For three years no masque had been presented at Whitehall, lest ‘the smoke of many lights’ might damage the ceiling of the banqueting house, then lately adorned with paintings by Rubens; but at the end of 1637 a temporary room of timber ‘for that use’ was hastily erected from Jones's design, and ‘Britannia Triumphans,’ by Jones and D'Avenant (4to, 1637), was presented on the Sunday after Twelfth Night, 1637–8. The queen's masque, presented on the Shrove Tuesday following, was called ‘Luminalia, or the Festival of Light,’ of which the argument, songs, and description were published (4to, 1637) with Jones's name alone (cf. Wood, Athenæ, 1721, i. 498). On 21 Jan. 1639–40 D'Avenant's ‘Salmacida Spolia,’ designed by Jones, was presented at Whitehall, and was the last of Charles I's masques (4to, 1639). The working drawings for the stage and scenery are preserved in Lansdowne MS. 1171.
In 1641 the parishioners of St. Gregory, ‘by Pauls,’ complained to the House of Commons that Jones had demolished or caused them to demolish their church by high-handed proceedings, and petitioned that he should be forced to rebuild it. The charge was read in the commons for the third time, 19 July 1641, and was then transmitted to the lords, before whom Jones attended. He denied that he was guilty of the offence ‘in the manner and form’ in which it was expressed. But when the lords directed the commons to bring their witnesses before them on 13 May 1642, the latter declined, by resolution dated 11 May, to proceed by way of impeachment, and the matter dropped (Lords' Journals, 1641–2, vols. iv. and v. passim; Commons' Journals, 1641–2, vol. ii.; Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. pp. 89, 109). On 12 March 1642–3 the lords granted part of the materials collected for the repairs of the cathedral to the parishioners of St. Gregory for the restoration of their church (Dugdale, St. Paul's, 1658, p. 173).
On 10 Jan. 1641–2 the king left Whitehall; and on 25 July, when the court was at Burleigh, he signed a receipt for 500l., lent by Jones (State Papers, Dom. ccccxci. 92). The reports of Jones, as surveyor of the works and commissioner for buildings, continued to come before parliament until 15 March 1642–3 (Lords' Journals, v. 52 b; Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. App. pp. 38, 76). It was probably during this time that he and Nicholas Stone, according to a tradition preserved by Vertue, buried ‘their joint stock of ready money’ in Scotland Yard; but ‘there being an order come out to reward informers with half, four persons knowing the place, it was re-taken up again and buried in Lambeth Marsh’ (Addit. MS. 23069, fol. 11 v.). Jones finally took refuge with the Marquis of Winchester in Basing House. He was there during the siege, which lasted from August 1643 until 14 Oct. 1645, when Cromwell took the place by storm, and the inhabitants were made prisoners (Lloyd, Memoirs, 1677, p. 577; Faithorne, Art of Graving, 1662, sig. A, &c.; Carlyle, Letters and Speeches of Cromwell, coll. ed. i. 245; see also Hugh Peter, Relation of the Rifling of Basing House, London, 1645). Jones's estate was sequestrated; but he applied to the committee for compounding, 7 March 1645–6, when he urged that he had never borne arms against the parliament, nor had given information to the enemy, while he had absented himself from his house for three and a half years. On 30 May 1646 545l. was accepted as his fine, and 500l. for his fifth and twentieth part; and on 2 July an ordinance of the commons was confirmed by the lords for his pardon and for the restitution of his estate (Cal. Committee for Compounding, Dom. p. 112; Lords' Journals, 1646, viii. 342 a, 344 a, 350 b).
Jones was thus free to return to his profession. In 1648 the south side of Wilton House had been destroyed by fire, and was rebuilt by Philip Herbert, fourth earl of Pembroke, with ‘the advice of Inigo Jones; but he being then very old, could not be there in person, but left it to Mr. Webb’ (Aubrey, Natural History of Wiltshire, 1847, p. 84). Jones also built a grotto and the stables at Wilton, and the drawings are preserved at Worcester College and Chatsworth (cf. Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus, 1717–25, ii. 61–67). Jones's relations with the fourth Earl of Pembroke were far from inharmonious [see Herbert, Philip].
On 22 July 1650 Jones made his will, leaving property to John Webb, his pupil and executor, who married Anne Jones, his kinswoman; to Richard Gammon, who married Elizabeth Jones, another kinswoman; and to Mary Wagstaffe, widow, a third kinswoman, and to their children. He also made some small bequests to Stephen Page ‘for his faithful service;’ to John Damford, carpenter, among others; and to the poor of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields and St. Benet's, Paul's Wharf (P. Cunningham, Life, 1848, p. 49). He died unmarried, on 21 June 1652, at Somerset House, according to Vertue, and was buried by the side of his father and mother in the church of St. Benet, on 26 June. His monument, for which he left 100l., carved with reliefs of the porticos of St. Paul's Cathedral and the church in Covent Garden, was placed against the north wall of the church, was
