Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 4
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
St. James's Palace.
St. James's Palace.
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Some quarter of a mile to the westward of , there stood, in very early times, a hospital for leprous women: it was a religious foundation, and was dedicated to St. James the Less, Bishop of Jerusalem. | |
[extra_illustrations.4.100.2] now occupies the site of the above-mentioned hospital, showing what changes a place may undergo by the operation of the whirligig of time. The endowment of the hospital was for women only, being the sole objects of the charity. however, were attached to the house, in order to solemnise the religious services, and to discharge the
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According to Stow, the house had appended to it with the usual in the parish of St. Margaret, ; he goes on to say, Stow continues,
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King Edward I. confirmed these gifts to the hospital, granting to its inmates also the privilege and profits of a fair
says Mr. Newton,
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Henry VIII., however, set his covetous eyes on the place; and seeing that it was fair to view, while the sisters were defenceless, he resolved to possess himself of it, much as Ahab resolved to become master of Naboth's vineyard. He pulled down the old structure, as Holinshed tells us, and also erected a stately mansion, or, as Stow denominates it, This was in the year of his marriage with Anne Boleyn, when he had every motive for wishing to break off with the ancient faith. | |
St. James's was at that time more of a country seat than would now be supposed; indeed, more than had been any of the other residences of our sovereigns near London, except . The latter was now abandoned; the sovereign came to dwell on the Middlesex instead of on the Surrey side of the Thames; and St. James's, no doubt, was intended by the fickle-minded monarch to take its place. It stood in the middle of fields, well shaded with trees; and these fields, now the park, were enclosed as the private demesne of the palace. Incredible as it may now seem, they were then well stocked with game. The king lost no time in surrounding himself here with all the appliances for amusement, and there were both a cock-pit and a tilt-yard in front of , nearly on the site of the present Horse Guards, as we have stated in a previous chapter. | |
From the gates of , Miss Benger tells us, in her Henry VIII. delighted, on May morning, to ride forth at daybreak, having risen with the lark, and with a train of courtiers all gaily attired in white and silver, to make his way into the woods about Kensington and Hampstead, whence he brought back the fragrant May boughs in triumph. | |
says Mr. A. Wood, twined, as he might have added, in that love-knot of which he was then so fond, but which he severed by the axe in short years afterwards. | |
Henry, even whilst residing here, held his court still at the old palace, at , and | |
p.101 [extra_illustrations.4.101.1] [extra_illustrations.4.101.2] |
then at , after he had taken the latter from Wolsey, thus curiously anticipating the present day, when [extra_illustrations.4.101.3] is and contains the Throne Room and other state apartments, though it is no longer the residence of the sovereign. |
Henry's gatehouse and turrets, built of red brick, face , and with the Chapel Royal, which adjoins them on the west side, cover the site of the ancient hospital, which, to judge from the many remains of stone mullions, labels, and other masonry found in , on taking down some parts of the Chapel Royal, was of the Norman period. The lofty brick gatehouse bears upon its roof the bell of the great clock, dated A.D. , and inscribed with the name of Clay, clockmaker to George II. The clock originally had but hand. When the gatehouse was repaired, in , the clock was removed, and was not put up again on account of the roof being reported unsafe to carry the weight. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood then memorialised the king (William IV. for the replacement of the time-keeper, when his Majesty, having ascertained its weight, The clock was forthwith replaced, and a minute-hand was added, with new dials; the original dial was of wainscot,
