CHAPTER I: THE QUEEN ANNE PERIOD

WILLIAM AND MARY, 1689-1702

ANNE, 1702-1714

GEORGE I., 1714-1727

William the Third was a Dutchman and, although he was for thirteen years King of England, he remained a Dutchman until his death. His English was bad, his accent was rough, and his vocabulary limited. He had a Dutch guard, the friends whom he trusted were Dutch, and they were always about him, filling many of the offices of the Royal Household. He came to England as a foreigner and it remained to him a foreign country. His advent to the throne brought about certain changes in the style of furniture which are generally described as "the Dutch influence," which, however, had its origin at least as far back as the reign of Charles II.

Both William and Mary were greatly interested in furnishing and furniture. They took up their residence at Hampton Court Palace soon after their coronation, and the place suited William so well and pleased him so much that it was very difficult to get him away from it. William was a great soldier and a great statesman, but he was more at his pleasure in the business of a country house than in the festivities and scandals of a court life, both of which he perhaps equally disliked. The Queen also cordially liked country life, and no less cordially disliked scandal. Mr. Law, in his interesting book on Hampton Court, mentions the story that Mary would check any person attempting to retail scandal by asking whether they had read her favourite sermon--Archbishop Tillotson on Evil Speaking.

With the assistance of Sir Christopher Wren as Architect and Grinling Gibbon as Master Sculptor, great changes were made in the Palace at Hampton Court. The fogs and street smells of Whitehall drove William to the pure air of the country, and there was the additional attraction that the country around the palace reminded him in its flatness of his beloved Holland. When one of his Ministers ventured to remonstrate with him on his prolonged absences from London, he answered: "Do you wish to see me dead?" William, perhaps naturally, cared nothing for English tradition: he destroyed the state rooms of Henry VIII. and entrusted to Wren the task of rebuilding the Palace. The architect appears to have had a difficult task, as the King constantly altered the plans as they proceeded, and, it is said, did a good deal towards spoiling the great architect's scheme. In William's favour it must be admitted that he took the blame for the deficiencies and gave Wren the credit for the successes of the building. The result--the attachment of a Renaissance building to a Tudor palace--is more successful than might have been expected. The King's relations with Wren seem to have been of a very friendly sort. Mr. Law mentions the fact that Wren was at this time Grand Master of Freemasons; that he initiated the King into the mysteries of the craft; and that William himself reached the chair and presided over a lodge at Hampton Court Palace whilst it was being completed, which is, in the circumstances, an interesting example of the working rather than the speculative masonry.

Mary was herself a model housewife, and filled her Court with wonder that she should labour so many hours each day at her needlework as if for her living. She covered the backs of chairs and couches with her work, which was described as "extremely neat and very well shadowed," although all trace of it has long since disappeared. It is appropriate to observe, as being related to decorative schemes and furnishing, that the taste for Chinese porcelain, which is so general at this day, was first introduced into England by Mary. Evelyn mentions in his diary (June 13, 1693) that he "saw the Queen's rare cabinets and collection of china which was wonderfully rich and plentiful." Macaulay expresses his opinion with his usual frankness. He writes: "Mary had acquired at The Hague a taste for the porcelain of China, and amused herself by forming at Hampton a vast collection of hideous images, and vases upon which houses, trees, bridges, and mandarins were depicted in outrageous defiance of all the laws of perspective. The fashion--a frivolous and inelegant fashion, it must be owned--which was thus set by the amiable Queen spread fast and wide. In a few years almost every great house in the kingdom contained a museum of these grotesque baubles. Even statesmen and generals were not ashamed to be renowned as judges of teapots and dragons; and satirists long continued to repeat that a fine lady valued her mottled green pottery quite as much as she valued her monkey and much more than she valued her husband." It is strange to consider in these days how greatly Macaulay, in this opinion, was out of his reckoning. There is, perhaps, no example of art or handicraft upon which the opinion of cultured taste in all countries is so unanimous as in its admiration for good Chinese porcelain, amongst which the Queen's collection (judging from the pieces still remaining at Hampton) must be classed. Mary was probably the first English queen to intimately concern herself with furniture. We have it on the authority of the Duchess of Marlborough that on the Queen's first visit to the palace she engaged herself "looking into every closet and conveniency, and turning up the quilts upon the beds, as people do when they come into an inn, and with no other concern in her appearance but such as they express."

