If under the Tudors—more especially the pleasure-loving Henry and the display-loving Elizabeth—Hampton Court was the scene of much splendid pageantry, under the Stuart monarchs it was the scene of more varied happenings, even as it was the home of yet more varied rulers. The Stuart regime began, however, quite in the spirit of the Palace traditions, for here, during the first Christmas after James had ascended the English throne, there were grand festivities including the presentation of some of those masques then coming into vogue. Indeed, Daniel’s Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, presented in the Great Hall here by the Queen and her Ladies of Honour on 8 January, 1604, has been described as the first true masque in the literary sense. Many contemporary letters throw light on this Christmas celebration, when, if one letter writer is to be believed, as many as thirty masques and interludes were presented, when all the Court, the foreign ambassadors and their attendants thronged to Hampton Court. The twelve hundred rooms of the Palace did not suffice, many people had to put up in the outbuildings, while tents were erected in the park for a number of the servants—the fact that three or four people died daily in these tents from the plague (then ravaging London) does not appear to have been allowed to interfere with the festivities. There was tilting and running at the ring in the park and other diversions, but the masquings seem to have formed the most important part of the celebration, and of these, of course, the chief was that “Vision” in which the Queen took part in the Great Hall. King James sat in state on the dais by the great oriel window, spectators were presumably ranged in tiers along either side of the hall, and from a “heaven” above the Minstrels’ Gallery the goddesses descended to their dancing on the floor of the hall. The “scenes” at either end of the hall were designed by no less notable a craftsman than Inigo Jones.[1]

That same month of January, 1604, which saw here such magnificent masquings saw also in Hampton Court a gathering of a very different kind—a gathering which, although it proved abortive so far as its particular purpose was concerned, yet had one remarkable consequence. Says Carlyle in his survey of the beginnings of the seventeenth-century prefatory to the Cromwell letters:

The one great consequence of the Conference was the undertaking of the Authorized Translation of the Bible; for the rest, the King eloquently “scouted to the wind” the Puritans, and threatened that if they did not conform he would hurry them out of the country. Thus early in the years of the Stuart rule may be said to have begun at Hampton Court that struggle between conformity and nonconformity which was to have momentous results later on in the same century.

When Charles the First succeeded his father as King, Hampton Court continued a favourite royal residence. This monarch appears to have had something of the same dread of the plague as inspired Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth, and when it broke out in London he hurriedly removed the Court to this Palace and issued a proclamation prohibiting all communication with the capital during the continuance of the visitation. He and his queen seem to have particularly favoured this one of their palaces, and not only made frequent stays here but continually added to the works of art and furnishings of the rooms.

Hampton Court was also to have its part in those later chapters of the life of the vacillating king which led up to the tragic finish at Whitehall. On 10 January, 1642, King Charles journeyed from London to Hampton and arrived here for the last time as a free king. The inevitable breaking-point had come, and hence he set forth to the early scenes of civil war. He was not at Hampton Court again until the August of 1647, and then it was virtually as a prisoner “in the power of those execrable villains”, who had the courage to regard the welfare of the people before that of their titular ruler. Leaving his cloak in the gallery by way of diverting suspicion, on 11 November, 1647, the King “passed by the backstairs and vault to the waterside” and so made good his escape, and fled in a fashion that made any reconciliation of the opposing parties impossible.

In the beginning of 1649 came the culminating tragedy and two years later the manor of Hampton Court was sold to one John Phelps. The Palace itself was presumably not included in the transaction, for shortly afterwards it was occupied by Oliver Cromwell.

During the troubles between King and Parliament some damage was done at Hampton Court—damage which may well be deplored, but which will always be done by the least thoughtful in any such conflict. We may, to-day particularly, regret the destruction of the stained glass in the windows of the Great Hall, but in defence of the iconoclasts it must be remembered that stained glass was associated by them with those aspects of religion which they were banded together to overthrow. Destruction is one of the most persistent of primitive instincts, and should such an outbreak as that of the sixteenth century occur again—there would again be wanton destruction.

Under the Commonwealth Hampton Court of course saw none of the pageantry to which kings and queens had accustomed it, but on 18 November, 1657, it was here that Oliver Cromwell’s daughter, Mary, was married to Lord Falconbridge, and the nuptials were honoured with “Two Songs” from the pen of Andrew Marvell, in one of which the poet used the courtly conceit applicable to a November marriage of:

In August of the following year the Protector’s other daughter, his favourite one, it is said, Mrs. Elizabeth Claypole, died at Hampton Court, and the grieved father was taken ill of the malady of which less than a month later he died at Whitehall. In the Journal of Fox the Quaker occurs the following striking passage about a meeting with Cromwell. “I met him riding into Hampton Court Park, and before I came to him, as he rode at the head of his life guard, I saw and felt a waft of death go forth against him, and when I came to him he looked like a dead man.”

MASTER CARPENTER’S COURT

After Oliver Cromwell’s death it was proposed that Hampton Court Palace should be sold, but the supporters of the Commonwealth under Richard Cromwell were at loggerheads on the subject, one party thinking that the place should be reserved “for the retirement of those that were engaged in Public affairs, when they should be indisposed in the summer season”, the other, “that such places might justly be accounted amongst those things that prove temptations to ambitious men, and exceedingly tend to sharpen their appetite to ascend the Throne”. To-day we may say that it is fortunate that the first party won the day, and the Parliament duly ordered “that the House called Hampton Court, with the outhouses and gardens thereunto belonging, and the little park where it stands, be stayed from sale, until the Parliament takes further order”. Still the Parliament men were evidently determined that the view taken by those who regarded such places as temptations to power should not be forgotten, for Richard Cromwell was formally taken to task for having the temerity to go to Hampton to hunt the deer! Then, despite the temptation it might prove, the Long Parliament offered Hampton Court to General Monck, but that astute man, thinking it a dangerous gift, would accept no more than the custody and stewardship of it for life—and was thus able to hand it over to Charles the Second on the accomplishment of that Restoration, in which he probably already regarded himself as an important factor.

Under the restored Stuarts the Palace became once more the scene of brilliant Court doings. Here King Charles brought his bride, Catherine of Braganza, and here took place the contest which preceded that Queen’s acceptance of Charles’s mistress, Lady Castlemaine, as one of her attendant ladies. An important development of the surroundings of the Palace was made by Charles the Second in slightly shortening the Long Canal and bordering it with avenues of limes, thus providing for later generations a lovely vista from the east front of the buildings.

Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, the diverse diarists to whom we owe so much of our intimate knowledge of their time, were both frequently here, and both have left us characteristic passages about it; Evelyn enlarging upon the art treasures and the gardens, Pepys noting that “it was pretty to see the young, pretty ladies”.

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