1 Parentalia: Or, Memoirs Of The Family of the Wrens . . . But Chiefly Of Sir Christopher Wren . . . Compiled, by his Son Christopher; Now published by his Grandson, Wren, Stephen Esq (1750), p. 351.Google Scholar Cited below as Parentalia.

2 The main exceptions are: Colvin, H. M. The History of the King’s Works, v (1976), 324, 455.Google Scholar Whinney, M. Wren (1971), pp. 142-44.Google Scholar Downes, K. The Architecture of Wren (1982), pp. 81-82.Google Scholar

3 All Souls College, Oxford: Wren Collection, 11, 89, 91, 92, 93. The Wren Society, v, plsxLi, xlii, has published the plan, section, and elevation. It prints the estimate with many inaccuracies and omits eight items altogether. Ibid., v. 52-34. It is planned to publish a correct and full transcription in a future volume of Architectural History. All my quotations are taken from the original documents.

4 All Souls College, Oxford: Wren Collection, n, 94, 95. They are reproduced, but on a scale too small to show details of the design, in D. Green, Grinling Gibbons (1964), pi. 39a and b. I wish to thank Mr J. S. G. Simmons, formerly Codrington Librarian, and Miss Norma Aubertin-Potter for their help, and the Warden and Fellows of All Souls College for permission to reproduce the drawings.

5 Fiirst, V. The Architecture of Sir Christopher Wren (1956), p. 167.Google Scholar

6 Madan, F. F. A New Bibliography of the Eikon Basilike of King Charles the First (Oxford Bibliographical Society, new series, 111 (1950))Google Scholar, appendixvi, reconstructs the complicated history of the frontispiece. It prints the second state of Marshall’s engraving as its own frontispiece.

7 Toynbee, M. R. ‘Charles I and the King’s Evil’, Folk-Lore, LXI (1950), 1-14.Google Scholar

8 Bodleian Library, Oxford: MS RawlinsonD3i7, fol. 171: verses addressed ‘To the worshipfull his very lovinge and much esteemed cossen and freind, Mr John Kynge, at his chamber in Christ’s Church, in Oxford’.

9 The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. deBeer, E. S. (6 vols, Oxford, 1955), in, 98-99.Google Scholar Evelyn visited StGeorge’s Chapel, ‘where they have laied our blessed Martyr K. Charles in the Vault, just before the Altar’, on 8June 1654.

10 Ibid., in, 269.

11 PRO, SP 29/29, no. 17: CharlesII’s order, [25 January 1661].

12 Staley, V. ‘The Commemoration of King Charles the Martyr’, in Liturgical Studies (1907), pp. 66-83.Google Scholar

13 The best documented of such benefactors is Richard Powell, of the Inner Temple, and St Olave’s Church, Silver Street, London. Sandford, F. A Genealogical History Of The Kings of England (1677), pp. 560-61.Google Scholar Cited below as Genealogical History. For other examples, see Legg, J. Wickham English Church Life from the Restoration to the Tractarian Movement (1914), p. 130 Google Scholar; Cobb, G. The Old Churches of London (1942), p. 91.Google Scholar

14 Arnold-Forster, F. Studies in Church Dedications or England's Patron Saints (3 vols, 1899).Google Scholar

15 The Diary of Evelyn, John III 568-69 Google Scholar; iv, 31. Analysis of Evelyn’s sermon notes for the years 1661 to 1678 shows the highly charged political content of these anniversary sermons.

16 Beddard, R.A. ‘The Restoration Church’, in The Restored Monarchy 1660-1688 (1979), pp. 169-71.Google Scholar

17 Commons’Journal, ix, 427-28: 28 and 29 january 1677/78. Cited below as CJ.

18 Both were Charles I’s grandchildren. Sandford, Genealogical History, p. 567. Browning, A. Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby (3 vols, Glasgow, 1944-51), 1, 248-54.Google Scholar

19 Ibrackan, better known in England as Lord O’Brien, was the first son of Henry, 6th Earl of Thomond (in the Irish peerage), a professional soldier, a staunch churchman and MP for Northampton. Grey, A. Debates Of The House of Commons (rovols, 1769), v, 32.Google Scholar Cited below as Debates.