We find in this period lavishly painted ceilings, woodwork carved by Grinling Gibbon and his school, fine needlework, upholstered bedsteads, and marble mantelpieces with diminishing shelves for the display of Delft and Chinese ware. The standard of domestic convenience, in one respect, could not, however, have been very high, if one may judge from the Queen's bathing-closet of this period at Hampton Court Palace. The bath is of marble and recessed into the wall, but it is more like a fountain than a bath, and its use in the latter connection must have been attended by inconveniences which modern women of much humbler station would decline to face.[1]

[1] The bathroom is, however, not in itself so modern in England as might be supposed. Wheatley mentions that as early as the fourteenth century a bathroom was attached to the bedchamber in the houses of the great nobles, but more often a big tub with a covering like a tent was used.

Good specimens of the wood-carving of Grinling Gibbon (born 1648, died 1721) are to be seen at Hampton Court, to which Palace William III. appointed the artist Master Carver. He generally worked in soft woods, such as lime, pear and pine, but sometimes in oak. His subjects were very varied--fruit and foliage, wheat-ears and flowers, cupids and dead game, and even musical instruments--and were fashioned with amazing skill, resource, and ingenuity. He invented that school of English carving which is associated with his name. His fancy is lavish and his finish in this particular work has never been surpassed in this country; but it is doubtful whether his work is not overdone, and as such may not appeal to the purer taste. Often his masses of flowers and foliage too much suggest the unpleasant term which is usually applied to them, viz. "swags." Frequently nothing is left to the imagination in the boldness of his realism. Fig. 1 shows a very happy example of his work over a mantelpiece in one of the smaller rooms in Hampton Court Palace, which is reproduced by the courtesy of the Lord Chamberlain, the copyright being the property of H.M. the King. Upon the shelf are pieces of china belonging to Queen Mary, but the portrait inset is of Queen Caroline, consort of George IV. In the grate is an antique fire-back, and on either side of the fire is a chair of the period of William and Mary.

The Court bedsteads (and probably on a smaller scale the bedsteads of the upper classes generally) continued to be at once elaborate and unhygienic, and were fitted with canopies and hangings of velvet and other rich stuffs. King William's bedstead was a great four-poster, hung with crimson velvet and surmounted at each corner with an enormous plume, which was much the same fashion of bedstead as at the beginning of the century. Fig. 2 is an interesting photograph (reproduced by permission of the Lord Chamberlain) of three Royal bedsteads at Hampton Court, viz. those of William, Mary, and George II. The chairs and stools in front are of the period of William and Mary. The table is of later date. Most of the old furniture at Hampton Court, however, has been dispersed amongst the other Royal palaces.

An excellent idea of the appearance of a London dwelling-room of this period is shown in Fig. 3. It was removed from No. 3 Clifford's Inn, and is now to be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The owner, John Penhallow, must have been well-to-do, as the fine carving about the mantelpiece and doors was expensive even in those days. The festoons of fruit and flowers of the school of Grinling Gibbon around the mantelpiece, in the centre of which are the arms of the owner, and the broken pediments over the doors surmounting the cherubs' heads, are characteristic of the time. The table with the marquetry top and "tied" stretcher is of the period. The chairs retained for a time that rigid resistance to the lines of the human form which marks the Stuart chairs; but very soon adapted themselves in a physiological sense.

What is termed the Queen Anne period of furniture may be said to date from the reigns of William and Mary (1689-1702), and Queen Anne (1702-1714), to that of George I. (1714-1727). The Dutch influence of William and Mary became Anglicised during the reign of Anne and the first George, and the influence remains to this day. Mahogany was introduced about 1720, and thenceforward the influence of Chippendale and his school came into force.

