ROLE REVERSAL? the Unexpected Significance of the Influence Of
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ROLE REVERSAL? The unexpected significance of the influence of Burghley House on the architecture of Somerset House Since at least the middle of the twentieth century it has been widely accepted that the architecture of Burghley House, especially the courtyard architecture, developed by William Cecil Lord Burghley in the 1570s and 80s, was directly inspired and influenced by that of Somerset House in the Strand as built by the Lord Protector, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, between 1547 and 1552. In his seminal work on Architecture in Britain, Sir John Summerson asserted that Somerset House was ‘unquestionably one of the most influential buildings of the English Renaissance’1. Summerson’s claim is based principally on John Thorpe’s drawing of the North Strand front of the house and ground plan of the outer courtyard (which he dates to 1603) (see Fig. 3 ). Figs. 1 and 2 show the exact correspondence of the cresting over the north and south courtyard pavilions of Burghley House and over the window bays on Thorpe’s drawing, including the shell niches and fire balls. Figure 1. Cresting over north courtyard pavilion Figure 2. Detail of John Thorpe’s drawing, Burghley House (photograph Jill Husselby) Elevaion of the Strand front and ground plan of thr first courtyard of Somerset Place c.1610-11 (Sir John Soane’s Museum) 1Architecture in Britain 1530-1830 John Summerson (London 1983) pp45-46 (first published 1953) In 2009 Simon Thurley turned this claim completely on its head. In his book on Somerset House he argues that Thorpe’s drawing: ‘seminal for the interpretation of Somerset Place, [as it was known in the sixteenth century] has too often been uncritically accepted as being first a record of what Protector Somerset built, and second a drawing produced speculatively by John Thorpe in 1603. There is good reason to believe that neither is the case.’2 Based on a forensic re-examination of the drawing and related documents as well as discovery of new ones, Thurley makes a convincing argument that the drawing does NOT show the front as built by the Protector, but rather is a survey drawing of proposals for alterations to the Strand front, dating from 1610/11 (Fig. 3). The drawing (of which Thorpe’s drawing may be a copy), was on the contrary designed to be presented to Queen Anne of Denmark, wife of James I. Somerset House traditionally belonged to the queen by right as royal consort from the beginning of James’s reign in 1603,3 but it was only in 1610 that alterations to the outer (north) court and its Strand front were first being considered by her4. Figure 3. John Thorpe’s drawing, Elevaion of the Strand front and ground plan of the first courtyard of Somerset Place c.1610-11 in John Thorpe’s Book of Drawings (Sir John Soane’s Museum) Some of what is shown in the drawing, including the central triumphal arch entrance, already existed as built by Protector Somerset, but an estimate dated 2 Somerset House: The Palace of England’s Queens 1551-1692 Simon Thurley with contributions by Patricia Coote and Claire Gapper (London 2009) p 98 3Ibin, p31 4Ibin.98 16th March 1610 details other significant changes to be made to this Strand front, which concur with what Thorpe shows on the drawing: ‘The north side towards the streete to be raised higher with ashlar cornish railes and ballesters’ (i.e. the whole main body of the front to be made higher) The ‘square windows’ (forming the bays at either end of the facade, (see Fig. 2))were ‘to be raised higher with ashlar and other open worcks, pedestals, architrave freize cornice’. The central frontispiece was ‘to be clensed and the railes and ballesters amended’5. Thurley continues that the lead downpipes, evident in a drawing of 1755, bearing the initials of James and Anne and dated 1612, further strengthen the case for the work having been undertaken for Queen Anne. So too does the reference to the ‘faire structure...whose roofs you raised of late’ made in Samuel Daniel’s masque performed at Queen Anne’s great celebration at Somerset House in 1614.6 What this means, as Thurley points out, is that the design of the open work crests on the pavilions at Burghley (see Fig. 1) are not copies of Protector Somerset’s architecture, but quite the reverse. The proposals presented to Queen Anne are lifted directly from what we can still see at Burghley House today, right up to the pyramidal finials which are pencilled in on Thorpe’s drawing (Fig. 4). Figure 4. Detail of John Thorpe’s drawing, Elevation of the Strand front and ground plan of thr first courtyard of Somerset Place c.1610-11 (Sir John Soane’s Museum) 5Ibin 98(TNA SP14/62, no. 33) 6Ibin 38 The square and circle motif (known as square and cipher) of the cresting is a unifying feature at Burghley House. It appears also on the central frontispiece on the south facade, as shown in the cartouche in the border of Vanderbank’s tapestry, made for the house at the end of the 17th century, as well as throughout the interior including the hall chimneypiece and hammer beam roof details and the vaulting of the Roman stair (Figures 5 6 7 & 8). Figure 5. Cartouche from the border of John Vanderbank’s Soho Elements tapestry Fire commissioned for Burghley House by the 5th Earl of Exeter (photograph Jill Husselby) Figure 6. Figure 7. Figure 8. Photographs Jill Husselby In June 1606 a warrant was issued on behalf of the King’s Works for payment to John Thorpe for ‘drawing down and writing fayre plattes of Holdenby, Ampthill and Burghley.’7 The first two were already royal properties and there seems no reason to doubt that the plans of the ground and first floors of Burghley House in John Thorpe’s book of drawings, now at the Soane Museum, are the result of this important commission of 1606.8 (see Fig.14 below) Thorpe must have spent a good deal of time at Burghley in order to make these complex surveys and could not have failed to take in the details of the architecture of what he was recording. By 1610 he would have been well aware that Queen Anne of Denmark was already thoroughly familiar with, and was known to admire, William Cecil’s architectural style from his vast house of Theobalds where she and the king were lavishly entertained by William’s son Robert Cecil, King James’s Principal Secretary. So taken were they with the property that in 1606 they took possession from Robert in exchange for some prime royal estates, including Hatfield. Officially Theobalds now belonged to Queen Anne since Hatfield had been hers.9 Theobalds became James’s favourite palace. It is hardly surprising that proposals for Somerset House, where the queen was intent on making her principal London residence into a magnificent independent and rival court of her own, should draw upon features common to both Burghley and Theobalds (although the square and cipher cresting is particular to Burghley). Especially so on the public Strand front which faced onto the ceremonial route between the palace of Westminster and the City of London. It is not so much the stylistic ‘renaissance’ details of the Strand facade proposals gleaned from Cecil’s architecture that are interesting, but the manner in which they transform it from a passive ‘closed’ front to one designed for interaction with the human presence. Such interaction is a frequent trope in Italian paintings of the period (particularly Veronese) and is clearly illustrated by the anonymous portrait of the Earl of Surrey (Fig. 9). 7The History of the King’s Works H. Colvin (London 1982) Vol !V p46; E413/2726 8The Book of Architecture of John Thorpe T57 and T58 (Sir John Soane’s Museum) 9Theobalds, Hertfordshire: The plan and Interiors of an Elizabethan Country House' Emily Cole (Architectural History Vol 60 2017 p 105 Figure 9. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey by an unknown Italian artist c 1546 Oil on Canvas (NPG 5291) The real life features proposed for Somerset House adopt this characteristic ‘see and be seen’ architecture, the balustraded roof walks, raised terraces and open loggia balcony, so evident, especially in the courtyard, at Burghley. William Cecil may have taken the idea of the triumphal arch from Protector Somerset, but the transformation of the first-floor arches into Palladian-style open loggia balconies was an entirely new introduction in English sixteenth-century architecture (Fig. 10).10 All these features are designed for live human appearance, performance and display, the ‘beautiful Scenery’ as Horace Walpole described the courtyard in 11 1763 (Fig. 11) 10Strictly speaking, these are , not ‘balconies’ in that the surrounding architecture also project from the main body of the building, but they function in exactly the same manner, while providing extra protection from the weather and came to be known as ‘Juliette’ balconies, (although the word ‘balcony’ was never used by Shakespeare himself) 11 Architecture at Burghley House: The Patronage of William Cecil 1533-1598Jillian Husselby (doctrinal thesis University of Warwick 1996) p228,published online by the University of Warwick -wrap.warwick.ac.uk/view/theses/ The Politics of Pleasure Jill Husselby in Patronage Culture and Power The Early Cecils ed. Pauline Croft (London and New Haven 2002) pp32-33 Figure 10. North Pavilion Burghley Figure 11. Perspective View of the Inner Court taken from the Courtyard (Photograph Jill West End under the Arch near the Golden Gates John Haynes 1755 Husselby) (Burghley House)(Photograph Warwick University) Figure 12.