CHAPTER X

RIVERSIDE SURVEY FROM MORTLAKE TO RICHMOND

[Sidenote: Mortlake]

Few villages near London have undergone such vicissitudes of fortune as Mortlake, of which Wimbledon, Putney, and Barnes were once dependencies, but which is now a somewhat uninteresting suburb, redeemed from the commonplace by its situation on the river alone, and but for the one day in the year, when the University boat-race is run, and it is crowded with those interested in the contest, deserted by all but its residents. A great brewery and numerous malt-kilns replace the palace that was long a private residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and of the famous tapestry manufactory, founded in 1619 by Sir Thomas Crane, in which, under the direction of the Italian Verrio, work equal to that done in France was produced, not a trace remains. Gone, too, is the mansion by the water where lived the famous astrologer Dr. Dee, who was there often visited by Queen Elizabeth, but who in spite of the great reputation he long enjoyed, died in absolute poverty in 1608; and it is impossible to identify the sites of the houses that are known to {219} have been occupied by Sir Philip Francis, the bitter enemy of Warren Hastings, Henry Addington, the first Lord Sidmouth, prime minister when the Peace of Amiens was signed, Sir John Barnard, whom Sir Robert Walpole called the one incorruptible member of Parliament, all of whom, as well as Dr. Dee, are buried in Mortlake church, and commemorated by monuments or tablets in it. The pottery works, too, which to a certain extent made up for the loss of the tapestry manufactory when the latter was removed to Windsor, though they flourished for nearly a century, were abandoned about 1800, and it is only the expert collector who now remembers that the quaint Toby Philpot jugs were first made in them, and that a peculiar kind of white stoneware was produced in a rival factory hard by.

The church of Mortlake was founded as early as 1348, when the parish was first cut off from that of Wimbledon, but it has been so often restored that, but for the lower portion of the tower, it retains scarcely anything of its original structure. Above its western entrance is the unusual inscription, 'Vivat Rex Henricus VIII.,' and on an oaken screen in the chancel is an interesting painting representing the Entombment, by the Dutch artist Van der Gutch, who lived for some little time at Mortlake during the last decade of the eighteenth century. In the Roman Catholic cemetery that adjoins the Protestant churchyard rest the remains of the famous Oriental scholar and traveller, Sir Richard Burton, and his devoted wife, in an ornate tomb, representing an Arab tent, that was erected before her death at the expense of {220} Lady Burton, who, in spite of her husband's well-known heterodox opinions, was determined that the world should believe him to have died in what she considered the only true faith.

Pleasantly situated at a bend of the river between Mortlake and Kew, opposite to Chiswick and Isleworth, which present a very picturesque appearance from the towing-path on the Surrey side, and owning a green some twelve acres in extent, the ancient village of Kew still retains, in spite of the great number of modern houses in its parish, something of the rural charm that distinguished it before the beautiful gardens with which its name is now chiefly associated were laid out.

[Sidenote: Kew]

The original meaning of the word Kew, that used to be very variously spelt, Kayhoo, Kayburgh, and Kayo being some of the forms, has not been determined, but the settlement is supposed to date from very ancient times, bronze spear-heads and fragments of British pottery having been recently found in the bed of the river, near some piles that had probably served as the foundations of huts, a little above the old bridge that was replaced in 1903 by that known as King Edward VII.'s, it having been opened by him in 1904. The first actual reference to Kew, however, occurs in a thirteenth-century roll of the royal manor of Richmond, in which it was then included, although, strictly speaking, it remained a hamlet of Kingston until 1769, when it became a separate parish.

