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A ‘Palace worthy of the Grandeur of the King’: Lord Mar’s designs for the Old Pretender, 1718–30
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Extract
Shortly before the coronation of George I in October 1714, an English antiquarian named John Talman reported from Venice on the progress of his plan to transport ‘curiositys [such as] pillars of various dimensions & colourd marbles; Busto’s, bassirelievi, Statues, tables of Porfiry & c . . . from y mediterranean to London to furnish a Palace. . . of a King. . . yt. shou’d outdo y world’. Since the destruction of Whitehall Palace by fire in 1698, provision for a new and more glamorous royal residence had been a leading issue among writers, politicians and architects as part of their unprecedentedly ambitious scheme to make London ‘the most flourishing City in the Universe’. A number of different designs for various sites were submitted from time to time. The majority were, like Talman’s, too expensive or extravagant to be realized. Certainly the most remarkable of these are the designs, now preserved in the Scottish Record Office, for palaces for James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, in St James’s Park and the ‘King’s Paddock’ at Kensington, prepared between 1718 and 1730 by John Erskine, 11th Earl of Mar (1675–1732), each of which he regarded as ‘worthy of the Grandeur of the King and Kingdom of England’. The seriousness with which the Earl regarded the project is apparent in the large number of meticuously rendered and annotated drawings associated with it — more than were made for any other of his many architectural schemes — and by the detailed account he provided in his manuscript Description of the Designe for a New Royall Palace for the King of Great Britain at London, 1726, here published in full for the first time (pp. 110–17).
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- Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1986
References
Notes
1 Friedman, T., ‘Foggini’s Statue of Queen Anne’ in Lankheit, K., ed., Kunst Des Barock in Der Toskana: Studien zur Kunst unter den letzten Medici (1976), 53 Google Scholar, Doc. 6 (letter dated 8 September 1714).
2 The subtitle of Daniel Defoe’s Augusta Triumphans, 1728.
3 These are discussed in F. Barker and R. Hyde, London As it might haue been (1982), chapters 2 and 6; Colvin, H. M., ed., The History of the King’s Works, v, 1660-1782 (1976), 183–204, 233-54, 263-304Google Scholar; Downes, K., English Baroque Architecture (1966), 36–49 Google Scholar.
4 Mar and Kellie Muniments, RHP 13256–13258, published with the approval of the Keeper of the Records of Scotland.
5 Westminster City Libraries, MS 728.82 (accession no. 496/1), transferred from the Bishopsgate Institute, London, at an unspecified date and titled on the the spine ‘Design for Buckingham Palace’. I am grateful to Ralph Hyde for directing my attention to this document and Westminster City Libraries Archives Department for permission to publish it. The English text, in Mar’s handwriting (pp. 68-316), is preceeded by what appears to be either the original French text or a contemporary translation, entitled ‘Project des Palais Royaux pour Les Roys D’Angleterre et De ‘France’ and ‘Projet d’un Palais Royal a Londres aulieu de celuy de White Hall’ (pp. 1-36), which is not in Mar’s hand but presumably related to the lost design for ‘a new Palace for the King of France at the Etoile above Chaliot’ (described in the English version, lines 268-316, 326-30).
6 For the schemes at Choisy (RHP 13257/32-33), Chatou (13257/23-25; Friedman, T., James Gibbs (1984), 267, pl. 300 Google Scholar; Sicca, C. M., ‘Il Palladianesimo in Ingliterra’, in Palladio La Sua Eredita ’nel Mondo (1980), 66–67 Google Scholar, pls 50a-b), La Plant (13257/26-27, 29-30), Mézières (13257/11-14) and Antwerp (13257/17-22). For Dun House (13257/1-10; Fleming, J., Robert Adam and His Circle in Edinburgh & Rome (1962), pl. 8 Google Scholar), Twickenham (13256/84; Friedman, T., James Gibbs Architect 1682-1154: ‘a man of great fame’, Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham 1982, 33 Google Scholar), Stirling (13258/45-49; Fawcett, R., Stirling Castle (1983), 5 Google Scholar), Wolterton (13256/41; plan in Sir John Summerson’s possession), Bretton (13256/49; Linstrum, D., ‘Two Wentworth Houses’, Leeds Arts Calendar (1971), 8–10 Google Scholar, fig. 2), Rokeby (13256/42-48, some drawn over plate 90 in C. Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus, 1725) and Alloa (13258).
7 Journey Through England, 1 (1722), 64. Mar’s political and architectural career is summarized in Colvin, H., A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840 (1978), 295-97Google Scholar.
