Well, good evening, um, everybody, and, um, it gives me pleasure to give the fourth in a series of lectures, uh, sponsored by the college, um, celebrating the 300th anniversary of the death of Sir Christopher Ren. Uh, we've already had Ren on the cosmos. We've had Ren on maths. We've had ren on medicine, and tonight we have Ren on, not on architecture, but sort of on architecture. We have him as a courtier on the 28th of October, 1642 at the head of 12 companies of foot soldiers, the parliamentarian colonel. Uh, John then entered the gates of Windsor Castle that you see here. Securing this mighty fortress was of course, a military objective, but equally important for the parliamentarians was its symbolism. King Charles. I first had made St. George's Chapel a model of the sort of religion that he wanted for the Church of England. Ceremonious d dignified and richly furnished the chapel, the interior of which you see here. Uh, and the, uh, liturgy, uh, performed within it was, uh, an abomination to the godly parliamentarians who opposed the king and his policies. Well, the Dean of Windsor expecting trouble had ordered the exquisite stained glass window in the chapel's West end, containing images of no fewer than 25 popes to be taken out and hidden as the dean was also exofficio register of the order of the garter, he hid beneath the floorboards of the college treasury, a diamond studded George, uh, which is a, a badge of the order of the garter, perhaps the most valuable one ever made. And then the priceless registers of the order in three great volumes, dating back to Henry VIII's Rain were also hidden. Well, Colonel Then's arrival at Windsor had not only been anticipated by the dean because five days before his entry, the castle had been overrun by a band of local gentry, sympathetic to parliament, fearing, uh, a royalist takeover of the fortress before then could get there and secure it. They had taken the law into their own hands, demanding the keys of the college treasury from the dean who refused them. They brought in giant crowbars to break into the vault. Inside were beautifully fashioned, silver guilt basins, candlesticks, and flaggings, which were carried away, sent to London and melted down for coin. And it was just this sort of disorder that the House of Lords, which was still sitting at this point, wanted to avoid. And it instructed Colonel then to protect the fabric and the ornaments of the college from defacement, but then was a political radical and a religious zealot, and had absolutely no intention of allowing the pop ornaments of Windsor to remain. So the stained glass windows were smashed, the woodwork was torn down, the organ demolished the lectin fonts and statues torn out. And King Edward, the fourth's coat of chain mail and his circo embroidered with pearls and rubies was carted away and sold. Well, Colonel then was now in charge of the castle and not wanting to use the royal apartments, which, okay, so the royal apartments are up here in this big block. Um, he decided instead to live in the deanery. So there's the chapel that I've been talking about, and at the end of the chapel, you can see, um, a little courtyard and, um, to move it on there, the deanery is this, the, the, the building, uh, uh, just below 12 on, on the left there. This, um, capacious lodging had been completed in 1352 as a relatively modest re uh, residence for the head of St. George's College. But by the early 17th century, it had been enlarged and beautified, and it was now a substantial house here for the next three years. Then provided, uh, presided over the Windsor Garrison and the dean, Christopher Ren was expelled. Now, sir Christopher Ren, as I shall call the architect, was born in 1632, and he spent some of his childhood in the Windsor Deanery, while his father, who was also called Christopher Confusingly, as his son was, um, was the dean. Uh, he was educated there at, uh, Windsor and also at his father's, uh, country rectory. Um, and during the Civil War, for a very short period, he was at Westminster School and at Windsor, he would've become familiar with the ceremony and the grandeur of Charles, the first court. And he certainly would have met the Prince of Wales, uh, his future patron, who was just two years older than him. So Christopher's pedigree was just about as courtly as it could be. His father, uh, Christopher and his uncle Matthew, who you see here from, uh, the pages of parental, the, the, the biography of Sir Christopher written by his son, uh, the, these men were both major ecclesiastical figures at court. They were close to the king, both in proximity and in ideology. Matthew Ren, uh, his uncle, Dean of the Chapel Royal and Bishop of Ely, ended up spending 18 years locked up in the Tower of London for his views. His brother Christopher, simply lost his post at Windsor and retreated into rural obscurity. Luckily for Sir Christopher, his father was not financially ruined. Like so many dispossessed royalists, his mother was a co airs to a great merchant fortune, and this enabled, uh, him to fund his son's education and indeed broker excellent marriages for three of his daughters. All three marriage fervent royalists as perhaps might be expected. Yet, despite this undoubtedly privileged upbringing, uh, at court, it was not the ceremonious of Charles the first court that was to be the greatest influence in his childhood. His father, Dean Ren, was not only a courtier and a divine. He owned a library of scientific