There appears to have been a small chapel of ease at Kew, the site of which is unknown, as early as {221} 1532, and in it may sometimes have worshipped the Princess Mary, sister of Henry VIII. and widow of Louis XII. of France, with her second husband, Charles Brandon, Duke of Norfolk, who owned a mansion near by, as did also Charles Somerset, Earl of Worcester, ancestor of the inventor of the steam engine. Later, Kew was the home for a short time of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who had been sentenced to death, as well as his father, for his share in the conspiracy to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, yet for all that rose into high favour with Queen Elizabeth, to whom he paid assiduous court, though he was already married to the unfortunate Amy Robsart. Whether the maiden queen was ever his guest at Kew it is impossible to say, but after his death she paid several visits to Sir John Pickering, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, who owned a mansion near the green, now pulled down, and spent large sums on her entertainment in 1594 and 1595. The house that belonged to Robert Dudley was sold by him to Sir Hugh Portman, a merchant of Holland, for which reason it was long called the Dutch House, and is still standing just inside the chief gates of Kew Gardens. It is now known as the Palace, a very misleading name, that more rightly belonged to a much larger building that was opposite to it, and was called Kew House. The latter belonged in the early seventeenth century to a Mr. Bennett, and passed, as part of the marriage portion of his daughter, to her husband Sir Henry, later Lord Capel, who was the first founder of the famous gardens, that were referred to by Rowland {222} Whyte in a letter to Sir Robert Sydney, dated August 27, 1678, 'as containing the choicest fruit of any plantation in England.' Lord Capel became, many years later, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and never returned to his Kew home, but his widow resided in it until her death in 1721, when she was buried in Kew church. The property then passed to Lady Elizabeth, grand-niece of Lord Capel, who had married Mr. Molyneux, private secretary to the then Prince of Wales. Molyneux was devoted to astronomical science, and whilst he was living at Kew he and the more celebrated James Bradley made a very important discovery in connection with the aberration of the fixed stars with the aid of a large zenith-sector, the spot in Kew Gardens where it used to stand being marked by a sundial, the gift, in 1830, of William IV.

In 1728 Lady Elizabeth Molyneux was left a widow, and in 1730 the Prince of Wales obtained from her a long lease of Kew House, which he did not live to profit by. On his untimely death, however, the Princess of Wales remained in it, and continued the work on the grounds begun by Lord Capel, entrusting the superintendence of the alterations to Sir William Chambers, then considered the leading architect of the day, who designed the lofty pagoda, the great orangery, and the various semi-classical buildings in the gardens, whilst Sir William Aston, a noted horticulturist, was chosen as advisory botanist. Before the Princess of Wales died in 1772 the appearance of the Kew estate was completely transformed, and when her son, George III., {223} took possession of it, his wife Queen Charlotte continued constantly to add to the rare plants in its hothouses. So enamoured did the king become of Kew House that, a few years later, he bought the property from the then representative of the Capel family, retiring to it whenever possible to amuse himself with gardening and farming. He added several acres in Mortlake parish and part of the Old Deer Park of Richmond to the already extensive grounds, a considerable portion of which he converted into grazing land for a fine flock of merino sheep, in which he took a great pride. The house, a picturesque half-timbered building, soon became too small for its owner's ambitious schemes, and shortly before his first attack of insanity he had it pulled down to make way for a huge mansion, which, had it been completed, would have been more like a mediæval stronghold than a residential palace. It was scarcely begun, however, before the king's strange malady increased upon him, and after his death his son George IV., who hated Kew, which was associated with many sad memories for him, decided not to have it completed. In 1827 all that was left of it was cleared away, and its very site is now practically forgotten.

