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:
"In January, 1603-4, was held at Hampton Court a kind of
Theological Convention of intense interest all over
England ... now very dimly known, if at all known, as
the 'Hampton Court Conference'. It was a meeting for the
settlement of some dissentient humours in religion....
Four world-famous Doctors from Oxford and Cambridge
represented the pious straitened class, now beginning to
be generally conspicuous under the nickname _Puritans_.
The Archbishop, the Bishop of London, also world-famous
men, with a considerable reserve of other bishops,
deans, and dignitaries, appeared for the Church by
itself Church."
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:
"They have chosen such an hour
When she is the only flower."
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."
[Illustration: 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".