On
this day………………317
years ago, London’s Palace of Whitehall burned down. Once the greatest palace
in Europe, it met its end when a servant put some linen to dry by a fire, then
left it.
Soon not only the linen but the whole room was
alight, and by the time the alarm was raised, the flames had taken such a
strong hold that the primitive fire-fighting apparatus of the time could make no
impression on them.
The blaze raged for 16 hours, and destroyed the whole
palace apart from the Holbein Gate and the Banqueting Hall (pictured), with its
magnificent Rubens ceiling, where Charles I had been executed half a century
before.
The fire also destroyed 150 nearby houses, mostly
homes of the nobility. William III, who was king at the time, didn’t like the
palace, believing it aggravated his asthma, and so it was never rebuilt. For
more, see London’s Disasters.
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