He had but lately laid out and walled in St. James's Park, and had built a small palace there; but the possession of York Place gave him a large plot of ground extending to the river itself.
The public road passed along in front on the land side, so the new part was carried across it by Holbein's Gate to make a new frontage to St. James's Park. Here were built tennis courts, cockpit, bowling and tilt yard, with various other lodgings and buildings, and York Place changed its name to Whitehall. Shakespeare alludes to this change in the play of Henry the Eighth
"Sir, you Must no more call it York Place, that is past; For since the Cardinal fell, that title's lost 'Tis now the King's and called Whitehall."
The Act of Parliament, however, says, after enumerating what had been built at York Place:
"Wherefore it is enacted that all the said ground, mansion, and buildings, together with the said park and the entire space between Charing Cross and the Sanctuary at Westminster from the Thames on the east side to the park wall westward, with all the houses, tenements, lands, &c., and the soil of the ancient palace, shall from henceforth be deemed the King's whole Palace at Westminster and be called and named the King's Palace at Westminster for ever."
This, as we all know, it was not, for from that time it was known as "Whitehall," and so continued until that memorable 4th of January, 1697, when the whole palace was burnt down.
Evelyn says: "Whitehall burnt; nothing but walls and ruins left"; but the buildings on the park side and Inigo Jones's Banqueting House and a few meaner lodgings about Scotland Yard escaped.
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