that is exactly what was built, a new square, actually much more
sophisticated and elegant than the Plaza Mayor. It was never a full square, of course, but it became the center of
the fashionable West End. King Charles's vision for
a more majestic London came to a culmination with a series of very ambitious projects that would have transformed
the status of London, which were brought forward in 1638, which I think was the turning point in the king's life and reign. In July, 1637, the previous year, the king had told his
nephew, the Elector-Palatine, that he was the happiest king
or prince in all Christendom. You would have thought that
was a reasonable thing to say, there he is with an extremely
happy marriage, with children, his country is at peace, it's prosperous, and everything looked to be going well. But only 11 months later, this self-satisfaction had
been completely shattered, and he was involved in
military preparations to go to war against
his Scottish subjects. As a consequence, over the next three years, Charles was a much more
visible presence in his capital than he had been over the last decade, and he embarked on a series of schemes that were designed to assert royal magnificence and authority on his capital city. The most spectacular of these was a complete rebuilding
of Whitehall Palace. The ideas that may have been
briefly contemplated in 1625 were for the reconstruction
of the privy gallery, but this scheme was for something
infinitely more ambitious, which you see here. This involved building a vast
new palace in St. James's Park and laying out a new road
alongside the River Thames. It's a huge rectangular
building with 11 courtyards, one of which, as you see, was circular. This plan was almost certainly based on Charles's experience at the Escorial, which he had seen in 1623. It's also possible that his designs were based
on another Spanish influence, a book published by a Spanish Jesuit called Juan Bautista Villalpando, which was a reconstruction
of the Temple of Solomon, and you see one of the facades here, but it also had series of multiple courts. But what's certain is that Charles was very,
very closely engaged with these designs, there were lots of details
that were sketched out. But of course, sadly, England was on the brink of civil war, and the Whitehall plans
never progressed any further than on the paper on
which they were drawn. But Whitehall was, by far and away, Charles's most favored and
frequently-visited residence. In contrast to his father, Charles moved to Whitehall
whenever he had the opportunity. And Whitehall, and this is my reconstruction
of the plan of Whitehall in the early part of
the reign of Charles I, had the most extensive privy
lodgings, private quarters, of any of the royal palaces. So the whole of the area from 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 13, 12, 10, all those rooms there
are his private lodgings, and include this hugely
long gallery, here, which is numbered number nine. And these rooms, exactly like the rooms in the Alcazar, which he'd seen on his trip, became the center of his
collecting activities. Soon after his return from Spain, he ordered his first
inventory of paintings, including the Titian that
he had bought in Madrid, and two years later, he began to commission and purchase large numbers of pictures, and in 1627, most famously, he bought the huge collection
of Renaissance paintings from the Duke of Mantua for nearly 16,000 pounds. And almost all of these
objects came to Westminster, and were shown in these
private rooms in Whitehall, and also in some private
quarters in St. James's. And perhaps the most famous painting, that he commissioned from Van Dyck, which is known as the Great Piece, was specifically commissioned for the end of this great gallery here, it hung on that wall there. What it represents is the view that you
would have actually seen if there hadn't been an end
wall and a painting on it, because over his shoulder, you can see Parliament, you can see the old Palace of Westminster, and here is the king, with
his wife and his children, a very domestic scene, but you've no doubt that he's the monarch, you've got his crown,
you've got his scepter, and over his shoulder, you can see Parliament. And these private rooms, which you see on the left-hand side here, were overflowing with works of art, by Titian, of course, but also Raphael, Correggio, and others. And the largest room
in the privy lodgings, the king's cabinet, that's number 13, contained some 80 paintings, works by Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, but also bronzes, books, medals, drawings, and other works of art. And into the ceiling of this room he set Rubens's sketch for the ceiling of the banqueting house. So, extraordinarily, you've got the actual banqueting house with Rubens's painting in, and then, number 13, you have a room with a miniature version
of the same painting on the ceiling. It's been a bit of a trope of historians to link royal art collecting
and the display of power, but what is abundantly clear
from this plan on the screen is that none of Charles I's collections were accessible to anybody
outside his bedchamber and a few invited guests. And those people who were allowed in could only see his art at
Whitehall and St. James's, there wasn't any of the great collections at any of the other palaces. In fact, nobody outside
this very charmed circle had any access to either his
High Renaissance paintings or his contemporary works of
art by Van Dyck and others. In fact, the only contemporary painting
publicly on show anywhere, in any royal palace was the banqueting house ceiling. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the fundamental truth
about Charles's court: it was private, it was inward-looking, and it was sustained for
the pleasure and enjoyment of the king and queen and their closest friends. In fact, not at all unlike the world of Philip III
and Philip IV of Spain. So, ladies and gentlemen, tonight, I hope I have
thrown a new complexion on the reign of Charles I, a picture of a man profoundly influenced by an eight-month stay
in the Spanish court at the age of 23, someone who wanted to
emulate the dignity and order of the Spanish court, who, like Philip III and Philip IV, created private galleries of painting reserved only to himself
and to his friends, who contemplated rebuilding Whitehall, inspired by Spanish designs, and pushed through a
remodeling of part of London based on a great square