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The archway of the gatehouse leads into the quadrangle, or as it is usually called, from the colours of the military guard of honour being placed there. Here, according to ancient practice, a regiment of the sovereign's parade daily at a.m., accompanied by their band, for the purpose of exchanging the regimental standard, and handing over the keys of the palace to the incoming commandant. Here each new sovereign is formally proclaimed on his (or her) accession to the throne. It was on the , that Her Majesty Queen Victoria was proclaimed Soon after in the morning a troop of the Life Guards drew up in line across the quadrangle, and at the youthful sovereign made her appearance at the opened window of the Tapestry Room, where she was so overcome by the affecting scene--the exclamations of joy and clapping of hands, the waving of hats and handkerchiefs--in conjunction with the eventful occurrences of the preceding day, that she instantly burst into tears; and, says an eye-witness, Meanwhile the heralds and pursuivants, dismounted and uncovered, had taken up their accustomed position immediately beneath the window at which the Queen was standing; and silence being obtained, Clarencieux King of Arms, Sir William Woods, in the absence of Garter King at Arms, read the Proclamation, which had been issued at Kensington Palace on the preceding day. At its conclusion, Sir William gave the signal by waving his sceptre, and loud and enthusiastic cheering followed, which Her Majesty graciously and frequently acknowledged. A flourish of trumpets was then blown, and the Park and Tower guns fired a salute in token that the ceremony of proclamation had been accomplished. | |
On the west side of the great gateway is the [extra_illustrations.4.101.4] . It is oblong in plan, and plain, and has nothing about it to call for particular mention, excepting, perhaps, the ceiling, which is divided into small painted squares, the design of which was executed by Hans Holbein. The Royal Gallery is at the west end, opposite the communiontable. In this chapel there is a choral service on Sundays, at o'clock, which is largely attended by the aristocracy when in town for the London season. The Duke of Wellington, during the last or years of his life, was a constant attendant. Entrance is to be obtained, we fear it must be added, most effectively by aid of a silver key. | |
George III., when in town, used to attend the services in this chapel, a nobleman carrying the sword of state before him, and heralds, pursuivantsat-arms, and other officers walking in the procession. So persevering was his Majesty's attendance at prayers, that Madame d'Arblay, of the robing-women, tells us
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It is to be feared that not all the frequenters of the Chapel Royal come to attend its services with very devout hearts, if the following story, amusingly told by Mr. Raikes, may be taken as a specimen of the body at large:-- This was completely realising the idea of the dowager of her day. [extra_illustrations.4.102.1] | |
Here were married Prince George of Denmark and the Princess Anne; Frederick Prince of Wales and the daughter of the Duke of Saxe- Coburg; George IV. and Queen Caroline; Queen Victoria and Prince Albert; and the Princess Royal and the Crown Prince of Germany. Before the building of the chapel at Buckingham Palace, Her Majesty and the Court used to attend the service here. | |
Upon no occasion, perhaps, did the chapel present a gayer appearance than on the morning of | |
the , when was celebrated the marriage of Her Majesty Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London, the latter officiating as Dean of the Chapel Royal. The Duke of Sussex his royal niece, and at that part of the service where the archbishop read the words, the Park and Tower guns were fired. When the wedding ring was put by Prince Albert on the Queen's finger, we are told, Lord Uxbridge, as Lord Chamberlain, gave a signal, and the bells of rung a merry peal. The fittings of the chapel and palace on this occasion are stated to have cost upwards of . | |
p.103 p.104 | |
The as the members of the choir are styled, were the principal performers in the religious drama, or when such performances were in fashion; and a and occur in the chapel establishment of Cardinal Wolsey. In the afterwards called the were formed into a company of players, and thus were among the earliest performers of the regular drama. In they performed Handel's , the oratorio heard in England; says Mr. John Timbs,
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In , No. , we read that the --a fine upon all who entered the chapel with spurs on- In a tract dated , the choristers are reproved for and the ancient chequebook of the Chapel Royal, dated , contains an order of the Dean, the observance of the custom. writes Dr. Rimbault, in , The Duke, it may be added, used to attend the service here regularly; and Mr. A. C. Coxe, an American clergyman, devotes half a chapter of his to a description of an early service here, at which he knelt side by side with the hero of Waterloo. | |
The establishment of the Chapel Royal consists of a Dean (usually the Bishop of London), a Sub- Dean, Lord High Almoner, Sub-Almoner, Clerk of the Queen's Closet, deputy-clerks, chaplains, priests, organists, and composer; besides and (now sinecures), and other officers; and, until , there was also a The to Her Majesty are appointed by the Lord Chamberlain. They receive no payment for their services, and their duties are confined to the work of preaching sermon each in turn yearly; but the appointment is generally regarded as a stepping-stone to something better. The Dean of the Chapel Royal is nominated by the sovereign; he has a salary of a year. | |