The Queen Anne style has probably been over-praised, a little misunderstood, and possibly a trifle harshly treated. Mr. Ernest Law, whose studies of this period we have already mentioned, describes it as "nothing better than an imitation of the bastard classic of Louis XIV., as distinguished from the so-called 'Queen Anne style' which never had any existence at all except in the brains of modern æsthetes and china maniacs," and as a case in point refers to Queen Anne's drawing-room at Hampton Court Palace. This verdict is no doubt a true one as regards the schemes of interior decoration, with their sprawling deities and the gaudy and discordant groupings of classical figures of Verrio and his school, to be seen at Hampton Court and other great houses. Verrio, as Macaulay wrote, "covered ceilings and staircases with Gorgons and Muses, Nymphs and Satyrs, Virtues and Vices, Gods quaffing nectar, and laurelled princes riding in triumph"--a decorative scheme which certainly does not err on the side of parsimony. The taste of a Court, however, is by no means a criterion of taste in domestic furniture. There can be no doubt that to this period we are indebted for the introduction of various articles of furniture of great utility and unquestionable taste. The chairs and tables in particular, depending as they do for charm upon simple lines and the transverse grain of the wood, for neatness of design and good workmanship are unsurpassed. Amongst other pieces the bureaux and long-cased clocks made their appearance; also double chests of drawers or tallboys, mirrors for toilet-tables and wall decoration; and washstands came into general use, as well as articles like card-tables, powdering-tables, &c.

The houses of the wealthy were furnished with great magnificence and luxuriousness in a gaudy and ultra-decorative fashion. Restraint is the last quality to be found. Judging however from the many simple and charming specimens of walnut furniture surviving, the standard of comfort and good taste amongst the middle classes was high. Table glass was now manufactured in England; carpets were made at Kidderminster; chairs grew to be comfortably shaped; domestic conveniences in the way of chests of drawers, writing bureaux, and mirrors were all in general use in many middle-class houses. Mr. Pollen, whose handbook on the Victoria and Albert collection is so much appreciated, writes of the Queen Anne furniture as being of a "genuine English style marked by great purity and beauty."

Anne, the second daughter of James II., was the last of the Stuarts, with whom, however, she had little in common, and indeed it is with something of an effort that we think of her as a Stuart at all. Personally she had no more influence upon the period which bears her name than the Goths had upon Gothic architecture. The term "Queen Anne" has grown to be a conveniently descriptive term for anything quaint and pretty. We are all familiar with the Queen Anne house of the modern architect, with its gables and sharply pitched roof. This, however, is probably suggested by various rambles in picturesque country districts in England and Holland; but it has nothing in common with the actual houses of the period under review.

The bulk of the genuine furniture which has come down to us was probably from the houses of the merchant classes, the period being one of great commercial activity. The condition of the poor, however, was such that they could not concern themselves with furniture. Mr. Justin McCarthy, in his book on these times, estimates that one-fifth of the population were paupers. A few rude tables and chairs, a chest, truckle-beds, and possibly a settle, would have made up the possessions of the working-class house; and it is probable that not until the nineteenth century was there any material improvement in their household surroundings.

It was a time in which the coffee-and chocolate-houses flourished; when Covent Garden and Leicester Square were fashionable neighbourhoods; when the Sedan chair was the fashionable means of transit; when the police were old men with rattles who, sheltered in boxes guarded the City; and when duels were fought, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The coffee-house was a lively factor in the life of the times: although wines were also sold, coffee was the popular drink. The price for a dish of coffee and a seat by a good fire was commonly one penny, or perhaps three-halfpence, although to these humble prices there were aristocratic exceptions. Anderton's Hotel in Fleet Street, "The Bay Tree" in St. Swithin's Lane, and the now famous "Lloyd's" are interesting developments of the Queen Anne coffee-houses. Coffee itself was retailed at about seven shillings per pound. Chocolate-houses were small in number, but included names so well known at the present time as "White's" and the "Cocoa Tree." Chocolate was commonly twopence the dish. "Fancy the beaux," Thackeray writes, "thronging the chocolate-houses, tapping their snuff-boxes as they issue thence, their periwigs appearing over the red curtains."

Tea-drinking was a social function and mainly a domestic operation, and to its popularity we owe the number of small light tables of this period.

Snuff, or the fan supply each pause of chat, With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.

The price of tea fluctuated very much--some years it was much cheaper than others, varying from 10s. to 30s. per lb., although it is said that in the cheaper sorts old infused leaves were dried and mixed with new ones.