8 HMC, Stuart, IV, 210-11.
9 Friedman, T., James Gibbs (1984), 12–13 Google Scholar. Gibbs was not Mar’s only architectural contact. He had earlier associated with Alexander Edward and Alexander McGill (Colvin, ibid., 282-83, 295-96, 530-31). ‘Mr Duburson Ingenieur at Paris’ (RHP 13258/23, 26), ‘Mr Bourchet Sculptur at Antwerp’ (13258/11), ‘J.J. Couven. a’Aix. 1732’ (13258/15; Köver, K., Johann Joseph Couven: Ein Architektdes 18. Jahrhunderts zwischen Rhein und Maas, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museums, Aachen, 1983 Google Scholar) anda ‘Designe by Quin my valet de Chamber’ (13258/16, 19) are mentioned in Mar’s drawings.
10 HMC, Stuart, 11, 92-94 (letter dated 16 April 1716).
11 RHP 13256/31-32, 36-37, described as the house marked B. A variant design (13257/31), described as a house astride the ‘Street from Picketaile to High-Park corner’, has a similar courtyard arrangement but with the main block like the houses marked A and C (see nn. 15 and 17).
12 Junecke, H., Montmorency: Der Landsitz Charles Le Brun’s Geschicthe, Gestalt und die ‘He Enchantée (1960), pl. 7 Google Scholar.
13 Friedman, , James Gibbs, 12, 201-04Google Scholar, 305, pls 227-29.
14 Plates 43-44. Mar’s section through the main block of the St James’s Park house (RHP 13256/31) corresponds generally to the arrangement of Buckingham House.
15 RHP 13256/26-30 (’contrived at Urbino Janu: 1718 . . . Copied at Paris from the originals May 1721’), 33 (’Drawen at Paris May 1721’), 34 (’Drawen at Paris May 1721 from the originali done at Geneve. 1719’), 35 (’Copied at Paris Novemb: 1722 from the originall done at Urbino January 1718’), 38-40 (’Drawen at Genevajuly [and] August 1719’), 13257/28 (’Drawen at Geneva July 1719’).
16 Laprade, A., Francois D’Orbay (1960), pl. IX Google Scholar. 5(A), Bourget, P. and Cattaui, G., Jules Hardouin Mansart (1956), pls CV, CIX Google Scholar. Compare the piano nobile windows on the entrance elevation of Mar’s design (Fig. 4) with the entrance to the Convent of the Récollets, Versailles (Bourget and Cattaui, ibid., pl. CXXVII).
17 RHP 13256/22, 73-76, 79-83, 86-87, drawn at Geneva August and October 1719, and at Paris May 1721, except 76 (’contrived at Rome & in Milian Castle. Luca Aprile 18th 1719. Improved afterwards at Geneve that year & then at Paris 1724’) and 86 (’Drawen in Millan-Castle March 9th 1719’).
18 Bourget and Cattaui, op. cit., pl. CVIII. RHP 13256/22 and a variant 13256/74, showing panel paintings and other wall decoration.
19 RHP 13256/76.
20 RHP 13256/69-70, 77-78.
21 Holland, R., ‘Three French Architectural Drawings’, Burlington Magazine (June 1961), 264-69Google Scholar, figs 87-90 (engravings by Israel Silvestre, 1674 and 1682).
22 Vitruvius Britannicus (1717), pls 8-19, to which Mar subscribed.
23 Particularly Dun House, Banff (1735), for which Mar also made closely related designs (see n. 6), and Rosehall House, Clydsdale (J. Simpson, introduction to Adam, W., Vitruvius Scoticus (1980), 21, 33, pls 132, 148Google Scholar).
24 RHP 13257/16, dated 26 August 1721. A version of this scheme was also suggested in 1719 for a house on the site subsequently occupied by Marble Hill at Twickenham (13256/67-68) and a lodge at Alloa (13258/1).
25 De L’Isle (1675-1726), Histoire de L’Academie Royale des Science Avec les Memoires de Mathematique et de Physique (1725), is mentioned in the Anon., Voiage d’Angleterre D’Hollande Et de Flandre fait en L’année 1128 (Victoria and Albert Museum Library, London, MS 86NN2).
26 HMC, Stuart, IV, 123, a letter dated 15 March 1717. Gibbs wrote to Mar on 22 August 1716 to report that he ‘should be glad to see Versailles and Marly’, but he was never able to do so, although he owned engraved views of Marly, as well as two sketch plans of the Pavillon du Roi, one drawn on a visit in 1701-02 by the Scottish architect, Alexander Edward, who moved in Mar’s circle (see n. 9). Gibbs used the building as the basis of his remodelling of Cannons House, Middlesex, 1716-19 (Friedman, James Gibbs, 12, 36, in, 337 n.90).
27 The Daily Post reported on 28 August 1736 on a proposed palace in St James’s Park based on Versailles and Marly (Friedman, James Gibbs, 220-22).