books and was fascinated by botany, climatology, mathematics, and of course architecture. And he took great care over Christopher Junior's education, and in particular, uh, encouraged his, uh, um, um, study of mathematics. Mathematics, uh, was to become the foundation of Sir Christopher's world picture, the means by which the universe and all its moving parts could be explained. For him, the world was a machine, and it was possible using the tools of geometry and arithmetic to unravel its workings. And this was immensely exciting. Old scientific explanations derived essentially from Greek and Roman philosophers, uh, had little interest for Ren. And he, uh, very rarely, if ever, read their disputations from an early age, turning his inventive mind to solving practical problems with new ideas. And he fell into the two great centers of new scientific thought. A group of brilliant men at Waam College, Oxford, and of course our own Gresham College. And here they talked, they argued, they experimented, and they calculated. And Sir Christopher, amongst the most brilliant of all of them, first he became Gresham, professor of astronomy, age 25, and then before he was 30, uh, civilian professor of astronomy at Oxford. Now, we have to remember that these extraordinary achievements for such a young man took place during the English Republic and at the restoration out of Wadham. And the Gresham College Group came the Royal Society, the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. And through that came Sir Christopher Rens introduction to King Charles ii. Now, king Charles used the second, I should say, we have to get used to the fact that there's a third king. Charles used to be cha characterized as the Mary monarch, a man wholly given to pleasure and debauchery, but this really couldn't be further from the truth. We now know that he shared the sense of excitement and possibilities of the new science, and had a huge curiosity for astronomy, chemistry, physics, and geometry. At White Hall, adjacent to his most private quarters, was an extensive laboratory where he went to conduct his own experiments. So when Sir Christopher Remar reemerged in Charles II's life, not as a 10 year old son of Accordia, but as a mathematical genius, he was attracted to him immediately, unquestionably because of his family, but more importantly because of his brains. But let's not overdo the intellectual king bit because Charles, as we know, loved a joke, loved good company, loved a drink, loved a laugh, and a good night out. And while it would have been possible to have captured the king's attention through scientific achievement alone, it would not have been possible for Sir Christopher to win the King's Trust, friendship, and High Honors, unless he had been extremely good company. Not only was late 17th century government personal, directed by the Monarch himself, but to be the King's architect was to be admitted into the innermost royal circle. Not only to know the workings of the state rooms, but to understand the secrets of the bed chamber. And as I shall go on to explain, Ren was extremely good company. In fact, he was the perfect courtier. When in, um, 1669, Christopher Ren became the head of the Office of Works, the royal, uh, architecture Department. He inherited command of an organization nearly 300 years old. The Office of Works had in fact been established by King Richard II in 1379, not only to, uh, repair and men maintain the royal building stock, but to project manage new buildings. The surveyor of the King's Works was a member of the King's household. And although he theoretically, uh, reported to the Lord Chamberlain, in practice, it was to the Lord Treasurer who whore looked in 1662, the surveyor required treasury authorization for anything more than routine maintenance. And even this was capped at 40 pounds a year for the larger palaces, and 20 pounds a year for the smaller ones. And given the fact that almost every year Ren spent considerably more than that, he took his orders from the treasurer. In fact, the Office of Work should really be categorized as a separate department of state because its money came direct from the ex checker, rather than being viad through the household. And the Lord Chamberlain, and if you look at it in this light, sir, Christopher Ren was essentially one of the great ministers of state on a par, rather than answering to the Lord Chamberlain in a period when the Monarch was the head of the Executive White Hall, the Principal Palace of the British monarchy was not only the King's main residence, but it was the center of National Administration. There's no real modern equivalent that satisfactorily characterizes Restoration Whitehall, huge, confusing, overpopulated in equal measure, squalled and magnificent. It was both residents and an office block, housing courtiers and bureaucrats, and it was the center of the world for anybody who was anybody on assuming his senior post In 1669, Whitehall became the center of Rens life, and the lodgings he was assigned there became the engine room of his career. You see, as well as the royal family, Whitehall was home to an army of over 800 domestic staff, and perhaps 300 others who could broadly be characterized as being court courtiers. Some of these, like Christopher Ren, were granted lodgings because of their household political or administrative appointments. But for the majority of courtiers, angling for lodgings was a feature of life. Everyone wanted spacious