In spite of modern alterations this is substantially the same chapel as that in which Evelyn so often anxiously marked the conduct of King Charles, and of his brother the Duke of York, at the celebration of the sacrament. The gold plate and offertory basin are the same as those used in the days of our last Stuart sovereign. | |
Eastward of the Colour Court are the gates leading to the quadrangle formerly known as The State Apartments, in the south front of the Palace, face the garden and . The sovereign enters by the gate on this side; it was here, on the , that Margaret Nicholson made an attempt to assassinate George III. as he was alighting from his carriage. | |
The State Apartments are said by the guidebooks to be commodious and handsome, but they certainly are not very imposing, and indeed may, with truth, be pronounced mean, with reference to the dignity of English royalty. They are entered by a passage and staircase of great elegance. At the top of the latter is a gallery or guard-room converted into an armoury. The walls are tastefully decorated with daggers, muskets, and swords, arranged in various devices, such as stars, circles, diamonds, and Vandyke borders. This apartment is occupied by the Yeomen of the Guard on the occasion of a drawing-room. The Yeomen of the Guard are in number; it is part of their duty to carry up the dishes to the royal table. They also take care of the baggage when the sovereign removes from place to another. Their principal duty, however, consists in keeping the passages about the palace clear on state days. In former days the yeomen dined together, and kept a good table too. writes Thackeray,
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[extra_illustrations.4.105.1] -or, as it is now called, the Tapestry Chamber--is the next room entered. The walls are covered with tapestry, which was made for Charles II., but was never actually hung until the marriage, in , of the Prince of Wales, it having lain, by accident, in a chest undiscovered until within a short time of the event. In this room, over the fire-place, are some relics of the period of Henry VIII.; among which may be mentioned the initials (Henry and Anne Boleyn) united, as stated above, by a true-lover's knot; the fleur-de-lis of France, | |
p.105 | formerly emblazoned with the arms of England; the portcullis of ; and the rose of Lancaster. [extra_illustrations.4.105.2] |
When a drawing-room is held, a person attends here to receive the cards containing the names of the parties to be presented, a duplicate being handed to the lord in waiting, to prevent the presentation of persons not entitled to that privilege. From this room is obtained entrance to the state apartments, the of which is very splendidly furnished; the sofas, ottomans, &c., being covered with crimson velvet, and trimmed with gold lace. The walls are covered with crimson damask, and the window curtains are of the same material; here is a portrait of George II., in his robes; paintings of Lisle and Tournay; and an immense mirror, reaching from the ceiling to the floor. The apartment is lighted by a chandelier, hanging from the centre of the ceiling, and by candelabra at each end. | |
The Great Council Chamber was the place where the accession and birthday odes of the Poet Laureate were performed and sung in the last century. During the present century, as far back, at least, as the memory of man runneth, these productions have been
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The room is called Queen Anne's Room; it is fitted up in the same splendid style, and contains a full-length portrait of George III., in his robes of the Order of the Garter; on each side of him hang paintings of the great naval victories of the and Trafalgar. Here the remains of Frederick Duke of York lay in state, in . From the centre of the ceiling hangs a richly-chased Grecian lustre, and on the walls are magnificent pier-glasses, reaching the full height of the apartment. | |
The room is called the Presence Chamber. in it Her Majesty holds levees and drawing-rooms; although similar in style of decoration, it is far more gorgeous than the described above. The throne, which is on a raised dais, is of crimson velvet, covered with gold lace, surmounted by a canopy of the same material. The state chair is of exquisite workmanship. The window-curtains are of crimson satin trimmed with gold lace. Here are placed paintings of the battles of Vittoria and Waterloo, by Colonel Jones. The is the name conventionally given to the room in which the Queen gives audiences to ambassadors, and also receives an address annually on her birthday from the clergy of the Established Church. | |
