In 1666 the cause of the Great Fire of London was blamed on a bakery on Pudding Lane, evidently, sparks from a fire fell into some dry flour. Over thirty years later another accident with the equally combustible items was the cause of a fire in which the Tudor Whitehall Palace burned down and along with it a Hans Holbein masterpiece.
It was at 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the 4th January in 1698 that women doing her laundry at a riverside house in London placed her clothing too near a fire, within minutes the washing was engulfed in flames as was all the furniture in the room.
The fire soon spread destroying residential and government buildings from the riverside to the Holbein Gate and the Banqueting House, both of which had survived a previous fire in 1691 that had damaged the older palace structures. Of the 1698 fire diarist, John Evelyn wrote
"Whitehall burnt! nothing but walls and ruins left."
It was at 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the 4th January in 1698 that women doing her laundry at a riverside house in London placed her clothing too near a fire, within minutes the washing was engulfed in flames as was all the furniture in the room.
The fire soon spread destroying residential and government buildings from the riverside to the Holbein Gate and the Banqueting House, both of which had survived a previous fire in 1691 that had damaged the older palace structures. Of the 1698 fire diarist, John Evelyn wrote
"Whitehall burnt! nothing but walls and ruins left."
The Palace of Whitehall as seen from St James's Park by Hendrick Danckerts, c. 1675
Whitehall Palace had been the main residence of the royal family in London from the reign of Henry VIII. In 1537 Henry VIII commissioned Hans Holbein to paint a large mural so he could show off his Tudor lineage. The magnificent painting was Holbein's largest and most important royal commission, in it Henry VIII was portrayed with his queen Jane Seymour and his parents Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. The mural was probably painted on the wall of Henry's privy chamber and no doubt dominated it. It is said to have faced the door and any visitor would have been immediately overwhelmed by the life-size image of Henry VIII confronting them.
How wonderful would it have been to wander the corridors of such a palace and look upon the faces of those people who changed our history, sadly it was not to be, however today some parts of the old palace do still exist but have been incorporated into new buildings in the Whitehall.
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