lodgings as close as possible to the king, and very few got them. Though the palace in the 1670s had around 1,500 rooms, there was always cutthroat competition for even the smallest cellar or attic because most people held their lodgings by Royal Warrant for Life. There were long waits for the best lodgings, even for important people. And policing, the huge number of residents was complicated by the fact that some parts of a lodgings fabric were regarded as the responsibility of the Office of works, while other elements could be altered with permission and at their expense by the occupants. In reality, it was very difficult to persuade the office of works to pay for doing works in a private individuals quarters. And so financial responsibility normally felt the occupant. For this reason, the lodgings of the most important courtiers were essentially privately funded residences. The fact that lodgings were built at their occupant's expense gave them considerable rights. And as the rain advanced lodgings were increasingly held by courtiers under a lease rather than by a warrant from the monarch. Now, the, um, office of Works and Sir Christopher's lodgings were situated in Scotland Yard. Uh, this, uh, was the area of land that laid between the northern part of White Hall. Now, I hope you can see this. Um, so just above where it says the river is the pretty garden, uh, it says garden stairs above that are the main lodgings, the main royal lodgings. And you then see privy stairs. Beyond there you can see, uh, the, the kitchens, uh, then it says White wall bridge. And there are a whole lot of sort of raggedy bits and a bit saying Scotland. Do you see that there? So that Scotland yard lying between the north boundary of White Hall, uh, and Chaing Cross and the great, um, houses of the Aristocrats, uh, were, were, um, built along the strand. Um, we can get a much better sense of this area if we look at the very well known, uh, copper plate map. Um, and once again, you can see the privy garden. Can you see, see where it says Privy Bridge? That is the, uh, residential part for the Monarch. But above that, you can see, um, some yards, um, and right at the top hand, uh, left hand corner, uh, a a conglomeration of buildings, which, um, I, in the Elizabethan period were already, um, being occupied by the Office of Works, um, in that part of Scotland Yard. Well, in the first year of, uh, king James, the first Reign, um, Simon Basil, who was then controller of works under Queen Elizabeth, built a house in the northernmost section of Scotland Yard. It wasn't particularly big. It had a hall and a parlor that's a sort of ground floor reception room and a kitchen. And it had three rooms above it and a backyard. But after Basil became surveyor of works in 1606, uh, he was granted a 60 year lease on his house and on the land around it. So, uh, he decided to, uh, uh, build some houses on the land, which he rented for his, um, own, uh, profit. Well, after he died in September 15, uh, his widow leased this house to his successor Ingo Jones. And at the start of the Civil War, uh, Ingo Jones was still living in a house, which if the pointer worked, uh, which it does, oh, oh, oh, how exciting. Oh, uh, that is very exciting. Uh, I can show you exactly where Ingo Jones lived. Uh, he lived just here, um, and, um, uh, that is where he lived when he, uh, lost his positions under the, um, under the Commonwealth. But by 1660, when the Crown, um, uh, was, uh, restored, Inigo Jones' house had passed into private hands, and it wasn't, uh, available for the, um, surveyor of works. The surveyor of works in 1660 was a man called Sir John Denim. Uh, he was a loyal royalist who'd been at Charles the first side, uh, when he was in prison at Hampton Court, uh, when he was locked up on the Isle of White. Um, and then he'd, uh, gone into exile and been at the court of Henrietta Maria in France with most of his lands sequestered By 1648, he was in the entourage of Prince Charles at The Hague, where he acted as, as a messenger between the Prince of Wales, um, and his mother, who was in Paris with no money to reward denim services. The king promised him that on the restoration, uh, he would succeed Ingo Jones as a surveyor of works. At the time, it probably seemed like a pretty hollow promise, but in, in 1660, amazingly for Charles ii, he kept his word. The Restored Office of Works was established on exactly the same basis as it had been before the Civil War. Denim, uh, at its head was leased a plot of land in Scotland Yard on which he could, uh, build. And, uh, just like, um, Simon Basil, he built, um, a row, uh, a terrace of houses, in fact, that he let out for his, uh, own income and a house for him himself. And it was this house built for Sir John Denim that became the surveyor's residence, and which Sir Christopher Ren inherited as his official White Hall, uh, lodgings in 1669. Now, very luckily, one of the very first tasks assigned to Christopher Ren as surveyor of the King's Works was making an accurate survey of White Hall Palace in preparation for the King's great plan to knock everything down and rebuild it. This survey completed in 1670 shows, uh, in detail the hole of Scotland Yard. Now I gonna use the Magic pointer again. Um, and you can see there, there, um, Scotland Yard, it's actually divided into two parts, um, down by the river here. Uh, there was Scotland Dock where all the building materials for, um, the Royal Works were, uh, unloaded on barges. Um, there were