On the east side of the Palace, close to where now stands Marlborough House, as already stated in our chapter on (see page of the present volume), was in former times a friary, occupied by some Capuchin priests, who came into England with Catharine of Braganza, on her marriage with Charles II. The buildings included a refectory, dormitory, chapel, and library, with cells for the religious. Pepys, in his gives us an account of a visit which he paid to the place, where he was shown a crucifix that had belonged to Mary Queen of Scots--which we may suppose he believed-and contained a portion of the true cross, which he probably did believe. | |
The chapel, as prepared for the use of Queen Catharine of Braganza, is thus described by Pepys, in his :--
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Pepys alludes to the Roman Catholic services in the Royal Chapel at in terms which would seem to imply that he had a strong dislike for them. Thus he writes, : --no bad thing, by the way, for such a worldly and sceptical Christian. | |
When Charles I. married Henrietta Maria it had been stipulated that the Queen should be allowed the free practice of her religion in London, in spite of the severe laws in force against Roman Catholics in England; but the King found it convenient in this, as in other matters, to forget his promise, and ordered as he contemptuously called | |
p.106 | them, to be driven out of . From thence they went in a body to , where for some time they performed mass and heard confessions, until Duke of Buckingham, was ordered to dislodge them thence also, and to pack them off without ceremony to their own country. On leaving St. James's, we are told, A contemporary account adds:
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A community of the Benedictine order was established at St. James's in the reign of James II., but it was suppressed after the Revolution. | |
On the site of the chapel above mentioned now stands the Lutheran or [extra_illustrations.4.106.1] , which seems almost to intrude upon the grounds of Marlborough House. It was here that the late Queen Dowager Adelaide used to attend on Sundays, preferring the simplicity of its service to the Chapel Royal. In , its use was granted, by permission of the Bishop of London, to the foreign Protestants who had flocked to see the Great Exhibition in . | |
Westward of the Colour Court is the , where are the apartments of the ex- King of Hanover, and of certain other branches of the Royal Family, and beyond it the , so named from covering the site of the ancient stable-yard of the Palace. Here are now Stafford House, the mansion of the Duke of Sutherland, and , the residence of the Duke of Edinburgh; besides a few other mansions inhabited by the nobility. | |
Mr. Cunningham says that, in , during the visit of the Allied Sovereigns, Marshal Blucher was lodged in the dingy brick house on the west side of the , or West Quadrangle, where he would frequently sit at the drawing-room windows and smoke, and bow to the people, pleased with the notice that was taken of him. At this time the state apartments were fitted up for the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia. | |
In the reign of George II. the Royal Library stood nearly on the site of the present Stafford House, detached from the rest of the buildings of the Palace; there is no print of it in existence, and it is said to have possessed few architectural pretensions. In fact, literature was not of the of the monarchs of our Hanoverian line. | |
Here, in the , is the office of the Lord Chamberlain's Department. It is poor and mean enough, and gives but little idea of the importance of the work transacted within its walls. Persons to be either at levees or drawing-rooms, are required to send their cards to the Lord Chamberlain; and it is his duty to see that such persons are entitled, by station and character, to be presented to the sovereign. He also issues the invitations to the state balls, parties, &c. as we learn from Murray's
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was for many years the residence of the Duchess of Kent. In it was assigned as a residence for the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, and greatly enlarged, a storey being added to it in height, and its entrance being made to face the Park on the south instead of being in the narrow passage on the west. The entrance portico was formerly on the west side, facing Stafford House; but this has now been pulled down, and in its place, and also in the balcony above, have been substituted large windows. Fronting , a new portico entrance, with a conservatory, supported on columns, has been erected, and gateways for ingress and egress, flanked by lodges and a stone sentry-box, | |
