Images: Artist’s rendition of Whitehall, seventeenth century; plan of Whitehall structures as built by Henry VIII, 1530–47, and Edward VI, 1547–53; the “Holbein” gate of Whitehall palace, decorated with flint checkerwork and antique heads. (Photos: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Old_Palace_of_Whitehall_by_Hendrik_Danckerts.jpg#metadata; plan from H. Colvin, History of the King’s Works vol 4/2, Fig. 24, courtesy of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, courtesy of the Open Government License Agreement; gate from George Vertue, Vetusta Monumenta, vol. 1 (London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 1747).
Acquired: 1529
Henry VIII pressured his disgraced former minister, Cardinal Wolsey, to cede his elegant new townhouse of York Place to the Crown, although technically the property belonged to the archbishopric of York rather than Wolsey personally. This did not stop Henry, who found York Place very conveniently located next to the fire-damaged palace of Westminster, still the governmental headquarters. York Place was not particularly large but it had good architectural possibilities. Anne Boleyn liked it because it did not yet have a suite of rooms for the queen’s household, which meant that Catherine of Aragon, still Henry’s wife, could not accompany him when he stayed there.
Anne and Henry embarked on a lavish building campaign for York Place, renamed Whitehall Palace. The king’s agents bought up property in the borough of Westminster and expanded the core of Wolsey’s townhome into a sprawling, multi-courtyard complex. From 1514–29 the cardinal had already built the chapel, great hall, lodgings, kitchens and a fashionable new gallery. Henry immediately added a second gallery, a timber structure dismantled from Wolsey’s palace of Esher and ferried across the Thames in boats to be reassambled at Whitehall. Additional lodgings (including a suite for Anne Boleyn near the king’s rooms), courtyards, gardens, and a tiltyard followed.
The palace expanded westward, straddling the main throughfare of King Street (today’s Whitehall road) with dramatic gatehouses like the so-called “Holbein” gate. The black and white checkered flint flushwork of this gate, which survived until the eighteenth century, was characteristic of much of Whitehall’s decoration. In Henry’s later years, a new privy lodging range was constructed for the king, the waterfront was stabilized, and a riverside range of rooms known as Lady Mary’s new lodgings were decorated.
Under subsequent monarchs, the Whitehall complex continued expand, becoming the largest royal palace in Western Europe until surpassed by Versailles. However, due to a catastrophic fire in the seventeenth century, almost nothing remains of it today except the name and the Jacobean Banqueting Hall by Inigo Jones. From the Tudor era, only some cellar vaults still survive beneath modern governmental buildings.
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