Meanwhile the Dutch House had become even more closely associated with the royal family than its opposite neighbour. It was occupied for some time by Queen Caroline, consort of George II., and in 1781 was bought by George III. for Queen Charlotte, who brought up her large family in it, for which reason it became known, first, as the Royal {224} Nursery, and later as the Princes' House. It was in it that the unfortunate king was shut up when he lost his reason, whilst his wife and children resided in Kew House, and when the latter was pulled down the Dutch House became the chief suburban residence of the royal family. In its drawing-room, fitted up for the occasion as a chapel, were married, on July 11, 1818, the royal brothers, the Dukes of Clarence and Kent, the latter the future father of Queen Victoria, who was born in 1819 in Kensington Palace. In it, too, on November 1818, Queen Charlotte died, and from that time the house was comparatively neglected. It is still the property of the Crown, is kept in good repair, and remains a noteworthy example of sixteenth-century domestic architecture, but it is never likely to be again used as a royal residence. On the other hand the gardens connected with it have become even more beautiful than they were in the time of the Georges. They were given to the nation by Queen Victoria in 1841, and since then, under the able direction of the distinguished botanists Sir William Hooker, his son Sir Joseph Hooker, Sir W. Thisselton Dyer, and their successors, they have become not only an endless source of delight to thousands of sightseers, but also a centre of scientific research. In the museums are preserved examples of a vast number of vegetable products, so that they form, with the infinite variety of growing plants in the grounds and houses, an all but perfect epitome of botany. Moreover, until quite recently, the Observatory, situated on the land filched for a time by George III. from the Richmond {225} Deer Park, was for many years noted for the good astronomical work done in it, but unfortunately, though the building is still standing, the savants, who for so long studied the heavenly bodies from it, have been driven away by the electric trams running between Brentford and Twickenham, that caused such an oscillation of the delicate instruments in use that the accuracy of the observations taken was destroyed. Kew now knows the astronomers no more; they have taken refuge in a remote district in Dumfriesshire, where as yet no tramways disturb their peace, their departure marking the beginning of a new era for the neighbourhood in which they worked so long, and where commercial enterprise has won a complete, though somewhat inglorious, victory over science.

The parish church of Kew, that is still a royal chapel, rises from the green, on land presented by Queen Anne to the people, and dedicated in compliment to her to her namesake, the mother of the Virgin. It was completed in 1714, and is a fairly good example of early eighteenth-century ecclesiastical architecture, for though it has been considerably enlarged, the original style has been preserved. The great gallery at the western end was added by George III. for the use of his large family, and a supplementary chancel, with the mortuary chapel in which rest the remains of the Duke of Cambridge, youngest son of that monarch, was completed in 1833. According to popular tradition George III. was married in Kew Church to the beautiful Quakeress Hannah Lightfoot, whom he had wooed {226} and won long before he saw his future consort, who, it is said, insisted on going through the ceremony of wedlock again in the same building, after the story of her husband's relations with her predecessor came to her ears. However that may be, the old place of worship is full of memories of the royal family; in it the blind King George of Hanover, who was born in a house now used as one of the Herbariums of the Botanic Gardens, was baptized, and there, many years later, the Duchess of Teck, who resided for a long time in Cambridge Cottage, still standing on the green, was married to the father of the present Princess of Wales. A stained-glass window commemorates the duchess, and amongst the hatchments on the walls are two unpretending tablets, one in honour of the portrait painter Johann Zoffany, the other of the more famous Thomas Gainsborough, both of whom are buried in the churchyard, the latter, in accordance with his own instructions, near his old friend Joshua Kirby, who was one of his first patrons.

[Sidenote: Sheen]

Full of interest as is the history of Kew, it is surpassed in fascination by that of the neighbouring royal borough of Richmond, so varied have been the vicissitudes through which it has passed, and so many are the great names associated with it. Originally known as Syenes, and later as Sheen, Richmond was at the time of the Conquest included in the manor of Kingston, when it was but one of many riverside hamlets tenanted chiefly by fishermen. The Anglo-Saxon form of the word Sheen signifies gleaming or beautiful, and certain lovers of {227} Richmond have assumed that it was from the first distinguished above its fellows by its charm, but this is scarcely borne out by evidence, for the name was in use when the sites of the future monasteries, palace, and town were still mere waste lands, often under water, and differing but little if at all from the adjoining districts up and down stream.

It seems certain that there was a manor-house at Sheen as early as the beginning of the twelfth century, and in it Henry I. resided for a short time, probably welcoming there his widowed daughter, Matilda, who on the death of her husband, Henry V. of Germany in 1126, returned to England to be accepted at the following meeting of the Witan as heiress-apparent of her father's kingdom. The Sheen estate was given later by Henry I. to a butler in his service named Michael Belet, but it was not long before it reverted to the Crown, to which it has ever since belonged. Edward I. was several times at Sheen, receiving the Scottish commissioners there in 1300, but the house he occupied was practically rebuilt and converted into a palace by Edward III., who often held his court in it, showing princely hospitality to many distinguished guests before the news of the death of his beloved son, the Black Prince, broke his heart. In it, deserted it is said by all his courtiers, and attended only by a single priest, the once powerful monarch died in 1377, his unworthy mistress, Alice Ferrers, having, when she saw the end was near, absconded with all the valuables she could carry away, including several valuable rings which she had torn off the fingers of her dying lover.

