37-601: The Cockpit can refer to: Cockpit Theatre , a 17th-century theatre in London (also known as the Phoenix) that opened in 1616 The Cockpit , a theatre in London, England that opened in 1970 The Cockpit (OVA) , a three-part anime series made in 1993 based on manga by artist Leiji Matsumoto The Cockpit (Leeds) , a musical venue in Leeds, England that opened in 1994 The Cockpit, London ,
74-540: A grand mansion with coach house, stables, and a view over the Thames, all within the palace network. Charles II commissioned minor works, but made extensive renovations. Like his father, he died at the palace, but from a stroke. James II ordered various changes by Christopher Wren , including a chapel finished in 1687, rebuilding of the queen's apartments ( c. 1688 ), and the queen's private lodgings (1689). The Roman Catholic chapel of James II, constructed during
111-512: A period of fierce anti-Catholicism in England, attracted much criticism and also awe when it was completed in December 1686. The ceiling was adorned with 8,132 pieces of gold leaf, and at the east end of the nave an enormous marble altarpiece (40 ft (12 m) high by 25 ft (7.6 m) wide) designed by Wren and carved by Grinling Gibbons dominated the room. By 1691 the palace had become
148-514: A pub in London Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title The Cockpit . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Cockpit&oldid=892169104 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
185-435: A round building with a peaked roof, about 40 feet (12 m) in diameter, it was erected under Henry VIII, c. 1530-32, as part of a gaming complex. Records indicate a major restoration in 1581-82 and renovations in 1589-90, 1602-3, and 1608-9 (the latter under the supervision of John Best, "cockmaster" to Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales , King James I's eldest son and heir). In August 1616, Christopher Beeston acquired
222-524: A small town than a single building. The irregularity of the buildings was increased by the penchant of courtiers to build onto their assigned lodgings, either at their own expense or that of the king's. Stephen Fox , Charles II's Clerk of the Green Cloth , obtained permission from the Office of Works in the 1660s to build additions to the three rooms he was assigned. By the time he was finished he had constructed
259-462: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Cockpit Theatre The Cockpit was a theatre in London , operating from 1616 to around 1665. It was the first theatre to be located near Drury Lane . After damage in 1617, it was named The Phoenix . The original building was an actual cockpit; that is, a staging area for cockfights . Most likely
296-559: Is off Drury Lane roughly opposite where the entrance to Cockpit Alley was. 51°30′47″N 0°07′14″W / 51.51306°N 0.12056°W / 51.51306; -0.12056 Palace of Whitehall The Palace of Whitehall – also spelled White Hall – at Westminster was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, with the notable exception of Inigo Jones 's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. Henry VIII moved
333-523: Is the only integral building of the complex now standing, although it has been somewhat modified. Various other parts of the old palace still exist, often incorporated into new buildings in the Whitehall government complex. These include a tower and other parts of the former covered tennis courts from the time of Henry VIII, built into the Old Treasury and Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall. Beginning in 1938,
370-822: The Banqueting House , some buildings survived in Scotland Yard and some facing the park, along with the so-called Holbein Gate , eventually demolished in 1769. During the fire many works of art were destroyed, probably including Michelangelo 's Cupid , a famous sculpture bought as part of the Gonzaga collections in the seventeenth century. Also lost were Hans Holbein the Younger 's iconic Whitehall Mural , including his Portrait of Henry VIII and Gian Lorenzo Bernini 's marble portrait bust of King Charles I . The Banqueting House
407-541: The Commonwealth . The Cockpit was used as a schoolroom, but plays continued to be shown illegally. It was raided by Puritan soldiers during a performance in 1649 and the players were imprisoned. In 1651 William Beeston paid £200 for repairs to the theatre, in the hope that he would be able to start performances there again — though the hope proved illusory. In the last years of the English Interregnum , under
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#1732851881025444-674: The King's Company , led by Thomas Killigrew . Both companies briefly made use of the earlier generation of theatres including the Cockpit and the Salisbury Court Theatre , but quickly moved to newer and more fashionable venues — Davenant in 1661 to a theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields that was once Lisle's Tennis Court , and Killigrew in 1660 to Gibbon's Tennis Court in Vere Street. The Cockpit
481-597: The Serjeant Painters Nicholas Lafore and Anthony Toto . Henry VIII married two of his wives at the palace—Anne Boleyn in 1533 and Jane Seymour in 1536, and died there in January 1547. Anne of Denmark 's secretary, William Fowler wrote Latin verses and anagrams for a sundial in the garden, restored by the orders of James VI and I . In 1611, the palace hosted the first known performance of William Shakespeare 's play The Tempest . In February 1613 it
