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THE EXECUTION OF KING CHARLES I.

By Sir REGINALD F. D. PALGRAVE, K.C.B.

THE readers of this JOURNAL naturally turn to it for instruction in the arts of military and naval warfare; still, as the death of King Charles I., in close proximity to the western façade of the Whitehall Banqueting House, is the most noteworthy incident in the history of the building whence these pages emanate, they may be willing to learn what the most dependable evidence that is obtainable tells us regarding the site where that memorable event took place, between two and three o'clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, 30th January, 1649.

That the King, as directed by the death-warrant, was executed "in the open street before Whitehall," i.e., before the western façade of the Banqueting House, is a statement which may be accepted as a certainty. Here, however, certainty ceases and controversy begins. Our historians are assured, using Mr. Firth's words, in his recent book on Oliver Cromwell, that "from the middle window of the Banqueting House Charles stepped out upon the scaffold." On the contrary, I shall endeavour to prove that the King did not pass on the scaffold through any one of the windows of the Banqueting House, and that he was beheaded in front, not of the middle window, but of the second window, reckoning from the northern or Charing Cross end of the Banqueting House. It is with some confidence that I can proceed in this attempt, as that assertion is based on statements made by men who either saw the memorable event of the 30th January, 1649, or who could have talked with them about it; and the conclusion thereby obtained has been confirmed by corroborative information supplied to me by that eminent authority in historical research, the late Mr. Thoms, the founder and editor of Notes and Queries.

The accompanying illustration affords a clue towards the solution. of the window question. It is a reproduction of Terasson's engraving

of the Banqueting House, in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries. It will be observed that above a window in a building abutting on the northern end of the Banqueting House are marked a crown and the initials "C.R." These marks were noted on that engraving by George Vertue, the celebrated engraver, who was an ardent admirer of King Charles. As Vertue was born in the year 1684, he may have talked with an eye-witness of the execution scene; anyhow, he was

quite capable of attaining a reasonable certainty when he wrote these words at the foot of Terasson's engraving: ""Tis according to truest reports said that out of this window (the window marked 'C.R.') King Charles went upon the scaffold to be beheaded; the window-frame being taken out purposely to make the passage to the scaffold, which is equal

to the landing place," i.e., on a level with the floor "of the hall within side."

How Charles gained access to the "C.R." window must be ascertained; and that point can be reached with reasonable ease and certainty, taking Sir Thomas Herbert as our guide, who, as Groom of the Chamber, followed his master into the Banqueting House on the 30th January, 1649, and wrote in his memoirs a pathetic narrative of the hours which brought the King's life to a close. He describes how Charles, when he received the last summons, walked "with a cheerful look" along the galleries of the Palace and through the Banqueting House until he came to "a passage," using Herbert's words, "broken through the wall of the Banqueting House by which the King passed unto the scaffold."

Herbert does not identify the wall through which the passage was broken, but without doubt it was an end wall. The side walls of the Banqueting House are closely beset with windows. The formation of a passage through a side wall would have been needless, and almost impossible; besides, Herbert himself supplies an indication that it was an end wall which was cut through. Overpowered by tender regard for his Royal master, Herbert could not accompany him to his death: he shrank from "the sight of that violence they upon the scaffold would offer to the King." Herbert accordingly received instructions from Bishop Juxon, who accompanied the King until his death, to wait "at the end of the Banqueting House near the scaffold to take care of his body"; for, said Juxon, "that and his interment will be our last office."

That the end of the hall where Herbert waited was the northern end remains to be proved. In the first place it may be pointed out that a passage-way cut through the northern wall leads directly to Vertue's "C.R." window. That Vertue, in his identification of that window as the one through which "King Charles went upon the scaffold to be beheaded” was guided by the "truest reports" is also shown by unintentional testimony supplied by a young man who, standing among the crowd before the Banqueting House, was a spectator of the event of the 30th January, and who recorded that he heard, when the fatal blow fell," such a groan by the hundreds there present as I never heard before, and desire I may never hear again." This young man was Philip Henry, the distinguished Nonconformist divine, then a Christ Church student. He entered in his diary that he saw "the beheading of Charles I.," and that he “stood amongst the crowd in the street before Whitehall Gate where the scaffold was erected."