a series of, uh, warehouses and sheds here, and all the way up here in which timber glass lead stone bricks were all kept. Um, and on this, uh, this run of buildings up here, uh, were the masters of the works. So you had the master carpenter, uh, the Master Mason, uh, the King's Glacier, the king's locksmith, the King's painter. They all had little houses there, which also doubled as their offices. And, uh, at the top here, you can see this building, which is the terrace of houses built by Sir John Denim, which didn't pass Ren, uh, uh, and remained the possession of, uh, denim's Widow, but crucially here, the house, which was built by denim for himself as surveyor, the works, and is the house that Sir Christopher Ren, uh, moved into, uh, when he got the big job. Now, this house was Sir Christopher Rens main residence between 1669 and his loss of office in 1718, a period of 50 years. He had no other home, no city mansion, no country seat under William and Mary. He was given, um, an official residence at Hampton Court because he was doing so much work there, and he was given another, uh, sort, almost really a sort of cottage at Kensington. But Ren lived the whole of his architectural career in White Hole Palace in this, uh, house, just a stone's throw from the Royal Apartments. Now, after Sir Christopher's death, this house in Scotland Yard was found to be in extremely poor condition, and it was surveyed in order to decide whether to rebuild it or to refurbish it. And the plan survives, and I believe this has never been identified before. What you are looking at is, uh, the house in which Sir Christopher Ren lived for 50 years. And you will see that, um, the walls are covered, uh, three colors. Uh, you can ignore the, um, the, the yellow cuz that represents, uh, another building, uh, to the, uh, to one side. Um, the gray is are the offices of the Office of Works. So that is where the Clarks um, his assistants, uh, had their offices every day. That's where their work, their working place. They came in off at Scotland Yard. Here, they came in upper staircase there, um, into the upper rooms. And there were three rooms, uh, three offices, uh, downstairs. And you can see that this co uh, colored a different color because that means that it was the responsibility of the Office of works to maintain those, uh, rooms. The rest of it, the gray bit, is Sir Christopher Rens private residence, which, um, he was responsible for maintaining, um, himself. And on the ground floor, uh, was, uh, his, so if I can get this here, his hall, um, his kitchen, uh, he had a, a lovely garden here at the top. I'll switch this off in a minute. So you can see, um, there's a little yard here, had cellars, um, and, um, various other, uh, sort of ancillary, um, uh, buildings. There was a stair that led up to the first floor. And although we don't have a plan of the first floor, we do have the building accounts. And we know that he had a great dining room, a smaller private dining room, a drawing room, a dressing room, and a bedroom. And we know that his bedroom had been set up with a fashionable bed alcove by Sir John Denim. Um, and in this, the surveyor's, uh, uh, bed was placed. There was a floor above for his servants, uh, which probably also contained the nursery for his children. Uh, as I've shown you, there were cellars full of wine, two yards, and a long walled garden, which, uh, in 1669, he, um, set up with a garden seat surmounted, with a pediment, perhaps slightly further away from the royal apartments than some, uh, courtier lodgings. Rens house was in fact, amongst the largest and best appointed of all the houses allocated to any of the senior courtiers. And here in this house, he lived happily with his first wife Faith. And it was in that house that she died of smallpox in sixteen seventy five, two children were born to her, including Christopher, the younger who survived his father. And in 1677, Ren married his second wife, Jane, Jane, Fitz William in the Chapel Royal at White Hall. She, uh, was already pregnant, which shows that Ren was not without an active libido. Uh, after giving birth to a daughter, she also died in 1680. And so in the 1680s, we have to imagine this house in Scotland Yard with three young children running around in it. And the fascinating thing is that we know from the building accounts that at first floor level, there was an interconnecting door from Rens drawing room into the Office of Works. And I think we have to imagine these three small children opening the door, peeping in, seeing the clerks there, um, uh, enrolling the accounts and drawing their plans. Rens daughter never married, and she lived at home in this house with her father and his young, young son, William, who was mentally handicapped, also lived at home. And the only one of his children who moved out was, uh, Christopher Junior, uh, who moved to a house in St. James's that his father had, uh, bought for him. So this is the environment in which Ren lived for 50 years, hug a mugger with his family in the center of White Hole, a stone's throw away from the king. Now, his official remuneration as surveyor was 382 pounds, five shillings and eight pins a year. And his salary was actually made up of three allowances. The first one was paid by the X Checker, and it was a daily fee of two shillings and, uh, uh, a day plus six pins, uh, which was an allowance to employ a Clark. And that was a total of 45 pounds, 12 shillings, and six months a year. Uh, the second