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When the news of Edward's death reached London, his four surviving sons hastened down to the palace at Sheen to pay to their dead father the honours they had withheld from him during the closing years of his life; but whether the body was taken to Westminster for interment by road or by river history does not say. Soon after the funeral Richard II., then a boy of ten years old, received the formal announcement of his succession to the throne from a deputation of leading London citizens, who were received by him and his brother in the great hall, when the young king became so excited that he could not restrain his emotion, but kissed his guests all round on both cheeks. The next day he left his early home mounted on a white horse and robed in white, attended by all his great nobles, who also wore white in honour of the occasion, to make his public entry into his capital. A few years later he brought home to Sheen his beloved bride, Anne of Bohemia, and until her early death he was often there with her, holding regal state and entertaining hundreds of guests every day.

Considerable additions were made to the royal residence at Sheen by Richard's orders, and the superintendence of the works was entrusted to the poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, who had been held in high esteem by Edward III., that monarch having granted him a pension in 1367, calling him in the deed of gift 'our beloved yeoman.' Chaucer became deeply attached to Sheen, but his connection with it was not a long one, for he presently fell into disgrace with his employer, who took away all his official {229} appointments, and though later he was to some extent restored to favour, the king's love for his riverside home had by that time been turned to hatred. In 1394 Queen Anne died at Sheen, and so great was the grief of her husband, who, for all that, soon married again, that he ordered the palace to be razed to the ground immediately after the funeral, a grand and imposing ceremony in which all the chief nobles of England took part. Fortunately the royal commands were not fully carried out, for much of the interesting old building was left standing, and although it was neglected throughout the remainder of the reign of Richard II., it was sufficiently habitable in that of Henry IV. to be used as a residence by his son, the Prince of Wales. Indeed Henry V. was from the first very fond of Sheen, and soon after his succession to the throne he restored and added to the palace, converting it into what his biographer, Thomas Elmham, called 'a delightful mansion of curious and costly workmanship befitting the character and condition of a king.' Henry VI., who was but nine months old when his father died, may possibly have been at Sheen as a child, but the first well-authenticated visit paid by him to the palace was in 1441, when he issued a warrant from it to the sheriffs of the counties through which his aunt, Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, whose husband had been Protector of England during his minority, was expected to pass, giving instructions for her reception. In 1445, the year of Henry's marriage to Margaret of Anjou, Sheen Palace was the scene of many a costly festivity, and ten years later it was to {230} it that the unfortunate monarch was taken when his constitutional weakness had developed into positive insanity. Thence, after his recovery, he went forth to the fatal battle of St. Albans, at which he was defeated and taken prisoner by the Yorkists, and there he returned in 1456, when his mind was again unhinged, whilst his wife, with her beloved son, withdrew to Chester. Once more restored to mental health, Henry made a gallant effort to regain the reins of power, but he never again was king in anything but name, his palace at Sheen knew him no more, but before his tragic death in the Tower in 1471 it was twice tenanted by his hated rival Edward IV. The latter was there for a short time in the first year of his reign, and in 1465 he held a brilliant court in the palace, hoping by his lavish hospitality to reconcile the nobles to his secret marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, the discovery of which so alienated the kingmaker, the mighty Earl of Warwick, that he reverted to the Lancastrian side. At Sheen the queen's relations were very much in evidence, and it is said to have been there that her ladies paid her brother, Anthony Woodville, the compliment of presenting him with a golden garter embroidered with forget-me-nots. In 1467 the king gave the Sheen Palace to his wife, and she often resided in it during her husband's lifetime, possibly also occasionally in the brief reign of Richard III., and she probably hoped, after the murder of her sons, to be allowed to spend her remaining years there, especially as the new king was her son-in-law, but in this she was disappointed. Henry VII. liked the riverside home {231} too much himself, and he lost no time in confiscating it, ordering the widowed queen to retire to a convent at Bermondsey, where she died not long afterwards. [Sidenote: Richmond] Now began a new era of glory for Sheen, the name of which the king changed to Richmond, he having been Earl of Richmond in Yorkshire before he was called to the English throne. What had hitherto been really more like a fortress than a palace was greatly enlarged, the moat which had surrounded it was filled in to make room for the various extensions, and the new buildings were lavishly decorated. When the insurrection headed by Lambert Simnel, the son of an Oxford carpenter, who claimed to be the heir of the murdered Duke of Clarence, broke out in Ireland in 1487, Henry called a council of war together at Richmond, and the following year the Princess Anne of York, fifth daughter of Edward IV., was the guest of the king in the palace. In 1492, after the termination of the war with France, a grand tournament was held partly in the grounds of the royal residence and partly on the green between it and the river, 'in the which space,' says the chronicler John Stow, writing about a century later, 'a combat was holden and doone betwixt Sir James Parker, knight, and Hugh Vaughan, gentleman usher, upon controversie for the arms that garter gave to the sayde Henry Vaughan ... and Sir James was killed incontinently at the first course, in consequence,' in the writer's opinion, 'of his having worn a false helmet,' an incident proving how real were the dangers attending the warlike pageants in which the Tudor sovereigns so greatly delighted.

