Part 21

Addison, in support of his assertion that all clubs were founded on eating and drinking, says that the Kit-Kat Club itself is said to have taken its original from mutton-pies. If he means its name, he is, as far as can now be known, right; but if he means that its object was the consumption of pies, as the consumption of steaks was that of the 'Sublime' Beefsteaks, he was wrong. The Kit-Kat was the great Whig club of Queen Anne's time; it consisted of the principal noblemen and gentlemen who had opposed the arbitrary measures of James II., and was instituted about the year 1700 for the purpose ostensibly of encouraging literature and the fine arts, but really for promoting loyalty and allegiance to the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover. Among the forty-eight members were the Dukes of Marlborough and Newcastle; the Earls of Halifax, Dorset, and Wharton; Sirs Robert Walpole, John Vanbrugh, Richard Steele, Samuel Garth, Godfrey Kneller; Addison, Congreve, Pulteney, Walsh, and other persons, illustrious for rank or talent.

The real founder of the club is said to have been Jacob Tonson, the bookseller; he was for many years their secretary, and, in fact, the very pivot upon which the society revolved. Their meetings were originally held at a house in Shire Lane, close to Temple Bar, a lane which in time became infamous as the resort of thieves, rogues, and ruffians of every kind, though in previous years it had been fashionable. The house where they met was kept by one Christopher Katt, a pastrycook, famous for his mutton pies, which immortalized his name, since they became known by it, Kit being then a vulgar abbreviation of Christopher, and Katt being his surname, and from these pies the club took its name, the pies always forming part of its bill of fare. It seems strange that with so simple a derivation the origin of the name Kit-Kat should have been unknown even to Pope or Arbuthnot--it is uncertain to whom the lines are attributable--who wrote:

'Whence deathless Kit-Kat took his name Few critics can unriddle: Some say from pastrycook it came, And some from Cat and Piddle. From no trim beans its name it boasts, Grey statesmen or green wits, But from this pell-mell pack of toasts, Of old Cats and young Kits.'

Surely the name is simply that of the pastrycook, Kit (Christopher) Katt, given to his pies, and has no reference to old cats or young kits or kittens.

As regards the pies, Dr. King, in his 'Art of Cookery,' wrote:

'Immortal made as Kit-Kat by his pies;'

and in the prologue to 'The Reformed Wife,' a comedy, 1700, is the line:

'A Kit-Kat is a supper for a lord.'

Tonson had his own and the portraits of all the members painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller; each member gave him his.[#] The canvas was 36 inches by 28 inches, sufficiently long to show a hand, and the size is still known as the Kit-Kat. There were forty-two of those portraits, and they were first hung up in the club-room, but Tonson in time removed them to his country-house at Barn Elms, where he built a handsome room for their reception, and where the club frequently met. At his death in 1736, Tonson left them to his great-nephew, also an eminent bookseller, who died in 1767. The paintings were then removed to the house of his brother at Water-Oakley, near Windsor, and on his death to the house of Mr. Baker, one of the sons of Sir William Baker, who had married the elder of the two daughters of old Tonson; the house of this Mr. Baker is called the Park, situate at Hertingfordbury, where they still remain.

[#] They were all engraved in mezzotinto by the younger Faber.

As regards the room at Barn Elms referred to above, Sir Richard Phillips, in his 'Morning Walk from London to Kew,' in 1816, gives an account of his visit to it.

'A lane,' he says, 'brought me to Barn Elms, where now resides a Mr. Hoare, a banker, of London. The family were not at home, but on asking the servants if that was the house of Mr. Tonson, they assured me, with great naivete, that no such gentleman lived there. I named the Kit-Kat Club as accustomed to assemble here, but the oddity of the name excited their ridicule, and I was told that no such club was held there; but perhaps, said one to the other, the gentleman means the club that assembles at the public-house on the common.... One of them exclaimed: "I should not wonder if the gentleman means the philosopher's room." "Aye," rejoined his comrade, "I remember somebody coming once before to see something of this sort, and my master sent him there." I requested, then, to be shown to this room, distinguished by so high an appellation, when I was conducted across a detached garden and brought to a handsome erection in the architectural style of the early part of the last century, evidently the establishment of the Kit-Kat Club! ... The man unfastened the decayed door of the building, and showed me the once elegant hall filled with cobwebs, a fallen ceiling, and accumulated rubbish. On the right the present proprietor had erected a copper, and converted one of the parlours into a wash-house. The door on the left led to a spacious and once superb staircase, now in ruins, presenting pendant cobwebs that hung from the lofty ceiling, and which seemed to be deserted even by the spiders.... I ascended the staircase; here I found the Kit-Kat Club-room nearly as it existed in its days of service. It was about 18 feet high, 40 feet long, and 20 wide. The mouldings and ornaments were in the most superb fashion of the day, but the whole was tumbling to pieces from the effects of the dry rot.... The marks and sizes [of the portraits] were still visible, and the numbers and names remained as written in chalk for the guide of the hanger.... On rejoining Mr. Hoare's man in the hall below ... he told me that his master intended to pull [the room] down.... Mr. Tonson's house had a few years since been taken down.'

