Vanbrugh, Blenheim Palace, and the Meanings of Baroque Architecture Two Volumes VOLUME ONE Text James Augustin Legard Submitted for the degree of PhD University of York Department of History of Art December 2013 2 ABSTRACT Blenheim Palace, designed for the 1st Duke of Marlborough by Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor, is not only an outstanding exemplar of English baroque architecture, and also one of the best documented; yet it has not been the subject of focussed monographic study since the 1950s. In this thesis I reconsider the design and construction of Blenheim between 1705 and 1712, in an attempt to shed light on its historical meanings that it was originally intended to embody. In my first chapter, I introduce Marlborough and Vanbrugh, arguing that both built careers by exploiting the implicit exchange between service and reward at the heart of early modern court life. In my second chapter, I explore how Vanbrugh, with Hawksmoor’s increasingly important assistance, set about designing Marlborough a ‘martial’ and ‘magnificent’ residence suited to his roles as Queen Anne’s leading courtier and most successful general. In my third chapter I argue that the standard accounts misrepresent the chronology of important aspects of Blenheim’s design and construction, obscuring the existence of a highly cohesive phase of enlargement and aggrandisement in 1707. In my fourth chapter, I suggest that this transformation can be linked, circumstantially and chronologically, to the effects of Marlborough’s military victories of 1706 and, especially, to his elevation to the rank of sovereign prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Offering an alternative to some recent iconographic approaches to the palace, I show how the palace’s sculptural programme was designed to reflect and consolidate this exceptional status. Taken together, these findings significantly refine, and in some respects revise, our basic knowledge of the design and construction of Blenheim, and also reveal with new clarity the extent to which English ‘baroque’ architecture must be understood in the context of early modern English—indeed, European—court culture. 3 CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ 2 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ............................................................................................... 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... 19 AUTHOR’S DECLARATION .......................................................................................... 23 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 25 The Historiography of Blenheim Palace: The 19th Century Background .......................... 25 Vanbrugh, Hawksmoor and the Rise of Architectural History .......................................... 27 The Revolution in Method ................................................................................................. 31 The Turn to Architectural ‘Meaning’ ................................................................................ 39 Blenheim Palace and the Meanings of Baroque Architecture ........................................... 43 CHAPTER ONE: Reputation and Reward ................................................................. 48 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 48 Marlborough at Court: Power, Patronage and Ambition ................................................... 53 Marlborough and the Pursuit of Princely Status ................................................................ 59 The Woodstock Grant ........................................................................................................ 66 The Blenheim Grant .......................................................................................................... 74 The Purposes of Display: Marlborough and ‘Representational Culture’ .......................... 78 The Choice of an Architect ................................................................................................ 82 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 89 CHAPTER TWO: The Captain General's Castle ....................................................... 91 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 91 The Commission ................................................................................................................ 92 Bodleian MS Top. Oxon 37* f. 1 and Soane Museum 166 f. 6. ........................................ 95 The Early Design of Blenheim: The Problem of the Castle Howard Model ................... 102 From the Castle Howard Model to the Beginnings of Blenheim .................................... 110 Vanbrugh and the Design of the Main House ................................................................. 115 Blenheim, the ‘Castle Air’, and the Pursuit of Magnificence .......................................... 118 From Conception to Construction: Hawksmoor’s Resolution of the Plan ...................... 130 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 143 CHAPTER THREE: The Great Transformation ...................................................... 145 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 145 Beginning to Build Blenheim: May 1705 to August 1706 .............................................. 147 ‘Nothing to Please Her’: The Duchess of Marlborough at Blenheim in 1706 ................ 155 Fixing Blenheim’s Faults: January to May 1707 ............................................................. 160 4 The Lanterns, the Great Hall and Saloon, and the Change of Order ............................... 166 The Addition of the Service Courtyards .......................................................................... 181 The Design of the Grand Bridge ...................................................................................... 183 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 190 CHAPTER FOUR: The Prince of Mindelheim's Palace .......................................... 192 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 192 ‘So Expensive a Palace’: the Transformation of the Blenheim Finances ........................ 193 Marlborough’s Year of Victories ..................................................................................... 198 Vitruvius Blenheimensis: Vanbrugh and the English Architectural Plate Book .............. 205 ‘Reading’ Blenheim Palace: Vaughan Hart and Narrative Architecture ......................... 214 The Prince of Mindelheim’s Palace: Iconography and Intentional Meaning .................. 222 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 229 EPILOGUE AND CONCLUSION ........................................................................... 231 DEFINITIONS ......................................................................................................... 240 APPENDIX 1: Summary Chronology 1704-1712 .................................................... 241 APPENDIX 2: Blenheim Treasury Payments 1705-1711 ........................................ 245 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................... 247 5 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. 1 Nicholas Hawksmoor, Early South (Garden Front) Elevation, Blenheim Palace, 1705, pen and dark brown ink with brush and black ink wash, 31.2 × 87.3 cm, Bodleian Library MS Top. Oxon. 37* f. 8 (photograph: the author, © Bodleian Libraries, Oxford) 2 Colen Campbell, Elevation of Blenheim Castle Towards the Garden, from Vitruvius Britannicus, 3 vols, London, 1715-25, repr., New York, 1967, vol. 1, pp. 59-60 3 View of the South (or Garden) Front, Blenheim Palace, from Henrietta Spencer- Churchill, Blenheim and the Churchill Family, London, 2005, p. 11 4 Nicholas Hawksmoor and Henry Joynes, Drawing for the Park and Landscape Gardens, Blenheim Palace, 1705, pencil, pen and ink, brush and ink with wash, 50.6 × 73 cm, Bodleian Library MS Top. Oxon. 37* f. 2 (photograph: the author, © Bodleian Libraries, Oxford) 5 View of the East Courtyard, Blenheim Palace (photograph: the author) 6 After Colen Campbell, General Plan of Blenheim, from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus, 3 vols, London, 1715-25, repr., New York, 1967, vol. 1, p. 62 7 Sir Godfrey Kneller, Queen Anne Presenting the Plan of Blenheim to Military Merit, c.1708-1710, oil on canvas, 127 × 101.6 cm, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, from Vaughan Hart, Vanbrugh: Storyteller in Stone, New Haven and London, 2008, fig. 201, p. 139. 8 Nicholas Hawksmoor, Design for an Obelisk Commemorating the Battle of Blenheim, 1704, pen and brown ink over graphite under-drawing with small areas of grey wash, 51 × 17.5 cm, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, SM 109/74 (photograph © Sir John Soane’s Museum, London) 9 John Croker, The Coronation Medal of Queen Anne, 1702, gold,