Wren’s work as an architect seems to have begun in 1661, when, at the instance of John Evelyn, the King sent for him to come from Oxford to serve as assistant to Sir John Denham, Surveyor-General to His Majesty’s Works. Denham was a moderate poet, but no architect, and his appointment was merely an excuse for giving him a salary. John Webb, “Inigo Jones’s man,” had been serving Denham as an assistant and was naturally distressed at the interposition of Wren. This is no place to attempt to estimate Webb’s place in English architecture. He is put very high by some critics, but Evelyn’s description of him as “Inigo Jones’s man” is probably fair. He had attempted unsuccessfully to obtain the succession to Inigo Jones, and, on this second failure, he seems to have retired from practice. The neglect of him in Wren’s favour may have been a personal hardship, but nobody will believe that English architecture was the sufferer. Webb belonged to another generation, and the indolent Charles had a right perception when he summoned the scientist to shape the architecture of the new era of the Restoration. In relation to Wren’s later and definitive appointment as Surveyor-General, there is a reference in Pepys’ Diary which I never read without a sense of personal relief. On March 21st, 1668-9, Pepys met Hugh May, very grieved that he had failed to secure the reversion of the Surveyorship of the King’s Works, on the recent death of Sir John Denham, “by the unkindness of the Duke of Buckingham, who hath brought in Dr. Wren, though, he tells me, he hath been his servant for twenty years together,” and so on, “and yet the Duke is so ungrateful as to put him by, which is an ill thing, though Dr. Wren is a worthy man.” It was a lucky escape for English architecture, but it is difficult to believe that Buckingham, or indeed anybody, even in such venal times, would have denied to Wren the post which he filled so perfectly, in favour of so sorry a fellow as Hugh May. It is worth noting that when May died in February, 1683-4, his post as Controller of the Works at Windsor Castle fell to Wren. If May had never been in charge at Windsor that Castle might have been spared the indignity of the Upper Bailey, which he designed of an ugliness so surpassing that Wyattville’s remodelling, dreary as it is, was a vast improvement. How May saw the duties and opportunities of Surveyor-General of the King’s Works is shown by his consoling thoughts recorded by Pepys. The King was kind to May and promised him a pension of £300 out of the Works (presumably an euphemism for out of Wren’s emoluments), and that would be better than the place, because, owing to the lack of money, he would have had to disoblige most people, being not able to do what they desire to their lodgings.