Show leads V 1 letter from london i BY 1 walue whitehall PAST AND ND PRESENT continued from last V eak wk por for a few years whitehall was the scene of a sterner court here oliver cromwell maintained the dignity of state with puritan simplicity city and made england a name of power abroad hero here his table waa waited on by the stalwart gentlemen of his guard in grey coats with black i levet collars and silver lam lace and tritus wo here he ilela converse with ton and entertained ambassadors and here he gravely unbent after dinner clinner and took part jn in some decorous revels to the extent of throwing cushions at the heads beads of old comrades in arms charles 11 had the vian of his contemporary louis XIV without hla his renius without his statecraft and without his ambition and his court differed correspondingly from of loula louis the dauchert dau chery of whitehall lacked the ele elegance ganoe and refinement the tha artistic and intellectual glamour of versailles the whole palace became a vast seraglio for ills his rival ml mi stresses here were the apartments of the countess of here those ahw of the ILC duchess of here those of miss stewart t miss wells miss price and so on but moll davis not ly lyang being ang bred to courts had her rooms tn in suffolk strict and nell gwynn in pall pali mall mail who in his dat daly j gives many glimpses of court life As life puked ed where the board of trade offices now are he said in the privy gw gaiden den I 1 saw the finest smocks and linen petticoats of my lady castlemain s laced with rich lace at the bottom that I 1 ever saw sas and did me good to look at them ile he made provision for his offspring from lucy walters sprang the dukes of buccleuch Buc from bar bara bam palmer created duchess of cleveland the dukes of gartino from louise de the dukes of richmond and from poor nelly the dukes of st bt aurs on his deathbed death bed lie he apologized to the courtiers waiting to acclaim the next king for being such an unconscionable time liine in dying and he called in a priest and acknowledged himself a son of rome and received foi forgiveness gi veness of his brother james II 11 hardly a memory reu remains lains the last of the stuarts he came and went like a bark shadow and shortly after hl his disappearance two great fires destroyed alot tuo of the buildings except inigo jones banqueting house the court was vas shifted to st james palace across the park por for a time the center of inter interest pst shifted with urith the court and it seemed as if st james street might usurp the place of whitehall which must lime have lain derelict for koars but whitehall was becoming continuously moro more important as the thoroughfare to westminster the king street gate was removed in 1723 and the Hol holteen bitti gate in 1759 to provide a ider hi hig glay and the ever growing authority arid and a of parliament as aa against the court were gradually establishing reestablishing re whitehall as the power house of oc the empire after the revolution of 1588 1688 and especially during the reigns of me first exo georges another r revola alu ton anseln and unsuspected by the majority of the people was taking place in the british constitution ution the cabinet was originally a secret committee of the I 1 privy Cota council icil for the purpose of maintaining authority of the crown against the general body of it the council or even parliament nt itself it v was as regarded as a dangerous and unconstitutional avic UP vie now it was gradually trans fornel into a body or of ministers nominally appointed by the king but in reality responsible to and controlled by parliament mitten C the me cabinet became an executive committee or parliament and as such exercised complete control over all branches of the administration it is no longer kings favorites who figure in ili the annals of whitehall but powerful ministers who by v whatever means could command a majority in ili the house of commons walpole and pitt had different methods but they were a ere both great parliamentarians dinv inv cabinet meetings came to b held in the official residence resi denoe of the pint first lord of the treasury in ili downing street next the old treasury buildings which bere ere erected in whitehall in the reign of george I 1 the other great public departments were in the sarno same neighborhood the admiralty adir u alty the foreign office and the hom hoirup office the mie horse guards was the only relic of the court which remained embedded lika a fly in amber in the ever expanding bur eur cracy we have told you all about the horse guards |