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In 1497 or 1498 a serious fire broke out in Richmond Palace, and the greater part of the older portion of the building was destroyed, but the king at once set a whole army of workmen to repair the mischief, and in 1501 he was back again in his favourite residence. There, in the early autumn of that year, took place the betrothal of his eldest son, Prince Arthur, with the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, Katharine of Aragon, and there, too, in January 1502, was signed the contract of marriage between the Princess Margaret of England and James IV. of Scotland that eventually resulted in the union of the two countries. Prince Arthur died five months after the wedding, and the king with unexpected generosity gave up the Richmond Palace to his widowed daughter-in-law, who, on June 25, 1503, was affianced to his second son, Henry, heir-apparent of the English throne, who was then only eleven years old. Henry VII. appears to have taken possession of the palace again very soon, for in 1503 he received in it Philip I. of Spain, who had been shipwrecked off the coast of England, holding great festivities in his honour. In 1506 another fire occurred, breaking out this time in the king's own bedroom, and he narrowly escaped a serious accident, for a gallery through which he had passed with the young Prince Henry collapsed just as he was leaving it. In this case, fortunately, the damage done was slight, and Henry spent much of the remainder of his life at Richmond, where he died in 1509, leaving behind him, it is said, a vast accumulation of treasure hidden away in secret chambers and cellars. After solemn {233} services had been held in the private chapel of the palace, the body was taken by road with great pomp to be laid to rest in the beautiful but still unfinished chapel in Westminster Abbey, on which the king had spent fabulous sums during his lifetime, and for the completion of which he left £1000 in his will that he made at Richmond three weeks before his death.

Henry VIII. seems to have been at first as much attached to the Richmond Palace as his father had been. He spent the first Christmas after his accession there, and it was in it, on New Year's Day 1511, that his wife, Katharine of Aragon, gave birth to a son, whose advent was celebrated throughout the kingdom with extraordinary rejoicings. The infant on whom so much depended lived, however, but for six weeks, and his father is said to have looked upon his untimely death as a judgment on himself for having married his brother's widow. After the tragic event the king paid but a few short visits to Richmond, lending the palace there between whiles to distinguished guests, amongst whom was the Emperor Charles V. of Germany, who had come to England, in 1533, for his betrothal to the Princess Mary, then only four years old. That same year Henry leased the Richmond estate to Massey Villiard and Thomas Brampton for a term of thirty years at an annual rental of £25, 8s., but he evidently considered it still his own private property, for he made use of the palace whenever it suited his convenience. In 1526, for instance, when he had compelled Wolsey to give up to him the newly {234} completed mansion at Hampton Court, he told the chagrined donor that he could live in his house at Richmond instead, a privilege of which the cardinal availed himself but seldom, so great was his unpopularity in the neighbourhood, the common people, especially those who had been in the service of Henry VII., bitterly resenting that what they irreverently called 'a bocher's dogge should be in the royall manor of Richmond.' For all that, however, Wolsey received Henry VIII. as his guest in it in 1528, when the feast of the patron-saint of England was celebrated with great solemnity in the chapel, all the companions of the Order of the Garter having been present. After his final disgrace the broken-hearted minister paid a last visit to Richmond, taking up his abode on his arrival as usual at the palace, but he soon received a peremptory message from his angry master telling him to withdraw to the Lodge in the Old Deer Park, the history of which is related below.