In 'A Pilgrimage from London to Woolstrope,' communicated to the _Monthly Magazine_ of June, 1818, the then home of the Kit-Kat Club pictures is thus referred to: 'I reached Hartingfordbury, and the magnificent seat of Wm. Baker, Esq.... Here I paid my homage to the forty-two portraits of the Kit Kat Club, and found myself in a splendid apartment. They [the portraits] are all in as fine a condition as though they had been painted but last year. I regretted, however, that the characteristic features are lost or disguised by the enormous perukes which disfigured the human countenance in their age. The whole looked like a wiggery, and the portrait of Tonson in his velvet cap was the only relief afforded by the entire assemblage.'

But even the Kit-Kat Club in time

'Descended from its high politic flavour, Down to a sentimental toasting savour.' _Byron improved_.

The club was invaded by a spirit of gallantry. When a number of fashionable gentlemen meet, politics are all very well for a time; horses will afford the next subject of entertainment, but the women must come in in the end. And so the members of the Kit-Kat Club established the custom of every year electing some reigning beauty as a toast. To the queen of the year the members wrote epigrammatic verses, which were etched with a diamond on the club glasses, or a separate bowl was dedicated to her worship, and the lines engraved thereon. Some of the most celebrated of the toasts had their pictures hung up in the club-room. How Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when only eight years old, was introduced and declared the beauty of the year, has often been told. Of course, to our more refined ideas of propriety the conduct of her father, the Duke of Kingston, in thus thrusting his infant daughter into the society of his roistering boon-companions, cannot but appear as highly reprehensible. Among the more celebrated of the toasts were the four daughters of the Duke of Marlborough: Lady Godolphin, Lady Sunderland, generally known as the Little Whig, Lady Bridgewater, and Lady Monthermer. Swift's friend, Mrs. Long, and the niece of Sir Isaac Newton were two others. Others were the Duchesses of Bolton, St. Albans, Richmond and Beaufort; also Lady Molyneux, who, Walpole says, died smoking a pipe.

We will conclude our account of this club with a few stray notes.

Three o'clock in the morning seems to have been no uncommon hour for the club to break up. Addison and Steele usually got drunk, so did Dr. Garth, the poet laureate of the club, wherefore a Tory lampooner said that at this club the youth of Anne's reign learned

'To sleep away the days, and drink away the nights.'

When Tonson had gone to live at Barn Elms, the members generally held their meetings at his house. In the summer they would resort to the Upper Flask tavern, near Hampstead Heath; but this practice did not continue long: there was too much difficulty in getting home after strong potations. The Upper Flask eventually became a private house, and was occupied by George Steevens, the celebrated critic and antiquary, till his death. The Kit-Kat Club died out before the year 1727, and we now take leave of it.

We have given accounts of a purely convivial, of a literary and artistic, and now will shortly describe a purely political club, of which, however, but little is known, namely, the Rota. It took its name from its object, namely, to promote the changing of certain Members of Parliament annually by rotation. It held its meetings at the Turk's Head, otherwise known as Miles' Coffee-house, in New Palace Yard, not far from the residence of James Harrington, which was in the Little Ambry (Almonry), looking into the Dean's yard. It was founded in 1659 for the dissemination of republican ideas, which Harrington had glorified in his 'Oceana,' and for resisting Cromwell's attempt to do without a Parliament and to establish an undisguised military despotism. The republicans took the alarm, and formed themselves into a debating society, says the Royalist Anthony Wood, to discuss the best form of government. Their discourses, according to this author, of ordering a commonwealth were the most ingenious and smart ever heard, for the arguments in the Parliament House were flat to these. This gang had a balloting box ... the room was every evening very full. Beside James Harrington and Henry Nevil, who were the prime men of the club, were Cyriac Skinner, Major Wildman, Roger Coke, author of the 'Detection of the Four Last Reigns,' William Petty and Maximilian Petty, and a great many others. The doctrines were very taking, and the more so because to human foresight there was no possibility of the King's return. The greatest of the Parliament men hated this rotation and balloting, as being against their power. Henry Nevil proposed it to the House; the third part of the House should vote out by ballot every year, and not be re-eligible for three years to come, so that every ninth year the Senate would be wholly changed. No magistrate was to continue above three years, and all were to be chosen by a sort of ballot. It is probable that Milton was a member of the Rota; Aubrey belonged to it in 1659. After the death of Cromwell the Rota gave great publicity to its proceedings, and acquired a high reputation for learning, talent, and eloquence, so that it became a question whether it were more honourable to belong to the Rota or the Society of Virtuosi, which had been designated by Boyle in 1646 'the Invisible or Philosophical Society.' The members of the Rota threw into the teeth of their rivals that they had an excellent faculty of magnifying a louse and diminishing a commonwealth. Charles II., who was a virtuoso himself, avenged this taunt by erecting, in 1664, the Virtuosi into the Royal Society, by dispersing the members of the Rota, and exiling Harrington for life to the island of St. Nicholas, near Plymouth; but he was afterwards released on bail, and died at his house in the Almonry in 1677. The statement that the Royal Society was established for political reasons, though it has often been contradicted, would thus seem not to be without foundation. In the third canto of the second part of 'Hudibras,' Sidrophel is said to be

'... as full of tricks, As Rota-men of politicks.'