518-634: The Cockpit in Beeston's lifetime was one of his own creation, the King and Queen's Young Company, colloquially known as Beeston's Boys — the last assembly of boy actors in the period. They would continue in the theatre under the management of his son William . William Beeston was forced out of the theatre when his choice of plays met with the disapproval of the Court. He was replaced by William Davenant in 1639. All theatres were closed by Parliament in 1642, under
555-569: The King's Surveyor of Works, was ordered expressly by William III to focus manpower on saving the architectural jewel of the complex, the Banqueting House. Wren ordered bricklayers to block up the main window on the building's south side to block the flames from entering. Around 20 buildings were destroyed to create a firebreak , but this did little to inhibit the westward spread of the flames. John Evelyn noted succinctly on 5 January: "Whitehall burnt! nothing but walls and ruins left." Besides
592-650: The Thames)—a total of about 23 acres (9.3 ha). It was about 710 yards (650 m) from Westminster Abbey . By the 13th century, the Palace of Westminster had become the centre of government in England, and had been the main metropolitan residence of the king since 1049. The surrounding area became a popular and expensive location. Walter de Grey , Archbishop of York , bought a nearby property as his Westminster residence soon after 1240, calling it York Place. King Edward I stayed at York Place on several occasions while work
629-641: The building and cut up the costumes. Beeston's rapid restoration of the playhouse after the riot may explain why it was sometimes called the Phoenix. Like earlier theatres, such as The Theatre in Shoreditch and The Globe in Southwark , the location was just outside the jurisdiction of the City of London . Beeston expanded the original small building; the construction work prompted complaints by neighbors, which left traces in
666-535: The case that the theatre is the Cockpit, while allowing that he cannot produce conclusive evidence to that end. (In 1629, Inigo Jones would design another "Cockpit" theatre, a private one within Whitehall called the Cockpit-in-Court or Royal Cockpit.) Beeston intended the Cockpit to serve as an indoor complement to the Red Bull , the outdoor theatre then home to his acting troupe, Queen Anne's Men . A winter venue
703-739: The common conceit that music was not acting, Davenant was permitted to present two licensed operas in the Cockpit: The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru in 1658 and Sir Francis Drake in 1659. The theatres were permitted to reopen after the English Restoration in 1660, when Charles II granted Letters Patent to two companies to perform "legitimate drama" in London: the Duke's Company , led by Davenant, and
740-470: The company of Anne Boleyn . The name 'Whitehall' was first recorded in 1532; it had its origins in the white stone used for the buildings. King Henry VIII hired the Flemish artist Anton van den Wyngaerde to redesign York Place, and he extended it during his lifetime. Inspired by Richmond Palace , he included sporting facilities, with a bowling green , indoor real tennis court , a pit for cock fighting (on
777-403: The death of Anne of Denmark in 1619, their place was taken by Prince Charles's Men from 1619 to 1622. Lady Elizabeth's Men were there from 1622 to 1624, and perhaps for sporadic periods as early as 1619 (the two companies, Prince Charles's and Lady Elizabeth's, had combined for a time ca. 1615). Queen Henrietta's Men had a long run at the Cockpit, from 1625 to 1636. The last troupe to occupy
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#1732851881025814-530: The east side of the site was redeveloped with the building now housing the Ministry of Defence (MOD), now known as the Ministry of Defence Main Building . An undercroft from Wolsey 's Great Chamber, now known as Henry VIII's Wine Cellar, a fine example of a Tudor brick-vaulted roof some 70 feet (21 m) long and 30 feet (9 m) wide, was found to interfere not just with the plan for the new building but also with
851-526: The expanding Palace of Versailles , which was to reach 2,400 rooms. At its most expansive, the palace extended over much of the area bordered by Northumberland Avenue in the north; to Downing Street and nearly to Derby Gate in the south; and from roughly the elevations of the current buildings facing Horse Guards Road in the west, to the then banks of the River Thames in the east (the construction of Victoria Embankment has since reclaimed more land from
888-434: The four corners of the earth, and the four elements. The forty rooms of the lodgings provided for King James's favourite Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset included a picture gallery in a converted bowling alley. James VI and I made significant changes to the buildings, notably the construction in 1622 of a new Banqueting House built to a design by Inigo Jones to replace a series of previous banqueting houses dating from
925-725: The largest and most complex in Europe . On 10 April a fire broke out in the much-renovated apartment previously used by the Duchess of Portsmouth , damaging the older palace structures, though apparently not the state apartments . This actually gave a greater cohesiveness to the remaining complex. At the end of 1694 Mary II died in Kensington Palace of smallpox , and on the following 24 January lay in state at Whitehall; William and Mary had avoided Whitehall in favour of their palace at Kensington. A second fire on 4 January 1698 destroyed most of