20 C.J., ix, 428.

21 He had married Katherine Stuart, daughter of Lord George Stuart, 9th Seigneur d’Aubigny.

22 Genealogical History, pp. 505-06, and pi.; Whinney, M. Sculpture in Britain 1530-1830 (1964), pp. 17, 41 and pi. I2A.Google Scholar

23 After lying in state at Somerset House, Albemarle had been given a state funeral, and interred by Bishop Dolben, Dean of Westminster, ‘in a Vault in the North Isle of King Henry the Seventh’s Chappel, made there by His Majesties command for that purpose’. The Order and Ceremonies Used for, and at The Solemn Interment Of. . . George Duke of Albemarle ... A" 1670. Collected by Francis Sandford . . . and Published by His Ma." ^es especiall Command.

24 A Sermon Preached before the Honourable House of Commons at St Margarets Westminster, January 30th 1677/78. By Sprat, Thomas Chaplain, D.D. in Ordinary to His Majesty (1678), pp. 1, 5, 45, 47.Google Scholar Sprat took his text from the Beatitudes, Matthew, 5. 10. The sermon went rapidly into a second edition. Bodleian Library, Ashmole 1176, item 1; Th. 4⁰ G55, item6. His spirited performance brought him preferment from Charles II: a Windsor Canonry in 1680, and the Deanery ofWestminster in 1684. PRO, SP44/57, p. 31, SP44/335, p. 37.

25 C.J., ix, 428. The three MPs ordered to convey the Commons’ thanks to Sprat were strong loyalists: Jennings, Sir Edmund a ‘Danbyite’; Wheeler, Sir Charles a veteran;, Royalist and Wright, Robert Wren’s cousin by marriage (his second wife being Susan, daughter of Bishop Wren of Ely). He may have told Wren of the Commons’ proceedings, though Sprat and Ibrackan, who, like Wren, had been educated at Wadham College, Oxford, could equally well have informed him. Sprat was a close friend of his at Oxford and in the Royal Society. Parentalia, pp. 254, 255-60.Google Scholar

26 Memoires Of the reigne of King Charles I. . . Bv Warwick Knight, Sir Philip (1701), pp. 331, 346.Google Scholar In 1673 he had been to the fore in promoting a Parliamentary Bill ‘for the better Observation of the Thirtieth ofjanuary, being the Day of the Martyrdom ofKing Charles the First’. C.J., IX, 252, 268, 271.

27 Ibid., ix, 428-29.

28 Grey, Debates, v, 32-34.

29 C.J., ix, 429, 436, 437, 456, 459, 460. Grey, Debates, v, 34.

30 Secretary Coventry’s speech in the Committee of the Whole. Ibid.,v, 33. Both the Secretaries ofState had been briefed by the King. Secretary Williamson, a great crony of the Ibrackans, stated on the afternoon of 30 January, that ‘The King, in his intentions, had computed the prospect of the charge at 80,000/’, adding ‘If there be a monument, the charge will not presently begin; it will be four years in building’. This rather suggests that the King had already consulted Wren. Ibid., v, 32.

31 The Diary of Robert Hooke . . . 1672-1680, ed. Robinson, H. W. and Adams, W. (1935), pp. 343, 344.Google Scholar

32 Parentalia, p. 335. All Souls College: Wren Collection n, 89: Wren’s inscription. He laid much stress on the ‘commands of his Excellent Majesty K. Charles II?’ in the Latin and English version.

33 Dean Wren was ‘eminently distinguished for his Learning, Piety, Loyalty, and the Esteem of his Royal Master’. In the shipwreck of his fortunes he did his best to preserve the registers of the Order of the Garter, of which he was Registrar. After his death, his son kept them safe, and restored them to the King at the Restoration. Dr Bruno Ryves’s receipt is dated 11 August 1660. This occasion was probably Wren’s introduction to Charles II’s Court. Parentalia, pp. 140-41, 136.