part of his salary was a sort of historical legacy, because the surveyor used to be one of the household offices who used to wear a uniform. And when the uniforms were abolished or the livery was abolished, um, the fee for buying the outfit was still paid to the office holder. And Ren got 12 pounds, 13 shillings, and four pounds a year in lieu of his uniform. The third stream of income, um, which was actually issued by the paymaster of the Office of Works, was a big bundle of allowances and compensations, and that actually made up the bulk of his salary. Now, 380 pounds a year was not enough to sustain Ren as a gentleman, and it was way beneath the salaries and allowances of the more senior household officials. Just to give you an example, the master of the robes who looked after the King's personal wardrobe, was paid 500 pounds a year and required no technical knowledge and very little special skill. And in fact, in later life, Ren was to remark to his son Christopher, that Charles II had done him a big disservice, enticing him into architecture. And if he'd stuck to medicine, he would've become a rich man. Well, this was perhaps a bit disingenuous because in addition to his salary from the Office of Works, Ren received fees for his work rebuilding the churches in the city of London, which had been destroyed by the Great Fire. So that was a hundred pounds a year. And of course, in addition, were the fees paid to him, uh, as the architect for St. Paul's Cathedral, another 200 pounds a year. And later on, he was also paid for his work for the Royal Hospital in Greenwich, several private commissions at Cambridge University, and some work for individual courtiers. And so actually his total earnings in the 1690s cannot have been much less than 800 pounds a year. In fact, so confident was he of his financial position by that stage that he magnanimously waived his fee for the design of the Royal Hospital, uh, in Chelsea. So in reality, Ren was able to cut quite a dash at court. He maintained a carriage with Livered Coachman and a stable full of horses in Scotland Yard. He had several servants, including a footman who was normally in attendance with him. He dressed in the fashions of the day. Here's the lovely picture in the National Portrait Gallery, which you'll be able to see next week when the gallery reopens. Um, he entertained liberally and he furnished his house fashionably. He commissioned portraits of his wife. He bought furniture, kept up with interior design fashions. When he moved in to his house in 1670, the sergeant painter redecorated more or less the whole house. And for his second marriage, he ordered the redecoration of his bed chamber, the old freeze and what was described in the accounts as bed mold of 1661 was taken down and 50 foot of new bed mold was erected in its stead, the door to the dressing room. Next door was moved and a, a room nearby was petitioned. In 1676, a custom made drawing table was installed in his house, not in the office next door, but in his private quarters. And a couple of years later, his private closet was enlarged. The house we know was decorated with a large number of prints, including many, uh, prints of his own buildings, but also prints of paintings, interiors, classical busts and statues. One room, perhaps his closet, we don't know, contained bookshelves containing some 600 volumes. Larger cabinets, perhaps in the same room, contained some 900 drawings. And there was a cabinet with antique gems and metals. So let's be very clear, Ren lived in style and luxury with his family at court in a large house attached to his office. And I'm showing you this view again, um, which is the view by Kip taken, um, after the, um, catastrophic fire, uh, white hall that burnt this section down. But this is Rens house up here, this whole, almost everything in the circle there, that is where he's living. Um, and the building that I have been, um, describing to you, and this was how all the great office holders at court, uh, lived office and home were one, just like 10 Downing Street, um, or the White House in Washington today. So if this is the case, uh, what do we actually know about his interactions with the court and indeed the king? Well, there are two sources of information that can help us get right into the daily life of this extremely busy and fashionable man. The first is the Diary of Robert Hook, a brilliant scientist, natural philosopher, and the curator of experiments for the Royal Society. His interest moved into surveying and architecture, and he had an intimate association with Ren for some 50 years, from 1672 to 1680. And then from 1688 to 93, he kept a notebook recording his daily movements, his thoughts, his impressions, and this captures Rens life in great detail. Hook was with Ren several times a week. And just going through the diary, I can tell you he met him 75 times in 16 74, 70 times in 1675, and 80 times in 1676. Now, it's quite a read this diary. I have to tell you, if none of you've come across it before, it's quite odd because Hook was quite odd. I think he was obsessed with his poor health and his bodily functions on the 1st of August, 1675. I'll just give you an example. He writes of taking volatile spirit of wormwood, which made me very sick and disturbed me all the night and purged me in the morning, drank small beer and spirit of Sal Ammonia. I purged five or six times very easily on Sunday morning. I hope this will dissolve some of that vicious slime that has so