p.107 | have been constructed in . In the rear, the old court-yard, and a number of old buildings extending to , have been demolished, and the area thus obtained has been thrown into the basement, which is set apart for the general domestic offices and servants' apartments; and on the old court-yard site a -storey building has been erected as a dormitory for the servants. On the west side of the building is the
fitted up for the private devotions of the Duchess of Edinburgh; the altar, flooring, walls, &c., are inlaid with rich mosaic work. A portion of has been thrown into the new premises, thus affording increased accommodation, while the gardens of the establishments have been thrown into , and laid out in uniform terraces and slopes. |
In , just before his death, Charles James Fox was residing at Godolphin House (the site of which is now covered by Stafford House), in the . | |
Among the now forgotten dwellers in the outquarters of the Palace was Charles Dartineuf, or Dartinave; said by some to have been a son of Charles II., by others a member of a refugee family. He was Paymaster of the Board of Works, and Surveyor of the Royal Gardens and Roads in . He was, as Swift describes him, a and a man His partiality for ham-pie has been confirmed by Warburton and Dodsley. Pope, he said, had done justice to his taste; if he had given aim , he never could have pardoned him. Lord Lyttelton, in his has introduced Dartineuf discoursing with Apicius on the subject of good eating, ancient and modern. His favourite dish, ham-pie, is there commemorated; but Dartineuf is made to lament his ill fortune in having lived before turtle-feasts were known in England. | |
In the published in , is said to be the writer adds,
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This edifice was the London residence of our sovereigns from , when Palace was consumed by fire, until about the middle of the last century, when George III. made Buckingham Palace his home in London. Since , when part of the south-eastern wing was destroyed by fire, a part only of the palace has been rebuilt, but it was put into ornamental repair on the accession of George IV., during the years --. In this palace died Queen Mary I.; Henry, Prince of Wales, eldest son of James I.; and Caroline, Queen of George II. Here also were born Charles II., James, son of James II., and George IV. | |
In this palace was given up by Charles I. as a residence for Marie de Medici, the mother of his consort, Henrietta Maria; but in this, as in nearly all his other acts of imprudent generosity, the King came in for a large share of unpopularity. She was welcomed to London with a public reception and a procession through the streets, and a copy of most courtly verses by the court poet, Edmund Waller; as witness these lines :-- The miniature court, however, which she maintained here for years, was never acceptable to the nation, who regarded her as the symbol of arbitrary power. In the end, the Parliament voted to her a sum of if she would only leave the country; and she quitted England for the free city of Cologne in . Lilly thus notices her departure :-- She died at Cologne in , in a garret, and with scarcely more than the bare necessaries of life! | |
It was at St. James's that Charles I., so soon about to earn the title of took his farewell of his young children, who were brought from Sion House for that purpose--an affecting scene, which has been a favourite subject for pictorial representation; and here the King's last night on earth was spent. as the historians tell us, [extra_illustrations.4.108.1] | |
It must have been trying to the proud spirit of Queen Henrietta Maria in her widowhood, when she had seen the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw dragged on hurdles to Tyburn, and their heads set, as we have said, on the front, of Hall, to have been compelled, in deference to the will of her son, the King, to salute publicly at court as Duchess of York, and consort of the presumptive heir to the throne, the offspring of Lord Chancellor Hyde and his low-born wife. | |
We learn from Whitelock that St. James's was temporarily occupied by Monk, Duke of Albemarle, before he had made up his mind that it was time to effect the Restoration. | |
In former times a dinner was laid regularly every | |
p.109 | day in the out-quarters of the Palace for the royal chaplains. A good story is told about this dinner and the witty Dr. South, who obtained a reprieve for it when there was a talk of its being discontinued. King Charles II. day came in to dine with the reverend gentleman; and it was Dr. South's turn to say grace. Instead of using the regular form, he transposed the verbs, saying,
said the King; It is to be hoped that on this occasion his Majesty did not break his word. |
of the chief ornaments of the Court of St. James's in the reign of Charles II. was La Belle Stewart, afterwards Duchess of Richmond, to whom Pope has alluded as the in the well-known line- She was [extra_illustrations.4.109.1] , and as such she inspired Charles II. with the purest and strongest passion he seemed capable of entertaining. He would have divorced his | |
