KENNINGTON PALACE
No royal house has more completely vanished from sight, and even from
memory, than the royal palace of Kennington. Few know that such a
palace ever existed, and certainly those who dwell upon its site would
require to be possessed of keen imaginations, to realize that once all
the pageantry of a medieval Court took place, where to-day monotonous
streets crowd upon one another. Yet Parliaments assembled and all
the ceremonies of State were performed on a spot not far from where
Kennington Park now stands. The whim of royal fancy was the cause of
the complete obliteration of the palace, other royal houses pleasing
the later Kings more than the one upon Lambeth Marsh. Low-lying
ground, only redeemed from complete marshland by the embankment of the
river, lay between it and the City of London on the north. As it was
not until quite the end of the eighteenth century that houses began
to be built upon this district, the land being up till then used
as market-gardens, it is not surprising that when the palace was
destroyed it soon passed from men's minds, no one living in the
neighbourhood. The exact date of the destruction of the palace is not
known, but its oblivion was almost complete when Camden, the great
antiquarian, wrote in 1607, for he says: "The Royal seat call'd
Kennington, whither the Kings of England us'd to retire, the discovery
whereof 'tis vain to endeavour after, there appearing neither name nor
rubbish to direct us."
Though no vestige of the palace now remains, it is reasonable to
conjecture, from the analogy of contemporary palaces which still
exist, that Kennington Palace was a fortified building, with a
strongly embattled wall and deep moat. Deserted by Henry VIII., who
found Eltham and Greenwich more to his taste, the building materials
were all sold and the palace razed to the ground. Some kind of Tudor
manor-house was built upon the site, for a survey taken about the
middle of the seventeenth century describes a building of some fair
size. Close to it stood a low stone structure with a thatched roof,
known as the "Long Barn," which was thought to be part of the old
palace. It stood until 1795, when it was pulled down, removing the
last trace of historic interest.
As one loses oneself among the maze of houses and streets of
Kennington, it is difficult to believe that in the lost palace which
rose above the marsh of long ago Harold Harefoot, the son of Cnut,
was crowned, Harthacnut, his brother, died either by treachery or
accident, and Henry III. held two Parliaments. But of all the Kings
whose memory should haunt the spot, the most to be remembered is
Richard II., the handsome, popular, pleasure-loving and magnificent
Prince. After the early death of his father, the Black Prince, young
Richard had been brought up in the palace by his widowed mother.
In later years Richard brought his child-wife, the fair Isabella of
France, to Kennington Palace, to rest there for the night before she
entered London in state. She was then only eight years old, and was
never anything more than Queen in name, for long before she was
old enough to be a wife her attractive but unwise husband had been
murdered by his enemies.