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
2nd Parliament of King Charles I 2nd Parliament of King Charles I The Second Parliament of Charles I was summoned by Charles I of England on 26 December 1625 in another attempt to solve his growing monetary problems. The King deliberately set out to secure a more docile body than his 1st Parliament by attempting to reduce the numerical strength of his opponents that were returned to the House of Commons. The main tactic he employed was to ensure that a number of the people who were potentially troublesome MPs were chosen to be sheriffs of their county. This prevented the MPs from being elected to