1 The strongest evidence in support of the belief that the King passed out on to the scaffold through one of the windows of the Banqueting House itself are statements to that effect made by Grignon, the French Ambassador, and Archbishop Fisher, who were witnesses of the execution. Both must have observed the event from a distance. The Archbishop was upon the roof of Wallingford House, a building now used as the Admiralty Office; they therefore, in the agitation of the moment- and the Archbishop was overcome with horror-may have confounded the “C.R." window with one of the windows of the Banqueting House. For the middle window theory there is no evidence whatever.

Philip Henry's expression that the scaffold stood in the street before. Whitehall Gate is accounted for by a glance at our illustration.

It will be seen that Whitehall Gate stood to the north of the Banqueting House, and that the portico which formed part of the Whitehall Gate touched the building containing the "C.R." window. Philip Henry thus brings the site of the scaffold into the vicinity of the northern end of the Banqueting House, and into harmony with Vertue's statements. And to close our evidence on this portion of our inquiry, we will cite an unexceptionable witness, Pennant, the noted antiquarian. He states in his " 'London," published just about a century ago, having quoted Herbert's description of the scene in the Banqueting House, that "the passage" mentioned by Herbert "still remains at the north end of the room, and is at present the door to a small additional building of late date."

With Pennant's "door to a small additional building" we can all claim acquaintance, as it leads into the Museum from the principal staircase now in use, which was erected during the reign of George II. when the Banqueting House was adapted into a Royal chapel. Thus for that doorway a claim may be made that it is surely as fateful a doorway as any in the world!

Having thus proved by fairly conclusive evidence that Charles did not pass out of the Banqueting House by one of its windows, but by a passage-way cut through the north-end wall, it remains to be shown that the scaffold was placed not before the central portion of the façade, but before the second window, reckoning from the northern or Charing Cross end of the building.

There are several circumstances which tend to show that the scaffold could not have been extended along the western façade of the Banqueting House to any great distance from the " C.R." window.

The scaffold, it must be remembered, was erected in haste; it was not finished when the King was brought from St. James's Palace to Whitehall between ten and eleven o'clock on the morning of the 30th January. The prolongation of the scaffold over some 90 feet from the "C.R." window to the central portion of the building was therefore impossible. Nor would the authorities, who felt it necessary to guard the scaffold by lines of soldiers, wish to give any unnecessary extension to a structure which evidently caused them some anxiety, so long as they conformed to the directions of the Death Warrant that the execution should be "in the open street before Whitehall.”

The conditions attending the erection of the scaffold thus render it probable that it was before the second window, counting from the northern corner of the Banqueting House, where lay, quoting from a news-letter of the time, "the little piece of wood flat at the bottom, and about a foot and a half long," which was prepared to raise up the King's neck to receive the death-blow as he lay prone upon the scaffold; and evidence of our own time can be offered in support of this statement. Mr. Thoms, ever ready to help a historical inquirer, informed me that he had seen in bygone days a memorial stone placed in the ground

before the Banqueting House to mark the execution site; and in confirmation of his remembrance he obtained for my use the following letter from Mr. Hugh Owen, referring to a visit he made to London when in his twenty-third year, and was the guest of Mr. Benson Earle Hill. Mr. Owen's ability and power of observation are attested by his history of "Bristol China," and by the duties he discharged as chief cashier of the Great Western Railway.

"6th April, 1881.

"Dear MR. THOMS,-Your recollection is quite correct in regard to the stone marking the spot of the execution. On the 1st day of May, 1831, I arrived in London. The very first sight I was taken to see, and asked to remember, was that afternoon when we walked to see the Abbey of Westminster (and my memory is most clear), and Hill showed me in the pavement a stone placed lozenge-wise in the foot pavement. It was a blue stone-most likely slate or blue lias; and he told me that it marked the site of the scaffold on which Charles I. was slaughtered in the name of, but contrary to the laws of, his kingdom.

"It was under either the second or the third window of Whitehall, next to Charing Cross-on this point I am a little at a loss-but my memory inclines most to the second window as the one to which it was attached. I have so vivid a recollection of this that I cannot be mistaken."

Copy of a woodcur in sorted in Gent's History of

the Town of Hall 1735

And Mr. Owen added this postscript:-"I do not think the memorial stone was in the roadway-it must have been in the footway."

Mr. Thoms's recollection inclined towards the roadway site; and Mr. Papworth noted in Notes and Queries that he had been informed by a friend "that he remembers being told some years since that a square piece of stone in the roadway marked the position of the scaffold"; and the "tailpiece," using the phrase of 200 years ago, to this essay, a copy of a very rough contemporary woodcut of English make, forms a curious