Banqueting House, Whitehall room at Wilton House, to display Van Dyck's portraits of the aristocratic Pembroke family. Given the attention and effort which were lavished by Charles I on the Banqueting House, his end was not without irony. On the afternoon of 30 January 1649 he stepped out of a first floor window of Banqueting House onto the scaffold which had been erected outside for the purpose of his execution. The actual window no longer exists as it was not in the main hall but just outside it in an adjacent part of the building which has now gone and, pictured from the
Whitehall Group visits to Spanish royal and noble picture collections, which awakened the interest of Charles in what could be achieved by art. He also accompanied Buckingham to Paris when Charles married Henrietta Maria by proxy. He continued to act on behalf of Buckingham and (after Buckingham's assassination) other members of the Whitehall group. In 1640, he wrote to both the King and the Earl of Arundel announcing the death of Rubens and pointing out the opportunity this provided to acquire fine paintings. Daniel Nys was "a strange, shadowy, Flemish dealer who knew Italy well". In 162I he facilitated the purchase of