his will, made 14 Feb. 1596–7, a few months before his death, he was then a clothworker of the parish of St. Benet, Paul's Wharf, and he appointed his son, Inigo, his executor. He was to be buried by the side of his wife, in the chancel of the church of St. Benet; and all he possessed, after the payment of his debts, was left equally among his son and his three daughters, Joan, Judith, and Mary. The will was proved by Inigo 5 April 1597. The father appears to have been a Roman catholic, and Inigo adhered to that faith.
Vertue has preserved a tradition from Sir Christopher Wren, that Jones was in his youth ‘put apprentice to a joiner in Paul's Churchyard’ (Addit. MS. 23069, fol. 19), a statement that seems corroborated by Ben Jonson's caricature of him as a joiner of Islington in ‘A Tale of a Tub.’ It is a matter of more certainty that he was early distinguished by his inclination to drawing, or designing, and particularly for his skill in landscape-painting. His artistic promise recommended him to William Herbert, third earl of Pembroke [q. v.], at whose expense he travelled as a youth ‘over Italy and the politer parts of Europe’ (‘Life’ prefixed to Stoneheng Restored, ed. 1725; Lloyd, Memoirs, 1677, p. 577). Thomas Howard, second earl of Arundel [q. v.], who was thirteen years Jones's junior, was a later patron, but was too young, although he has been credited with the distinction, to assist him at the outset of his career (Addit. MS. 23069, fol. 19 v.) A landscape by Jones belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, formerly at Chiswick, is now at Chatsworth. ‘The colouring,’ says Walpole, ‘is very indifferent, but the trees freely and masterly imagined’ (ib. 23069 fol. 39, 23070 fol. 24 v.)
According to his own general statement, Jones while in Italy studied attentively the ruins of ancient buildings (Stoneheng Restored, 1655, p. 1). John Webb, his pupil and the husband of his kinswoman, relates that he spent much time at Venice, and was summoned thence to Denmark by Christian IV, who ‘first ingrossed him to himself’ There is an uncorroborated tradition that when in Denmark he built a palace for Christian IV, and a portion of the Fredericksborg has been incorrectly attributed to him, from its resemblance to the court of Heriot's Hospital in Edinburgh (Addit. MS. 23070, fol. 24 v.; Feldborg, Denmark Delineated, 1824, p. 88). But Webb is in error in stating that Jones came back to England with Christian IV in July 1606. He returned home a year and a half earlier. On Twelfth Night 1604–5, when Ben Jonson's ‘Masque of Blackness’ was presented at Whitehall by Queen Anne, he designed the scenes, machines, and dress, of which the first edition (n. d. 4to) supplies a full description. In August of the same year, 1605, Jones was entrusted by the university of Oxford with the direction of the performance of three plays, given in the hall of Christ Church, before James I (Leland, Collectanea, 1770, ii. 631, see also p. 646). Shifting scenery seems to have been then first employed in England. It is probable that it was borrowed by Jones from Italy, like the elaborate machinery which he used in the court masques. The ingenious scenic devices introduced by him into Ben Jonson's ‘Hymenæi, or the Solemnities of Masque and Barrier’ (twice performed at court January 1605–6), are commended by Jonson at length in the printed copy of 1606 (see Cotton. MS. Jul. C. iii. fol. 301). Jones took a similar part in the presentation at court of Ben Jonson's ‘Hue and Cry after Cupid’ on Shrove Tuesday, 1607–8, and of Jonson's ‘Masque of Queens’ on 2 Feb. 1608–9, in which Queen Anne acted. On 16 June 1609 payment was ordered to be made to Jones ‘for carrying letters for his majesty's service into France.’ A manuscript note in his copy of Vitruvius records his presence in Paris at the time (Addit. MS. 23073, fol. 51 v.) On 11 Dec. of the same year a warrant was issued for the payment to Jones and others of the money required for Prince Henry's exercises at the barriers (Warrant Book, ii. 125), i.e. probably for the feats of arms performed at Whitehall on Twelfth Night 1609–10 (Birch, Life of Prince Henry, 1760, p. 182).
When, on 4 June 1610, Jones arranged the performance at Whitehall of Samuel Daniel's masque, ‘Tethys Festival, or the Queen's Wake,’ his ingenuity, according to Daniel, surpassed itself. ‘In these things,’ wrote the poet, ‘wherein the only life consists in show, the art and invention of the architect gives the greatest grace, and is of most importance; ours, the least part and of least note’ (Tethys Festival, 4to, 1610; State Papers, Dom. liv. 74, liii. 4). No mention is made in the printed copies of the part which Jones took at the Christmas following in producing Ben Jonson's ‘Love freed from Ignorance and Folly,’ although the architect's bill of charges is preserved among the ‘Pells Records’ (P. Cunningham, Life, Shak. Soc., 1848, p. 10). The omission on Jonson's part is the first sign of a breach between Jones and himself.
Upon Prince Henry's creation as Prince of Wales, in December 1610, Jones was appointed his surveyor of the works (Harl. MS. 252, art. 2, fol. 12 v.) at a fee of 3s. per diem, to date from 13 Jan. 1610–11, and he
