Exploring the Banqueting House

January 30, 2017January 23, 2022 Categories: 17th centuryTags: Anne of Denmark · King Charles I · Reubens · The Banqueting House5 Comments

On the anniversary of the execution of King Charles I in 1649, I am reminded of the place where this drama played out–the Banqueting House at Whitehall. Completed in 1622, the Banqueting House is the only remaining structure of Whitehall Palace and is situated across from the Horse Guards. During the Tudor age, the original Banqueting House was little better than a temporary venue. When King James I of England (VI of Scotland) succeeded Elizabeth on the throne in 1603 and ushered in the Stuart Age in England, he got down to work building a proper Banqueting House. His queen, Anne of Denmark, had…

Today on the EHFA: The Banqueting House

February 2, 2016August 19, 2019 Categories: 17th century · NewsTags: Inigo Jones · King Charles I · King James I · Peter Paul Rubens · The Banqueting House1 Comment

Today I can be found on the English Historical Fiction Authors blog (EHFA) taking you on a tour of Whitehall’s Banqueting House. To access my article, click here! I’ll be back on February 5th with another instalment of A Moment In Time. Stay tuned.

The Execution of Charles I

January 30, 2015August 18, 2019 Categories: 17th centuryTags: Charles Stuart · The Banqueting House5 Comments

Today is the anniversary of the execution of King Charles I. I have ambivalent thoughts about this. To a degree, I feel some sentimentality, though this is fuelled by the romance of Alexandre Dumas’s novel Twenty Years After when two of the musketeers, Athos and Aramis, were sent to rescue the King. It was my first introduction to the English Civil War, and the scene made a lasting impression on me—blood dripping between the gaps in the scaffold, landing on Athos who had been moments away from spiriting the King away. But that was fiction. On one hand, Charles I was stubborn…