*XIX.*

*HAMPTON COURT PALACE AND ITS MASTERS.*

*I.--HAMPTON COURT PALACE.*

The environs of London are very beautiful, and full of scenic and architectural contrasts. Let us render our exact meaning clear by taking two of the most striking contrasts. To the north of London lies the vast expanse of Hampstead Heath, a locality famous for charms due to Nature alone, whilst to the south of London we have Hampton Court, which all the arts of the highest civilization and noblest genius have for centuries striven to invest with a grandeur and loveliness found in few other spots. Painting and sculpture, architecture and horticulture, have here found their grandest exponents, and Time, which alone could do it, has added thereto the dignity of historic interest and the fascination of romantic associations. Not only are the rooms and halls, the corridors and courtyards of the palace, artistic caskets in themselves, they are filled with treasures of art. And how easily can imagination re-people these now usually deserted chambers and passages, and with the mind's eye see again the famous--and sometimes infamous--men who here disported themselves, the charming lovely--and sometimes the reverse--women, whose dazzling beauty, lofty demeanour, dangerous and bewitching glances, led those men to fortune or the scaffold. But that imagination may do this, not only is an accurate knowledge of the localities needed, but also of the historic occurrences which have taken place therein, wherefore our account of Hampton Court Palace, which we have undertaken to give in a necessarily condensed form, will after describing the structure architecturally record, briefly also, the events it has been the scene of.

We assume the local position of the Palace to be sufficiently well known, and therefore not necessary to be described. It has, not inappropriately, been called the St. Cloud of Londoners. In the time of Edward the Confessor Hampton Manor belonged to Earl Algar, a powerful Saxon nobleman, and its value then was estimated at L40 per annum. After the Norman Conquest it is mentioned in Doomsday Book as held by Walter de St. Valeri, who probably gave the advowson of the living to the Priory of Takeley, in Essex, which was a cell to the Abbey of St. Valeri, in Picardy; from the port adjoining it William the Conqueror sailed for England. Hampton Manor subsequently became the property of Sir Robert Gray, whose widow in 1211 left by her will the whole manor and the manor-house of Hampton, the site of the present Hampton Court Palace, to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, whose chief residence in England was the Hospital of St. John, Clerkenwell, and of which now nothing but the gate remains. The manor thus bequeathed was of enormous extent. It comprised within its boundaries the lesser manors of Kingston-on-Thames, Walton Legh, Byflete, Weybridge, East and West Moulsey, Sandon, Weston, Innworth, Esher, Oatlands, together with the manors of Hampton, Hanworth, Feltham, Teddington, and even Hounslow Heath.

Tradition says that Cardinal Wolsey, at the summit of his power, was desirous of building a palace suitable to his rank; but he was equally desirous of enjoying health and long life, and employed the most eminent physicians in England, and even called in the aid of learned doctors from Padua, to select the most healthy spot within twenty miles of London. They agreed that the parish of Hampton was the most healthy soil, and the springs in Coombe Wood, south of Richmond Park, the purest water within the limits assigned to their researches. Upon this report the Cardinal bargained for a lease with the prior of St. John of Jerusalem, and the following is a precis of the lease as still extant in the Cottonian MS. in the British Museum, and first published in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for January, 1834.

The indenture was made between Sir Thomas Docwra, prior of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem and his brethren knights of the one part, and Cardinal Wolsey, Primate of England, of the other part. It granted a lease of ninety-nine years, to date from January 12, 1514, to Cardinal Wolsey at a yearly rent of L50, the lessee agreeing to the usual covenants of a repairing lease. If the rent should remain unpaid during two whole years, the lessors to have the right of re-entry, and a new lease to be granted for another ninety-nine years should such be desired by the lessee. The lessors did not foresee the future, which would, by _force majeure_, put an end to all their lease-granting.

As soon as Wolsey had obtained the lease, he pulled down the old manor-house, in which hitherto a prior and a few knights had been accommodated, and began erecting in a style of grandeur, heretofore unsurpassed in this country, a mansion of unparalleled magnificence. But who was this Wolsey?

A most unmitigated villain, on a par with that other villain, Henry VIII., whose master, through being his pimp, he was for a time, till, in perfect accordance with his character, he became his abject whining slave. I am well aware that it is not usual to apply such a term as villain to a King or his chief adviser--courtly historians have flowery terms for the crimes of Kings by the 'grace of God,' and holy 'Fathers-in-God,' who misuse the powers foolish nations have entrusted them with to the vilest purposes--but the spirit of justice, which directs thinking and logical minds, rejects the flimsy arguments of sycophantic apologists; it will not have Nero whitewashed.