queen to marry her, and was half distracted when, by her clandestine marriage with the Duke of Richmond, she eluded his grasp. The personal charms of La Belle Stewart have been commemorated by Grammont, Pepys, and others. The secretary, indeed, was enraptured with her appearance-her her and Miss Stewart had been so annoyed by the attentions of Charles and the manners of his profligate court, that she had already resolved to marry any gentleman of a year, when, fortunately, the Duke of Richmond solicited her hand. Her consent was, according to Pepys, In a few years the duchess became a widow, and continued so for years, dying . The endowment satirised by Pope has been favourably explained by Warton. She left annuities to certain female friends, with the burden of maintaining some of her cats: a delicate way of providing for poor, and probably proud, gentlewomen, without making them feel that they owed their livelihood to her mere liberality. It would have been easy, | |
p.110 | however, to have effected the same object in a way less liable to ridicule. The of the duchess still exists, along with some others, in . She left money by her will, desiring that her image, as well done in wax as could be, and dressed in coronation robes and coronet, should be placed in a case, with clear crown glass before it, and should be set up in . A more lasting and popular is the figure of Britannia on our copper coins, which was originally modelled from a medal struck by Charles II. in honour of the fair Stewart. |
In addition to the Countess of Castlemaine , and Duchess of Cleveland , there hung about the Court, here and at , the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Rochester, the handsome Sidney, the pompous Earl of St. Albans, and his vain and giddy nephew, Harry Jermyn; the Earls of Arran and Ossory, and the dissolute Killigrew, who together governed the privacy of their master as readily and easily as Clarendon and Ormond controlled his public measures. King Charles II. being here, on occasion, in company with Lord Rochester and others of the nobility, Killigrew, the jester, came in. said the king,
said Killigrew,
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Here, in the bedroom of the Princess, took place, on the , the marriage of Mary, daughter of James Duke of York and of his wife, Anne Hyde, with William Prince of Orange--a marriage so fatal afterwards to her father and her step-mother, Mary of Modena, who at the time was hourly expecting her confinement. days afterwards the boy was born, but he did not live to the end of the year, being carried off by the smallpox. Waller, the Court poet, in a graceful little poem on the death of this infant, alludes to the extreme youth of the royal mother, to which he ascribes the early deaths of her other offspring, and from the same circumstance insinuates consoling hopes for the future :--
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When, in , the Prince of Orange, with the forces at his command, was advancing towards London, King James sent him an invitation to take up his quarters here. The Prince accepted it, but at the same time hinted to the King, his father-in-law, that he must leave . With respect to this event, Dalrymple, in his tells the following story:--
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Here Mary Beatrice of Modena spent the years of her wedded life with James Duke of York; and even after she became Queen Consort she always preferred its homely apartments to the gilded and gorgeous rooms of the great Palace at . Here, too, when she found that she was once more about to become a mother, in the summer of , she resolved that the child should be born, who, if a son, was destined thereafter to become the heir to the English throne. writes Miss Strickland,
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Here, too, the son of James II. and Mary Beatrice, afterwards so well known to history as was born on Sunday, the , being Trinity Sunday, between and in the morning. This chamber is memorable as the scene of the alleged fraud by which the king and queen were said to have tried to foist upon the nation as its future sovereign a child brought into the palace in a warming-pan. Mr. Peter Cunningham tells us that there is extant Those who would wish to read in detail the narratives of this event cannot do better than study them in the of that queen by Miss Strickland, who states that nearly every member of the court was present on the occasion, to the number of persons, and all saw that a son was born to the queen. | |
writes Miss Strickland, Like , , under the Stuart sovereigns, was constantly the scene of the ceremony of Many instances of its performance are on record. Thus we are told that on the oth of | |