tormented me in my stomach and guts. And it goes on like this sort of every, every day. But of course, crucially, uh, he lived in Gresham College. That's where he lived. He lived in Gresham, and I hope that his ill health wasn't a result of that. Uh, and of course in those, uh, happy far off days, uh, professors were given a residence in the city of London, and he regularly attended lectures, including one lecture on Thursday, June the 17th, 1680 when he recorded in his diary, attended morning lecture, none came, not one. Luckily. That hasn't been my experience, but there's always that risk. Nevertheless, we hear of Hook turning up at Rens house in Scotland Yard, uh, and dining with him, uh, dining with other major court figures, with politicians, with foreign dignitaries, and sometimes with other, uh, people from the office of works, presumably the great dining room that we read, read about was for larger parties. Uh, and the many accounts that hook gives of intimate dinners took place in the small dining room upstairs. Lady Ren was there sometimes. Um, and, uh, I get the impression that, uh, uh, perhaps not as, uh, as often as she might have liked, uh, because it was quite a sort of Boys Club Hook meets Ren in coffee houses and taverns and at Gresham College, of course, as well as at council meetings of the Royal Society and on numerous building sites in the city, churches and St. Paul's Cathedral. But all the time there is the magnetic draw of White Hall where their shared professional responsibilities for the city churches and St. Paul's Cathedral required them to audit accounts and approve payments to contractors in, uh, Rens, uh, lodgings. This is a marvelous source of information for Rens life. Comprising many hundreds of entries recording his movements, who he saw what he was working on, what he liked to eat, and what he liked to drink. The other key source is much more empirical. The surveyor was entitled to claim travel obs and subsistence if he left London, traveling around the city was covered by an allowance of four shillings a day in his annual remuneration. But when he left London, he was able to claim an additional four shillings and 10 tens a day. This was claimed each month in arrears, and all these travel claims survive, and they tell us not where he was going, but the fact that he was going. And this allows us to do some clever stuff, triangulating the diary and the expenses. You can begin to paint an interesting picture, and I'll give you an example. So, as usual, throughout June and July, 1679, hook and Ren were meeting at least once a week, often two, three, or even four times. But suddenly after meeting Ren in a city coffee house on the 1st of August, hook doesn't see him again until the 30th of August at St. Paul's Cathedral and unnaturally long gap of a whole month. If we turn to the Office of Work's writing charges for August, we see that after many months of inactivity and no, uh, claims for expenses at all, he charges for two days riding expenses, most likely one for the way out and one for the way back. But how do we work out where he went? Well, in 1679, the king's rebuilding of the royal lodgings at Windsor Castle was completed. And the whole court decamped from White Hall to Windsor for four weeks of fun, frolics balls, hunting, card playing plays, fasting and mu feasting, not fasting, uh, feasting and, uh, music. Everyone was there, including it seems Christopher Ren. This wasn't a professional trip. Hu May had been the architect for the Castle, not Ren. And though I suppose it is possible that architecture was discussed this month was about being a courtier, not about being an architect. October, 1676 is another good example. That month Ren clocked up 13 days charges when for the previous three months there was nothing. And the following four months, he didn't make a claim either. The explanation is that on the 4th of October, the king, the queen, and the Duke of York moved with the court to new market, and Ren clearly followed them hooks. Diary explains that he dined with Ren on October the fifth, the day after the court left, but didn't see him again until re's birthday dinner on the 20th of October, an absence of over two weeks. In September, 1682, after weeks of claiming no travel, the court removed to Winchester and Ren clocked up six days riding charges in 1674 when Charles moved the court to Windsor again, Ren incurred two days riding charges in each July and August and hook notes in his diary that Ren was at court. He came back to London partway through, uh, to attend to business, but returned to Windsor Hook, noting on July the 18th that he was finally back in White Hall. I could go on, but I'm not going to because this is more than enough to demonstrate that when the court left Whitehall for Windsor new market or l laterally, Winchester Ren was hot on its heels. We should not imagine that Ren was busy discussing building works during these pereg donations of the court. He was a court here and he threw himself into whatever entertainments were on offer. The Direst, John Evelyn spent the night at New Market in October, 1671. And you can see on the screen here, the surviving pavilion of New Market Palace, um, built by Charles ii. Um, it's a lovely museum now, well worth visiting. Uh, but in October 16, uh, 71 John Evelyn found, and I quote, the Jolly Blades racing, dancing, feasting and reveling, more resembling a luxurious and abandoned route than a Christian court. And racing really