reprint of Daniel’s Masque, Mr. Ernest Law has pieced together, from contemporary letters and other documents, a very full account of a scene the splendour of which can be but hinted at here.

IV

It is with the coming of William the Third and Mary to rule the kingdom, a work for which James the Second had proved himself unfit, that Hampton Court came to be formed as we know it now. King James seems never to have stayed in the Palace after his accession, but his daughter and her husband soon made of it a favourite and favoured residence. It is to William and Mary that the Palace owes its beautiful galleries and many of the art treasures in them. Calling to his aid Sir Christopher Wren, King William resolved to rebuild a large part of the great Tudor palace, and mould it nearer to his heart’s desire. A considerable part of the place was entirely demolished, comprising the whole series of buildings around the Cloister Green Court, and forming the south-eastern portion in which were the royal rooms that formed the residential centre of the extensive palace. Where this large part of the old edifice had been razed Wren erected, in striking contrast to the Tudor portions left standing north and west of it, the Renaissance building, which is probably remembered by many visitors as the chief feature of Hampton Court. Contrasting strongly with the earlier portions of the Palace the new fronts and the beautiful Fountain Court yet do not clash with them, thanks to the way in which the architect carried out his work.

While the new additions were being made to the Palace King William and Queen Mary frequently stayed at Hampton Court, the Water Gallery—a detached portion of the Tudor buildings standing on the riverside at the end of what is now the Broad Walk—being furnished and decorated to afford a temporary residence. Not only were the State Chambers rebuilt in this reign, but the gardens were newly laid out and planted—a work in which the Queen greatly interested herself. Despite these vast changes yet more were contemplated, for Sir Christopher Wren had planned a new approach and entrance on the north side. Her Majesty did not live to occupy the State Apartments, and her death in 1694 delayed for several years the completion of the work. As for King William, he, too, did not live long to enjoy his new palace, for having come hither on 21 February, 1702, from Kensington Palace for a day’s hunting, his horse stumbled—presumably in Hampton Court Park—throwing the King so that he broke his collar bone. William had for some time been suffering in health, but when the broken bone was set he insisted on returning to Kensington, and there he died on 8 March, just over a fortnight later.

Queen Anne was at Hampton Court many times during her reign of a dozen years, but the story of that reign is not much associated with the Palace, though that association is immortalized in a couplet of Pope’s Rape of the Lock, the scene of which comedy-narrative is set here. Here the bold baron of the poem cut one of the tempting locks from the fair Belinda’s head, and a family feud followed which was only stopped by Pope’s delightful poem.

With the coming of the Hanoverians the importance of the Palace as a Court centre dwindled. It is true that George the First and his son, while Prince of Wales, were often at Hampton Court, and that the latter when he became George the Second carried out a number of minor alterations; but the place became less regularly and less notably a centre of royal pageantry, though it was more than once made the centre of state theatrical performances. King George the Third never took up his residence here at all, owing, it is said, to the fact that it was here that his grandfather had boxed his ears! It was, indeed, during his long reign that the removal of many furnishings of the Palace, and the systematic allotting of suites of rooms to people who had some claim on royal gratitude took place. After the death of George the Second Hampton Court ceased to be used as a royal residence, and shortly after the accession of Queen Victoria the State Apartments were thrown open to the public, and the Palace gradually came to be recognized as one of the most delightful and interesting centres of historical association within easy reach of the metropolis.

V

It has been seen that Hampton Court Palace has associations—often peculiar and intimate associations—with our monarchs for close upon three hundred years. In the first two chief courts, in the Great Hall, the kitchens, the old cloisters, and the courts along the north side of the building, it is not a difficult effort of the imagination that is required to make us see it as it was in the brightly-attired days of Tudor splendour and lavishness; to make us realize the arrival in one of the courts of some noble company, when the great Cardinal was entertaining and when King Henry was setting forth hunting; to make us realize the hurrying of the cooks and their minions in the corridors and cloisters about the great kitchens, the knots of idlers and retainers in the lesser courts. In the later portions of the Palace, the Fountain Court and the State Chambers, we may, “with the mind’s eye”, see something of the more formal brightness of a later day, may see the beaux and beauties of the early eighteenth century promenading or “taking tea” with “proud Anna whom three realms obey”.

The casual visitor to Hampton Court probably carries away two or three definite impressions of the place, of a medley of decorated chimneystacks, of warm red brick, of cool quadrangles, of broad lawns and blazing flower beds, of an outlook over a boat-dotted river, of galleries filled with a bewildering succession of old paintings, of tapestried walls—and of the whole set amid stretching tree-grown levels. It is, however, necessary to know the place closely to appreciate it fully—it grows upon one, as the saying is; we should have seen the homely court of the Master Carpenter as well as the stately Fountain Court, the sculptures in the gardens as well as the encyclopædic clock, the kitchens as well as the picture galleries, to have lingered about the Wilderness in the spring as well as to have seen the Broad Walk in the blaze of summer, to have visited in some of the residences as well as to have passed through the public galleries, to have been about it at all seasons and not merely to have scampered through it as the central incident in a half-day’s excursion. It is, indeed, properly a place for restful enjoyment rather than for hurried sightseeing; though a hurried glimpse may well prove a provocation to further visits and more leisurely inspection.