34 Matthews, A. G. Walker Revised (Oxford, 1948), pp. 21, 22, 382-83.Google Scholar

35 Parentalia, pp. 73-114. D. N. B. In the Bishop’s diary, noted down in an almanack for 1652, while a prisoner in the Tower, he wrote against 30 January, ‘a sanguinibus, o Deus. 1648’. Ibid., p. 133.

36 Oxford University Archives, Ta27.

37 Parentalia, pp. 115-32, 344, 197. One of the principles guiding the compilation of this work was that of recording ‘the royal Magnificence, and eminent Piety ofKing Charles the Martyr’, with which the Wren family fortunes were inextricably linked. Ibid., p. 158.

38 All Souls College, Oxford: Wren Collection, n, 89. It was to be sited ‘at the East-end of StGeorge’s Chapel’.

39 Edmund Waller held that ‘the late King deserves a better monument’ than Henry VII’s Chapel (also built as part of a royal cult), for ‘Though Henry VII. was a great Prince . . . this King was a great Martyr for the Church and Laws’. Grey, Debates, v, 265.?

40 Parentalia, p. 331.

41 See Pis 1-3 and Wren Society, v, pi. xli.

42 Summerson, J. Inigo Jones (London, 1966), pp. 68-69 Google Scholar, pi- 30. Harris, J. and Tait, A. A. Catalogue Of The Drawings by Inigo Jones . . . at Worcester College, Oxford (Oxford, 1979), pp. 20-21 Google Scholar, pis 24, 25.

43 Wren worked on the scale of 1 inch to 1 foot.

44 Parentalia, pp. 366-68.

45 Ibid., p. 261. For the Louvre and the Galerie d’Apollon, see Hautecoeur, L. Histoire du Louvre (2nd edn, Paris no date), pp. 53-55 Google Scholar, figs67-71; Histoire de VArchitecture classique en France (7 vols, Paris, 1943-57), u, 308-11.

46 Colvin, The History of the King’s Works, v, 316-28.

47 Some of them are reviewed by Sekler, E. F. Wren and his place in European Architecture (1956), pp. 108, 116.Google Scholar Wren appreciated the achievement of those Renaissance architects ‘who . . . studied principally what they found in Rome, above-ground, in the Ruins of the Theatres, Baths, Temples, and triumphal Arches’. Parentalia, p. 354.

48 Murray, P. The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance (1969), pp. 172-76 Google Scholar, pi. 123. Juan deContreras yLopez de Ayala, The Escorial (English translationj. Brockway, 1967), pp. 42-43; cf. 32-35. Devinoy, P. L’Abbayeroyalede Saint-Denis (Paris, 1953).Google Scholar Blunt, A. Art and Architecture in France 1500 to 1700 (1970), pp. 55-56 Google Scholar, pi. 36B.

49 Hautecoeur, L. Mystique et Architecture Symbolisme du Cercle et de la Coupole (Paris, 1954), p. 280.Google Scholar

50 Hautecoeur, L. Histoire de L’Architecture classique en France, 11, 70-71.Google Scholar

51 Trinity College, Oxford: Bathurst Collection, fol. 82: Wren to Dr Ralph Bathurst, 22 June [1665]. Hautecoeur, Cf. L. ‘L’Origine du dome des Invalides’, L'Architecture (1924), pp. 353-60.Google Scholar

52 For Mansart’s drawings, see figs 58, 59 in Hautecoeur, Histoire de I’Architecture classique en France, 11, 70-71. Wren’s handling of his source is characteristic of his geometrical method, he makes his four niches hemi-spherical and disposes them axially; he sets his coupled columns athwart the diagonals, thus dividing the quadrants of his circle. Mansart may have borrowed the coupled columns from the Valois Chapel, at StDenis. Blunt, A. Frattfois Mansart and the origins of French Classical Architecture (1941), pp. 27-28.Google Scholar

53 Parentalia, p. 261.

54 Sandford, Genealogical History, pp. 530, 532, 564, 565, 566, 568, 569, 571, 573. Since the Restoration the following had been buried there: Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia; Henry, Duke of Gloucester; Mary, Princess of Orange; eight children ofjames, Duke of York; and his first wife, Anne Hyde.