was not the only entertainment at New Market. It was a tennis court, a bowling green, and most important of all, there was a cockpit. And sometimes while the court was in residence, there were cockpits cock fights twice a day. And in the evenings there were plays. So this is the environment in which Ren spent a considerable amount of his time. Now, unfortunately, eyewitness accounts of Rens more formal interactions with Charles ii are much harder to find. We can read in the financial accounts of the Office of Works that he was personally instructed by the king on every major project and many of the minor works that he undertook. Uh, but we do have a couple of descriptions. In early 1683, the lawyer and architectural connoisseur, Roger North, was at a meeting of the Treasury in the presence of the King Ren had been summoned, and the subject was the financing of the New Palace at Winchester. The king asked Ren how long it would take to build it, and he told, uh, his majesty it would take two years. But Charles thought that this was too long and inquired whether it could be built in one year. Yes, Ren replied, but only with great confusion, charge and inconvenience. Not withstanding this warning, Charles made the decision to proceed. And on the 9th of February, the treasury authorized expenditure of 36,000 pounds. A rare glimpse of that conversation between King and architect making a decision. Other references show that the relationship between the two men was not always easy in some way. We dunno how it's recorded in hook's. Diary Ren briefly fell out with the king in October, 1674, and famously after the great model, uh, for St. Paul's Cathedral, um, Rens, uh, you know, greatest desire to build this, uh, particular scheme. After it was rejected by the Royal Commission, uh, the king told Ren, um, ordered Ren to start again, uh, on a new design. And, uh, he openly burst into tears in the king's, uh, presence. These occasions, I suggest, are signs of the intimacy that Charles II and Ren shared and the access that, that, uh, Ren had to the king. And Ren was very jealous of this position, his access on matters, scientific and architectural. And this is revealed in an extremely interesting exchange with Robert Hook, one of hook's most, uh, intense areas of inventiveness was in clock making. And one of his inventions, a magnetic clock, was shown to the king by Richard Busby, a royal ecclesiastical favorite. Charles ii, uh, intrigued, intrigued, wanted to meet Hook, and he was summoned to court where one of the grooms of the bed chamber, Silas Titus, presented hook to the king, who then quite, uh, uh, extraordinarily invited hook into his closet for an intimate examination of a double pendulum c clock, which, uh, hook had brought with him, uh, in a box, leaving the King Hook full of excitement at his royal interview, went straight to Scotland Yard to show the clock to Ren and tell him all about his, uh, um, his interview. Ren was stone cold to his friend, telling him that he should never have a room at Whitehall, and that if he wanted to meet the king in future, he should do it in St. James's Park. Ren. A hook noted in his diary seemed very jealous of him. In fact, Ren was so cross that hook, a socially inferior person, and his junior in every way had gained access to the king that he then withheld his wages, despite having money about his person. It took three weeks for Rens irritation to abate, and even then, hook had to hang around for hours until Ren signed off his bill. Well, the right order of things was reestablished in March, 1678, when Hook was having trouble with his late deceased brothers. Will, uh, Ren, who had this wonderful free access to the King, uh, was asked to raise it with the Monarch. And, uh, this was done much to the satisfaction of Hook. Uh, in 1680, hook expressed an interest in seeing the Royal Library at White Hall. The king, uh, was, uh, uh, away from the palace, and Ren used his pass key to take hook into White Hall and show him the room. So why is all this important? Well, I think it's a very different perspective on a man who's often portrayed as austere, intellectual, and a bit of a workaholic. It, uh, the, the records, I think show how much he was plugged into fashionable life following and making fashion. It demonstrates the way architecture at Charles II's Court was a joint enterprise between the Monarch and Ren. And that, um, first and foremost Ren to be successful, had to be a courtier. And that was the basis of everything. So this year, as we try and get, uh, closer to this man who died 300 years ago, we begin to understand a little bit more about him. Blessed with a pedigree that gave him a deep understanding of the court, the king, its ceremonies and behavior He shared with Charles ii the fascination with science and experimentation, and was spotted by him as a vehicle to achieve his architectural ambitions. And so he moved to court, and that was where he spent his life. Unlike so many awkward geniuses, he was engaging, amusing, a great conversationalist, able to navigate the treacherous rapids of court life tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I hope I've introduced you to the flesh and blood of this great man, no lonely genius, but a cog in the great Mus machine of state oiled with his own charm and genius. Thank you. Thank you very much, Simon. Um, I rather hope you've all got your traveling expenses hidden away in some secret account. Uh, it's going to be much safer that