28 RHP 13256/1-6 (dated October 1721 and April 1722), 8 (May 1728), 9 (February 1723).
29 The arrangement recalls the Grand Gallery of the Palazzo Colonna, Rome, by Antonio del Grande (1654-1703), and its offspring at Stainborough Hall (now Wentworth Castle), Yorkshire, designed by Johann von Bodt c. 1708 and completed by Gibbs in 1724, illustrated in Vitruvius Britannicus (1715), pl. 92 (Friedman, James Gibbs, 123-25, 321-22, pl. 124).
30 An unnumbered sheet at the beginning of RHP 13257.
31 RHP 13256/20.
32 Reproduced in Barker and Hyde, London As it might have been, 56, pl. 36.
33 RHP 13258/15 and 13258/14, a more elaborate version in which the elevation shown in the pedimental relief is flanked by wings, in the manner of St Peter’s, Rome.
34 Vitruvius Scoticus (1980), 33, pls 109-10. The plan corresponds to RHP 13256/2.
35 Mar was presented with a volume of plans of St Peter’s on the occasion of his audience with the Pope in Rome in 1718 (Colvin, Dictionary, 296).
36 Braham, A. and Hager, H., Carlo Fontana: The Drawings at Windsor Castle (1977), 125-29, pls 289-304Google Scholar. It is possible that Mar may have been aware of this scheme through his protégé, Gibbs, who had been Fontana’s pupil in Rome between 1704 and 1708.
37 RHP 13256/50-53 and 13257/60 for Wilton; 13256/54-58 for Longleat; 13256/64-66 for Drumlanrig. According to Mar, the latter design was developed from plates 37-38 in the first volume (1715) ‘in Mr Campel’s Vitra vius-Britanicus’ (13256/65) and he noted ‘By mistake of the Ingraver the plan of this House in Mr Campbels Vitruvius Britanicus is Reversd, the east side of the house being where the west should be’ (13256/64). The Longleat scheme is discussed in Friedman, James Gibbs, 325. William Adam very likely knew these drawings (see n. 23); that these particular schemes influenced Robert Adam’s proposed remodelling of Elizabethan Syon House, Middlesex (1761) by the insertion of a great rotunda in the internal courtyard ( Bolton, A. T., The Architecture of Robert & James Adam, 1 (1922), 248 Google Scholar) seems inescapable.
38 RHP 13256/64.
39 RHP 13256/7, 10 (inscribed ‘First Sketches of the Designe of a house Deminished from that after the maner of Marly’), 11–15 the last inscribed ‘By Ldy:F:E:’, presumably either Mar’s wife, Frances (d. 1761) or daughter, Frances (d. 1776), 16-21, 23-25; 24 inscribed ‘Comly bank’, referring to the Alloa garden lodge (Friedman, James Gibbs, 103-05, 296).
40 See footnote 39; RHP 13256/14 (inscribed ‘The four fronts of Marly, each being 136 makes 544 foot The four fronts of this house, two of them being 170 & the other two of 80 makes 324. So that this house is less in the four fronts than Marly . . .’), 13256/20 (’Comparison of the Bigness of this house wth the Design of one after the maner of the Roiall Pavilion of Marly . . .’).
41 Lord Harrold of Wrest Park observed in 1715 that the best Italian architects, including Filippo Juvarra, are against making many breaks in the composition of façades and advocate a plainness in buildings (Friedman, James Gibbs, 118).
42 Colvin, Dictionary, 297 and Friedman, , James Gibbs, 267, pls 299–300 Google Scholar.
43 Colvin, Dictionary, 297; ‘Mr Van-Brugg’s Proposals about Building ye new Churches’, 1711-12 ( Whistler, L., The Imagination of Vanbrugh and His Fellow Artists (1954), 250 Google Scholar).
44 See examples in W. Oechslin and A. Buschow, Festarchitektur: Der Architekt als Inszenierungkünstler (1984), and Braham and Hager, Carlo Fontana . . . pls 172-89, 199-223.
45 Friedman, James Gibbs, 201, 307.
46 The water-machine at Marly is mentioned in lines 282-83, while among Mar’s drawings is a similar hydraulic system for the gardens at Alloa, dated Paris, June 1728 (RHP 13258/16-19, 23-26).
47 Friedman, James Gibbs, pl. 99.
48 Youngston, A.J., The Making of Classical Edinburgh 1710-1840 (1966), 13–14 Google Scholar.
49 For related schemes, see R. J. B. Walker, Old Westminster Bridge (1979).
50 Itinerarium Septentrionale (1726), Preface (Friedman, James Gibbs, 39).
51 Scottish Record Office, GD 124/15/1381.