As regards pottery and porcelain, the Chinese was in great request, following, no doubt, on the fashion set by Queen Mary. The English factories--Worcester, Derby, Chelsea, Bow, Wedgwood, and Minton--only started in the last half of the eighteenth century. Mr. Ashton, in his interesting book on "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne," quotes the following advertisement, which points to the continued popularity of decorative china:

"Whereas the New East India Company did lately sell all their China Ware, These are to advertise that a very large parcel thereof (as Broken and Damaged) is now to be sold by wholesale and Retail, extremely cheap at a Warehouse in Dyer's Yard. Note.--It is very fit to furnish Escrutores, Cabinets, Corner Cupboards or Spriggs, where it usually stands for ornament only."

This fashion first brought into use the various forms of cabinets used for the display of china. The earliest pieces would therefore date from the end of the seventeenth, or the beginning of the eighteenth century.

In the first volume of this series we referred to a characteristic of Elizabethan woodwork, viz. inlaying--the laying-in of small pieces of one or several kinds of wood in places cut out of the surface of another kind. In the period under review two further practices are deserving of special notice. The first is veneering, which consists of wholly covering one sort of wood (frequently a common wood, such as deal or pine, but also oak) with a thin layer of choice wood--walnut, mahogany, &c. The object of veneering was not for purposes of deception, as it was not intended to produce the effect that the whole substance was of the finer sort of wood; but by means of applying these thin overlays a greater choice of wood was possible, and a more beautiful effect was produced by the juxtaposition of the various grains.

Although at the present time the term veneer is frequently used as one of approbrium, the principle it stands for is a perfectly honest one. It is very much the same as the application of the thin strips of marble to the pillars and walls of St. Mark's at Venice, which is called incrustation, and of which Ruskin writes in the "Stones of Venice." The basis of St. Mark's is brick, which is covered by an incrustation or veneer of costly and beautiful marbles, by which rich and varied colour effects are produced which would have been impossible in solid marble. The same principle applies to veneers of wood, in which there is likewise no intention to deceive but rather a desire to make the most of the materials on hand. It would have been impossible to construct a great many cabinets of solid walnut-wood, nor would the effect have been so satisfactory, because, as already pointed out, the fact of veneers being laid in thin strips immensely increases the choice of woods and facilitates the composition of pleasing effects. There is, moreover, often a greater nicety of workmanship in the making of veneered furniture than in the solid article, and it is indeed often a complaint that the doing up of old veneered furniture is so expensive and troublesome. In old days veneers were cut by hand--sometimes one-eighth of an inch thick--but the modern veneer is, of course, cut by machinery, and is often a mere shaving.

In the period under discussion walnut-veneering reached great perfection, beautiful effects being produced by cross-banding various strips and varying the course of the grains and the shades. Oak was first used as a base, but later commoner woods such as deal.

It is a mistake to condemn an article because the basis is not of oak. As a matter of fact, after a time oak went out of use as a basis for the reason that it was unsatisfactory, the veneer having a tendency to come away from it. We frequently find the front of a drawer is built of pine, to take the veneer, whilst the sides and bottom of the drawer are of oak.

Marquetry, which is also a feature in furniture of this period, is a combination of inlaying and veneering. A surface is covered with a veneer and the desired design is cut out and filled in with other wood. Its later developments are of French origin, and it was first introduced into England from Holland towards the end of the seventeenth century, after James II. (who had been a wanderer in Holland) came to the throne.

Most arts date back to ancient times; and the arts of woodcraft are no exceptions. Inlaying, veneering, and wood-carving reach back to the temple of Solomon; and the Egyptians also practised them. Ancient inlay, moreover, was not confined to woods--ivory, pearls, marbles, metals, precious stones all being requisitioned.

During the reigns of William and Mary, Anne, and George the First, events of great importance transpired. St. Paul's, that great monument to Wren and Renaissance architecture, was opened; the Marlborough wars were fought; the South Sea Bubble was blown and burst; Sir Christopher Wren and Grinling Gibbon completed their work; Marlborough House and Blenheim were built; Addison, Pope, and Daniel Defoe were at work; Gibraltar was taken; England and Scotland were united; the Bank of England was incorporated; and last, but not least, the National Debt started.