91³Ô¹ÏÍø

When the 1571 Royal Exchange was lost in the 1666 fire so were all of the 28 statues of monarchs since the Conquest, in the first floor niches designed to hold them. This 'Line of Monarchs', looking down onto the open courtyard, can be seen in a .  To replace these, in 1684, a plan arose that the City livery companies should each sponsor a statue for a new Line of Monarchs, to be again sited in niches at first floor level in the piazza of the new Exchange.

And then in 1838 the building again burnt down and the Line of Monarchs was again lost, but not replaced this time.

Just a few fragments were retrieved from the 1838 ruins: found some in Swanage. Philip Ward-Jackson says: "... some fragments {were} acquired by the builder John Mowlem for his home town of Swanage (these are in the grounds of the Purbeck House Hotel and on the exterior of the Town Hall."

Sometimes known as the Line of Kings despite a number of queens being included.

The with a powerful zoom, showing many of these statues (1571 and 1669), some a bit caricatureish, which is quite fun.

The royal statues shown in the earlier building are quite sketchy and not labelled but all the niches shown are occupied. At the time of the 1666 fire the Line of Monarchs contained 28 statues, with two niches still unoccupied.  Starting with William I we can only account for 25 (assuming Mathilda and Louis were both excluded and that for later monarchs the same decisions were made as for the post-fire Line of Monarchs - see below).

As for the building that existed at the time of the drawing: all 4 sides of the courtyard are shown and the statues are labelled. Thus we can report: there are 24 niches; the line of monarchs runs clockwise (left to right) starting on the south side with Edward I; no monarch appears more than once (so the Wars of the Roses switcheroo between Henry VI and Edward IV is ignored, as is the Interregnum); her 9 days reign and execution aged 17 are not enough to earn recognition here for Lady Jane Grey; a special double-niche was created to accommodate William and Mary; of the 24 niches 17 had been filled with only 7 to go; the monarchs still to be uploaded were Edward II, Richard II, Henry IV, Richard III, George I, George II, George III, although the print-maker didn't yet know the identity of the last 3. 

Sculptors interested in creating monarchs for the second Line included: John Bushnell, Caius Gabriel Cibber, Edward Pearce, Gibbons and Arnold Quellin. Quellin was commissioned for at least 8, including Henry VII, Edward IV and Charles II (a terracotta model for this statue survives in the Soane Museum; has a photo). The has "The Models for the Royal Exchange Statues of William III and Mary - clay - terracotta, ascribed to van Nost".  George IV (d.1830), by Sebastian Gahagan, was squeezed in somehow, although his father had filed in the last niche.