p.111 | , some persons were brought before Queen Anne at to be healed by the Among this number was whose name was destined to become great-Samuel Johnson, then a child about years and a half old. His mother had brought him from Lichfield to London to be touched by the Queen on the advice of Sir John Floyer, a physician of fame in Lichfield; a proof of the high estimation in which the royal was generally held early in the last century. When asked, late in life, if he could remember Queen Anne, the doctor used to state that he had
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The morals of the Court of Charles II. are matters of history; and even the court balls at St. James's, in his reign, in spite of the influence of his excellent queen, were not marked with any great propriety, if contemporary diaries may be trusted. But, if the Palace was the scene of much that was discreditable and immoral under the Stuarts, it did not gain much in morality under the Georges, who kept here their dull English and German mistresses, just as Charles and James had maintained their more attractive French ladies. In the court chronicles and scandalous memoirs of the time we may read plenty of anecdotes of such court ladies as the Duchess of Kendal and Miss Brett, the rival favourites of George I.; and of Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk, who, in the reign of George II., had within its walls, under the very nose and eyes of Queen Caroline, who apparently cared little about her existence. Those who are interested in such scandals may read in Mr. Peter Cunningham's an interesting account of a passage at arms between the above-mentioned Miss Brett and her granddaughter, the Princess Anne, who ordered to be bricked up again a door which that lady had made to connect her apartments with the Palace garden. The strife was at its height when the sudden death of the King put an end to the reign of Miss Brett, and the Princess triumphed. And Horace Walpole tells us how the accident of Lord Chesterfield having won a heavy sum of money, and having deposited it late at night with Mrs. Howard, led the Queen to suspect him of too great intimacy in that quarter, and so almost forced him into opposition to the Ministry. | |
Cunningham adds further, as a separate bit of scandal, that Mrs. Howard's husband presented himself night in the quadrangle of the Palace to claim his wife; but, after many noisy protestations, was induced to desist, as Walpole had heard, While such scenes were transacted in the eighteenth century, it certainly cannot be allowed that either of the Georges had a right to throw the stone at Charles II. or James II. | |
Lord Orford, in his tells an amusing story of of the German ladies who came over with King George I. On being abused by the mob, she put her head out of the coach, and cried in bad English,
answered a fellow in the crowd,
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The death-bed scene of Queen Caroline has been told by Lord Hervey and other writers of the time. It was on the , that the Queen was taken ill, and continued getting worse. On the , the Prince of Wales--who, as our readers will have already seen, was then living at enmity with his parents--sent to request that he might see her; but the King said it was like of the tricks, and he forbade the Prince to send messages, or even to approach St. James's. The Queen herself was no less decided. She was then dying from the effects of a rupture, which she had courageously concealed for years, and she would have died without declaring it, had not the King communicated the fact to her attendants. This delicacy was not, as Lord Hervey says, merely an ill-timed coquetry at , that would hardly have been excusable at . She feared to lose her power over the King, which she had held firmly in spite of all his mistresses, and was in constant apprehension of making herself distasteful to her husband. The Prince of Wales continued to send messages to the dying Queen, and the messengers got into the Palace; but the Queen Wished to have the (who, she said, were only there to watch her death, and would gladly tear her to pieces whilst she was alive) turned out of the house, and the old King was inexorable. About the day of the Queen's illness, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Potter) was sent for. He continued to attend every morning and evening, but her Majesty did not receive the sacrament. | |
Some of Lord Hervey's revelations are curious enough. Her Majesty, it appears, advised the King, in case she died, to marry again. George sobbed and shed tears. | |
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During their night watches, the King and Lord Hervey had many conversations, all which the Court Boswell reports fully. George wished to impress upon the Privy Seal that the Queen's affectionate behaviour was the natural effect of an amorous attachment to his person, and an adoration of his great genius! He narrated instances of his own intrepidity, during a severe illness and in a great storm; and night while he was discoursing in this strain, the Princess Emily, who lay upon a couch in the room, pretended to fall asleep. Soon after, his Majesty went into the Queen's room. When his back was turned, Princess Emily started up, and said, Lord Hervey replied only,