that he had seen in Madrid. All this, and a great deal more about the Stuart age
of art and architecture can be found in my new book, published this very day. It's called "Palaces of Revolution," and in the acknowledgement,
ladies and gentlemen, you all appear, because I am extremely
grateful, as always, to my audiences at Gresham College, who have provided, through your incisive
questioning after my lectures, all sorts of insights that I would never have thought of before. And there will be three
more opportunities this year in our program to contemplated the story
of the Stuart court. Professor Anna Whitelock
will be talking about James I and the wider world, Dr. Anna Keay about the Interregnum, and myself about Inigo Jones. But for now, ladies and gentlemen, I will end my talk and pass over for some questions. (audience applauds) - The first question's
quite a straightforward one: did Charles speak Spanish? - I don't think so, no, he didn't. But of course, the Earl of Bristol did, and the ambassador, so there was someone
there to keep him company. - And why was Charles
given access to everything, what was special about him from
the Spanish's point of view? - This is all about equivalence of status, and this is why James I's
letter of introduction was so, A, disingenuous, and so clever, because he gave the
impression that, in some way, Prince Charles was the king of Scotland, and the etiquette would therefore mean, automatically, without any
debate, any discussion, they are accorded equal status, two kings, no question. And so it was a clever
ploy, and it worked, and of course all the doors, literally all the doors, opened with his magic gold key. - [Audience Member] I'd like to ask you what you think of Waldemar
Januszczak's comments that Charles's love of
painting was so great he spent so much money, he was the only king
destroyed by his love of art? - This is very, very interesting. Charles has got a very big billing for his collecting of paintings, and he's known as the
great connoisseur king, and arguably, the court of Charles I is better known than the court
of any other English monarch because of the genius of Van Dyck, who captured it, and I showed you a couple
of the paintings there, he was a such a great, great painter. But the reality of it, if you get down to the
pounds, shillings, and pence, is fundamentally different, because Charles I spend
considerably more money on tapestry than he ever spent on painting, and he spent 10 times more
money on building ships than he ever did on buying
tapestry or paintings, and again, another 10 times more money on buying jewels and clothes
for himself and his wife than he did on ships. So actually, if you look at the hierarchy of the luxuries that Charles I is buying, easel painting is right
down at the bottom, and the reason that it stands out today is the privilege that is
given by contemporary society, contemporary art historians,
and contemporary history to easel painting over all other types of artistic endeavor. So yes, he was a great
collector of paintings, and he absolutely loved them, but if you're looking at the money, and he did spend a lot of it, the paintings weren't
the most expensive bits. - [Audience Member] Is there any link between the nursery rhyme, "I had a little nut tree,
nothing would it bear," and Charles's visit to Spain? - This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I mean by learning
from Gresham audiences. I have no idea, but I am going to go home and I'm going to look it up, and that's a very interesting point, thank you very much. - [Audience Member] Was the collection, presumably it was dispersed afterwards, and we have records of where
all the paintings went, and that helps to cement
this picture of him as a great art collector, is that correct? - Yes, of course, this is the amazing thing about Charles I. There are two huge inventories
of royal possessions. There's one which is done in 1547, when Henry VIII dies, and there is one that's done in 1649, when Charles I is executed, they're about 100 years apart. And what it enables you to do, in a really extraordinary way, is see exactly how the
royal collection developed over those hundred years. You can work out what it
was that Charles I acquired, but as you say, very importantly, quite a few of the inventories
taken after the king's death actually specify the room
in which things are hung, and that is what enables
me to be so convinced that the modern and Italian paintings were all in the those private rooms, and were not in the public
parts of the palace. And it's the evidence that we have, which we don't really
have for Elizabeth I, and actually, we don't really
even have for Charles II, so it's a unique snapshot provided by these
extraordinary inventories. - [Audience Member] A
fascinating story, thank you. Would you care to speculate on how Charles's life
might have panned out if his marriage to the Spanish princess had actually somehow happened? - That's a tremendously good question. What I think is very
interesting is that, in a way, Henrietta Maria was able to slot just into the cardboard cutout which said foreign, Catholic princess, because all the arrangements
and negotiations that had been going on with Spain were simply clicked over and passed over to Henrietta Maria, and the papal dispensation
was taken off one and put onto another, the Catholic church was taken
off one and onto another, the restrictions and the
privileges allowed to the marriage were taken one to the other. So I suspect that, actually, things would have panned
out very similarly. And of course, the really important thing
about the Catholic marriage is that it contaminated Charles
I's own religious policy, and, in many ways, led directly to the civil war. And to be honest, French princess, Catholic princess, Spanish princess, Catholic princess, they were the same thing. - [Moderator] I have one more question from the online audience, and then I think we'll have
to draw it to a close, Simon. There are a great many
equestrian portraits of Charles, both in paintings, but also on British coinage. To what extent was this
due to Spanish influence? - I don't think that it was really heavily
due to Spanish influence. Equestrian portraits were European-wide in the 17th century, popular, and there are equestrian
portraits of James I. I think you've got a
European fashion there for the portrayal of monarchy, and actually, aristocracy as well, and the king is participating in a European-wide artistic iconography. Thank you very much everybody. (audience applauds)
