In the reign of Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, then Lord Chancellor and the Archibishop of York, had use of the London residence of the Archbishops of York which was called 'York Place' and lay just north of the Westminster Palace area. Wolsey had carried out major rebuilding at York Place, creating a modern, palatial residence. With the fall of Wolsey in 1529 Henry VIII appropriated the whole area for his personal use. This formed the basis of the new 'Whitehall' Palace. (The term 'Whitehall', first recorded in 1532, had its origin in the white ashlar stone used for Wolsey's Palace).
Following this acquisition of York Place, Westminster was used only for ceremonial purposes and the administrative processes that it already housed. This was confirmed by an Act of Parliament of 1535 which declared the:
'old and ancient palace of Westminster' to 'only a member and parcell of the said new Palace'.
While Shakespeare, in his play 'Henry VII', includes the following lines:
'Sir, you must no more call it York Place; that's past. For since the Cardinal fell, that title's lost; 'Tis now the King's and called Whitehall'
Henry VIII not only continued Wolsey's building programme but he extended it, acquiring properties on the west side of the thoroughfare from Westminster to Charing Cross and enclosing the adjacent fields to form what is now St. James's Park.
The palace covered 23 acres between St James's Park and the river. On the park side of the road, Henry VIII built his pleasure buildings, similar to those he built later at Hampton Court. These included four covered courts for real or 'royal' tennis, a bowling alley, a cockpit, a tiltyard and a pheasant yard. On the river side of the road were the Royal Apartments, the Great Hall, the Chapel, the Privy Gardens, nobleman's lodgings and, towards Charing Cross, numerous service buildings such as kitchens, a coal wharf and stables at Charing Cross itself.
Whitehall became the premier palace of the Tudors and Stuarts. However, in 1698 in the reign of William III it was almost entirely destroyed by fire, allegedly due to the carelessness of a Dutch washerwoman, one of William III's servants, who set some linen to dry by a charcoal fire in one of the lodgings by the river. The linen caught fire and this quickly spread through the palace, which had become very ramshackle and which had seen many previous outbreaks of fire – including a serious one in 1691. Following the fire, St James's Palace (also built by Henry VIII) became the official London residence of the sovereign. The former Palace site was used both for a number of fine 18th century town houses as well as less stately buildings housing both government officials and private citizens and businesses. These in their turn were demolished to make way for the Government offices which occupy the area today.