962-451: The lease to the building and converted it to an indoor playhouse. In March 1617, rioting apprentices attempted to destroy the playhouse, probably out of anger that their favorite plays had been removed from the Red Bull outdoor amphitheater, which charged only one penny for admission, to this more expensive (six-penny) venue. The actors shot at the rioters, killing three. The apprentices entered
999-474: The legal records of the time. The resulting theatre was, by one estimate, 52 feet (16 m) by 37 feet (11 m), "noticeably smaller than the Blackfriars ." The architect commissioned for the renovation is not known for a certainty, but circumstantial evidence points to Inigo Jones . Two sheets drawn by Jones and showing the interior and exterior design of some theatre have survived; John Orrell makes
1036-548: The proposed route for Horse Guards Avenue . Following a request from Queen Mary in 1938 and a promise in Parliament, provision was made for the preservation of the cellar. Accordingly, it was encased in steel and concrete and relocated 9 feet (3 m) to the west and nearly 19 feet (6 m) deeper in 1949, when construction resumed on the site after the Second World War. This was carried out without any significant damage to
1073-423: The remaining residential and government buildings. It was started inadvertently by a servant in an upper room who had hung wet linen around a burning charcoal brazier to dry. The linen caught fire and the flames quickly spread throughout the palace complex, raging for 15 hours before firefighters could extinguish it. The following day, the wind picked up and re-ignited the fire farther north. Christopher Wren, then
1110-568: The royal residence to White Hall after the old royal apartments at the nearby Palace of Westminster were themselves destroyed by fire. Although the Whitehall palace has not survived, the area where it was located is still called Whitehall and has remained a centre of the British government . White Hall was at one time the largest palace in Europe, with more than 1,500 rooms, before itself being overtaken by
1147-491: The site of the Cabinet Office, 70 Whitehall ) and a tiltyard for jousting (now the site of Horse Guards Parade ). It is estimated that more than £ 30,000 (several million at present-day value) were spent during the 1540s, half as much again as the construction of the entire Bridewell Palace . Henry VIII decorated his gardens with carved heraldic beasts , including unicorns, set on wooden posts. The posts were painted by
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1184-474: The time of Elizabeth I . Its decoration was finished in 1634 with the completion of a ceiling by Peter Paul Rubens , commissioned by Charles I (who was to be executed in front of the building in 1649). By 1650 Whitehall Palace was the largest complex of secular buildings in England, with more than 1,500 rooms. Its layout was irregular, and its constituent parts were of many different sizes and in several different architectural styles, making it look more like
1221-470: The two patent companies . There is no record of any play being mounted at the Cockpit after 1665; the eventual fate of the structure is unknown. The Phoenix was located in the middle of the area bounded today by Drury Lane, Great Queen Street, Great Wild Street, and Kemble Street. The entrance to the theatre was in Cockpit Alley, which ran from Drury Lane to Great Wild Street; the present-day Martlett Court
1258-480: Was also used in this era by the companies of John Rhodes and George Jolly . Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary of several visits to the theatre between 1660 and 1663. In 1663, Killigrew's King's Company opened the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane nearby. The Cockpit was unable to compete with this relatively grand new theatre and was further hamstrung since it was shut out of the monopoly on "legitimate drama" granted to
1295-550: Was carried out at Westminster, and enlarged it to accommodate his entourage. York Place was rebuilt during the 15th century and was expanded so much by Cardinal Wolsey that it was rivalled by only Lambeth Palace as the greatest house in the capital city, the King's palaces included. Consequently, when King Henry VIII removed the cardinal from power in 1530, he acquired York Place to replace Westminster (the royal residential, or 'privy', area of which had been gutted by fire in 1512) as his main residence, inspecting its possessions in
1332-573: Was needed to compete with the Blackfriars Theatre in the possession of their rival troupe, the King's Men . After a rocky start, the company proved successful in their new locale. Wickham attributes the success more to the theatre's location and comfort and to the flair of its manager, Beeston, than to the quality of its performers. Beeston would oversee several different troupes in the Cockpit before his death in 1639. Queen Anne's Men were there from 1617 to 1619; when that company dissolved upon
1369-462: Was the venue for the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V of the Palatinate . Anne of Denmark's apartments were painted in "antique work" by John de Critz and the fireplaces carved by Maximilian Colt . A withdrawing chamber for James VI and I featured a wind dial or compass connected to a weather vane on the roof, and the room was painted by John de Critz with a scheme of the four winds,
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