Horace Walpole, who was a true royalist whenever the arts were concerned, if not slyly in every other respect, thus speaks of that great but vain effort to build in London a palace worthy of the country. “The whole fabric,” he says, referring to Jones’s designs for Whitehall, “was so glorious an idea, that one forgets in a moment, in the regret for its not being executed, the confirmation of our liberties obtained by a melancholy scene that passed before the windows of that very Banqueting-house.”[168] The misfortunes of this eminent man now began. Inigo Jones was a Roman Catholic, and, as such, was peculiarly obnoxious to the Parliament party. His very name, too, was mingled with associations of those arts and that magnificence, which, from being the cause of envy, were now the objects of detestation to certain of the people. “Painting had now,” says Walpole, “become idolatry; monuments were deemed carnal pride, and a venerable cathedral seemed equally contradictory to Magna Charta and the Bible.” Even the statue of Charles at Charing Cross was regarded as of ill-omen, and taken away lest it should bring back unpleasant recollections. Footnote 168: Walpole, p. 270. “The Parliament did vote it down, And thought it very fitting, Lest it should fall and kill them all, In the house where they were sitting.” It had become a matter of wonder that society could ever have tolerated those masques patronized by James, by Charles, and by Buckingham, in which the masks, costumes, and scenes were designed by Jones, and the poetry written by Jonson. These representations had been indeed interrupted by the quarrel between Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson; and in the civil war they ceased entirely. With the royal family and their followers literature and the arts were banished; they were restored with the monarchy, but good taste was not revived. “The history of destruction” superseded that reign of elegance and learning which had a brief duration under Charles, and which, whilst Buckingham was at the head of affairs, was the main-spring of every impulse. “Ruin was the harvest of the Puritans, and they gleaned after the reformers.” Of course vengeance fell on the unfortunate royal architect and stage manager, Inigo Jones. His face had been seen at every gorgeous revel; his hand was traceable in many a country seat, even in the picturesque college of St. John’s at Oxford; he had designed the chapel of Henrietta Maria at St. James’s; he had erected the arcade and church of Covent Garden: every familiar scene was haunted with his presence.