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Other glimpses of the interior of this strange Court at this time are furnished by Lord Hervey. At length the last scene came. There had been about days of suffering :--
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George did not marry again, but contented himself with He survived nearly years, dying suddenly on the . He directed that his remains and those of the Queen should be and accordingly, side of each of the wooden coffins was withdrawn, and the bodies placed together in a stone sarcophagus. | |
George III., at his accession, was not much more popular than his grandfather had been before him; and on several occasions the populace showed that he held the throne by a very precarious tenure. Sir N. W. Wraxall tells us, in his gossiping that in popular outbreak, in , a hearse, followed by an excited mob, decorated with insignia of most unmistakable meaning, was driven into the court-yard of , an Irish nobleman, Lord Mountnorris, personating an executioner, holding an axe in his hands, whilst his face was covered over by a veil of crape. adds Wraxall,
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On the , as stated above, about half-past in the morning, a fire was discovered in , near the King's back stairs. The whole of the private apartments of the Queen, those of the Duke of Cambridge, the King's court, and the apartments of several persons belonging to the royal household, were destroyed; the most valuable part of the property | |
p.113 | was preserved. The Hon. Miss Amelia Murray tells us this fire was believed at the time to be the work of an incendiary. |
About the year the Palace was the scene of a horrid tragedy, which, for a time at least, drew down great popular indignation on member of the royal family. The [extra_illustrations.4.113.1] had an Italian servant named Sellis, who made his way into his master's bedroom and tried to assassinate him in the night. The duke awoke, and was able not only to defend himself, but to drive away the would-be assassin, who, when he found himself foiled in his dastardly attempt, crept back to his own room and cut his throat. A coroner's inquest being held on the body, a verdict of was returned. The affair, nevertheless, caused great excitement at the time, and many suspicions were entertained, and many cruel insinuations made against the duke, who was, from youth, the most unpopular member of the royal house; and even to the present day there is a sort of floating tradition to the effect that the dukewho, in , left England on becoming [extra_illustrations.4.113.2] , and scarcely ever afterwards came to this country--was the murderer of his valet. | |
A good story is told by Miss Murray, in her concerning the wife of the Duke of Cumberland, who in early life was more than suspected of levity of conduct. Old Queen Charlotte was resolved to keep her court pure, in the persons of its female part, at least; and when her eldest son, the Prince Regent, endeavoured to smooth over the Duchess's faults, and procure for her a public reception at Court, her Majesty replied, that
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With regard to the kitchen of in the time of George III., it need only be said that it was very similar in its appearance to the kitchens of other large establishments. Our illustration (page ) shows the principal features of the place at the above period. It may be added here that the grass-plot which lies beneath the southern windows of the Palace, now enclosed with high walls, is substantially the same as it was in the reign of Charles II., who, on a summer evening, was often to be seen here, playing at bowls with the fair ladies of his court. | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.4.100.2] St. James's Palace [extra_illustrations.4.101.1] Queen at Palace Entrance [extra_illustrations.4.101.2] The Throne, St. James's Palace--Investure [extra_illustrations.4.101.3] St. James's Palace [extra_illustrations.4.101.4] Chapel Royal [extra_illustrations.4.102.1] Marriage of Earl and Countess of Derby at Chapel Royal [extra_illustrations.4.105.1] The old Presence Chamber [extra_illustrations.4.105.2] Birthday, Drawing Room [] See Vol. III., p. 91. [extra_illustrations.4.106.1] German Chapel [] A levee is confined to gentlemen only; a drawing-room is attended by gentlemen and ladies, the latter forming the larger proportion. [extra_illustrations.4.108.1] Regent Court--during the Season [extra_illustrations.4.109.1] Frances Stewart, grand-daughter of Lord Blantyre [extra_illustrations.4.113.1] Duke of Cumberland [extra_illustrations.4.113.2] King of Hanover |