way, I suspect. Um, one, one of the things that is hidden away in your talk somehow is the sort of mechanics of his daily life, of how someone was able to contribute to the cosmos, to medicine, to architecture whilst partying as far as I can see, traveling from one place to another. How, what was the infrastructure in which he lived? Well, I think the, the, as, as I say, the, the absolute key to it was this house. And what do you, uh, read in Hook's diary, and he dined with Ren there the whole time, uh, are the other guests around the table and they are the leading scientists, uh, the the leading artists and, um, uh, architects, uh, you know, foreign, uh, visitors, ambassadors, um, other court officials. I mean, this is where it all goes on, around the, the dining table, uh, in, in Scotland Yard. And, uh, uh, afterwards he would go out, he'd come to the city, he'd look at a couple of city churches. Uh, he'd then go to one coffee house, which was meet with a whole lot more people, another coffee house. Um, some days he'd go to three or four coffee houses, one after the other, um, uh, meeting people, all of whom were listed in, in the diary. And you could have a very, uh, draw a very interesting sort of spidery diagram showing this extraordinary web of connections, which all went back to this, um, center of activities in White Hall because, um, that is where he went to sign, sign, audit the accounts, to supervise the draftsman in his drawing office and to do a very big administrative job. He's not only doing the administration for all the royal palaces, he's doing it for the city churches and for St. Paul's Cathedral and for the Greenwich Hospital of the Chelsea Hospital and for a library in Cambridge. It's a, it's a huge amount of work, and he must have been a really extraordinary man to fit it all in. Thank you for a really fascinating lecture, Simon. I wonder if you could say something about Bren's travels on the continent, particularly in France. Yeah. Um, well, he, well, he's, He'd certainly, he went once to the continent. Now there's a very, very interesting debate about whether he went during the Commonwealth, and I'm not gonna get into that now, but I am giving a lecture later on this year after some deep delving into the, into some quite interesting records about whether he went another time. But the, the key time he goes, um, is just before he becomes, um, surveyor of the works. Um, and I'm pretty certain that he was more or less sent to France by, uh, Charles second, who was determined to rebuild White Hole Palace. Um, he goes with the chief of introductions, uh, from the then, uh, uh, surveyor, uh, sir John Denim, um, and is a fact finding mission. He's just about the only, uh, uh, person who's active in the architectural sphere who didn't spend most of the, uh, of the Republican period, uh, on the continent. And so he was really at a disadvantage, I mean, a huge disadvantage. And I think he recognized that Charles second recognized that. And, um, he went on this extraordinary architectural tour, um, and came back with a, you know, with crates full of books and prints and drawings. Um, and he, um, did his best to meet all the most famous architects, uh, and, uh, people who were working in France. And so it was a, it was definitely a formative moment for him. Um, and in fact, um, hook does give the impression that he, he came back with the French Valley, um, who, um, then lived with him, uh, in this house for some years, um, uh, dying in the, um, in the late 1680s. Uh, what I'd like to know is what his relationship was like with Cromwell before July 2nd. Ha. Well, a, a, as I said, um, his, his sort of meteoric rise, um, and his initial fame all took place during the Republic. And, um, many of those people who he had closest connections with, including his key patrons, were very, uh, uh, very knitted in with the Cromwellian Court. Um, and in fact, one of his, um, inventions, uh, apparently Cromwell himself wanted to, wanted to see. So, um, it, it in a way is extraordinary that, uh, he was, became so successful. And, and in his circle famous during that period, given his background, I mean, as you know, he really could not have, uh, the name Ren was just like a big, you know, bullseye target, which he'd shoot at because, you know, you, you couldn't be anything other than a, a diehard royalist. And of course, um, when Charles II returned, he was, Ren was able to present back to the king the registers of the order of the garter on bended knee. They are your majesty. They were saved by my family. So, um, it, you know, the, his royalist credentials, uh, didn't hold him back. And I think his, his brilliance just carried him through. Wouldn't it be nice if that happened? Yeah, I, I was rather hoping we could have somewhere nice to get together as professors at Gresham College, but<laugh>, yes. Many centuries ago. Speaking of brilliance, um, it's, I think your last scheduled lecture for Ham College, very sadly. Um, I'm hoping we can persuade you back in the future, but you've been doing it since 2009. I discovered when I look back as Professor of the Built Environment, um, all the lectures have been erudite, entertaining, enthusiastic, educational, wonderful, and delivered with great charm and elegance. And, uh, we'll miss you doing that very much indeed. Um, and as I say, I hope to entice you back again and perhaps with a little bribery. Oh, Marvelous. Oh, thank you very much. So, ladies, gentlemen, please join me in thanking.