55 The two vacant niches, flanking Charles I’s, were probably intended for the ‘regal Monuments’ of his sons, Charles and James II. The fourth served as a vestibule to the entrance. Neither Wren’s estimates, nor Gibbons’s designs, refer to any sarcophagus for the Royal Martyr. Perhaps Wren contemplated using the ‘most magnificent Tomb of Copper-gilt’, begun by Cardinal Wolsey, ‘but never finished’, which remained at Windsor in ‘the Tomb-House’, that was to be demolished to make way for his Mausoleum. Parentalia, p. 332; All Souls College, Oxford: Wren Collection, 11, 89; Wren Society, v, 52 and pi. xli.

56 Parentalia, p. 332.

57 The Diary of John Evelyn, in, 570, 573.

58 Parentalia, p. 332, marginale: ‘By the eminent Artificer Mr. Gibbons’.

59 All Souls College, Oxford: Wren Collection, 11, 95. The sketch has animation, but little else to recommend it. The King is shown uncrowned, wearing the George of the Garter, with both hands raised to heaven. There are only three Vices beneath the semi-circular plinth. The putti bear shields, charged with the royal cypher and royal arms; a cross; a snake circle, a symbol of eternity; fasces and palms. The composition is set against a draped curtain.

60 Green, D. Grinling Gibbons, p. 48.Google Scholar

61 Its stiffness is in marked contrast to the dramatically conceived standing figure of Charles I, carved for the Royal Exchange (1671) by John Bushnell, ‘the first English artist to show any knowledge of Baroque sculpture’. Whinney, M. Sculpture in Britain 1530 to 1830, p. 42 and pi. 28.Google Scholar

62 The key to the identity of the Virtues and Vices is supplied by Parentalia, p. 332.

63 Little, B. Sir Christopher Wren A Historical Biography (1975), p. 109.Google Scholar

64 Grey, Debates, v, 33, 265. The testimony of the Royalist veteran, Henry Seymour, MP for East Looe, commanded the Committee’s attention, since he had attended Charles I on the eve of his martyrdom. ‘The late King told me, not long before his death, “That if he would sacrifice religion, and his friends, he might have his life saved”. He did not only desire, but command his son, the Prince, to forgive them that took away his life, and to make his Majesty to obtain his right through as little blood as might be. ’

65 Sprat, Sermon, p. 44. The image, which was one which Charles I used, occurs frequently in Royalist publications and poetry. Genealogical History, p. 561: ‘Corona Terrestri Spoliatus, Caelesti Donatus’.

66 ‘An Elegy upon the most Incomparable King Charles the First’, lines 474-76. The Poems of Henry King, ed. Crum, M. (Oxford, 1965), p. 130.Google Scholar

67 Sprat, Sermon, pp. 5, 44, 47.

68 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, City of Oxford (1939), pp. 10-12, pi. 59; Plot, R. The Natural History of Oxfordshire (Oxford, 1677), pp. 271-76.Google Scholar

69 Faber, H. Caius Gabriel Cibber 1630-1700 (Oxford, 1926), pp. 26-27.Google Scholar

70 A sign that all was not well between King and Commons appeared on i8February 1678, when, after Edmund Waller’s remark, ‘I hope that Tomb we have voted to be erected for the late King will bury all the jealousies betwixt the King and us. There was a great silence for some time’. Grey, Debates, v, 165.

71 Parentalia, p. 332. The drawings and estimate remained in the Wren family until the death of the architect’s son, Christopher, when they passed, via Dr Thomas Stack, Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, into the Codrington Library by purchase. See Simmons, J. S. G. The Wren Drawings at All Souls Notes for Members of the National Art Collections Fund (Oxford, 1977).Google Scholar

72 These were the ‘Incidents of the Times, or Motives unknown to the Publick’, i.e. Stephen Wren, referred to in Parentalia, p. 332. It seems to be a gloss on Wren’s own comment on the miscarriage of the project' ‘eheu, conditionem temporum’. All Souls College, Oxford: Wren Collection, II, 89.

73 Bodleian Library, Oxford: MS Rawlinson D317, fol. 171: an English translation of the epitaph, ‘Non hie Pyramides’.