In 1535 Anne Boleyn, whose doom was already practically sealed, was for a short time at Richmond Palace, and, according to some authorities, it was in a house near by, then owned by Sir George and Lady Carew, that her successor in the king's affection, Jane Seymour, awaited, on the fatal 19th of May 1536, the arrival of her royal lover, to whom she had been married the day before.

It was at Richmond that Anne of Cleves resided whilst the negotiations were proceeding for her divorce from the fickle king, and when they were concluded Henry, in his relief at getting rid of the {235} 'Dutch cow,' as he irreverently called her, gave her the estate for her life. She became much attached to the palace, and the story goes that the once hated wife several times entertained the king in it with such charming hospitality that he nearly fell in love with her. There was even at one time a rumour that she had become the mother of a son whose father was her divorced husband, and it was not until some of the scandalmongers had been publicly tried and severely punished that gossiping tongues ceased to wag on the subject. That Anne did cherish a hope, when Catherine Howard's influence was waning, of regaining her position as queen appears certain, but she had the sense soon to recognise that she had no chance of success, and she lived quietly on in her luxurious home until the death of Henry, when she had to resign it to Edward VI. The latter preferred Richmond Palace to any of his other residences, and spent as much of his time there as his physicians would allow; but they considered Hampton Court healthier, and insisted on his removal there when his health began to fail. It was at Richmond that took place, in the young king's presence, in the summer of 1550--some say in his private chapel, others in that of the neighbouring Carthusian monastery of Jesus of Bethlehem, of which an account is given below--the marriage of Lord Lisle to Lady Anne Seymour and that of Robert Dudley, later Earl of Leicester, to the ill-fated Amy Robsart, who was to pay so dearly for standing in the way of her husband's courtship of Queen Elizabeth. That same year Edward VI. received {236} in the great hall of the palace the French ambassador, Marshal St. André, who had come from France to invest him with the order of St. Michael, on which occasion the courtly manners and generosity of the king completely won the hearts of all his guests.

Queen Mary was at the palace in 1553, and there received the news of the rebellion headed by Wyatt, which caused her to hasten to London, where her prompt action saved the situation. She returned to Richmond in triumph, and summoned her council to meet her there to discuss the arrangements for her marriage with Philip II. of Spain, on which she was determined in spite of the opposition of her subjects. Her happiest days were spent in the old palace on the green before she realised how vain were her hopes of winning her husband's affections and becoming the mother of an heir to the throne; but after her husband's return to Spain she took a dislike to Richmond. When the Princess Elizabeth was suspected of a plot against her sister's life she was sent from her prison in the Tower to Richmond Palace under the care of the stern Sir Henry Bedingfield, and she was so much pleased with her new place of confinement that she begged to be allowed to remain there. It was whilst she was at Richmond that she was offered a free pardon if she would renounce her claim to the throne and marry the Duke of Suffolk, but she firmly refused, and was therefore removed to Woodstock, where she was kept in close confinement, only escaping condemnation to death by pretending that she had been {237} converted to Roman Catholicism. Later, when Mary's fears of her sister's disloyalty were allayed, and her beloved Philip was once more with her, a grand entertainment was given at Richmond, at which Elizabeth was present, and in the summer of 1558 the queen paid her last visit to the palace, contracting there, it was said, the chill which caused her death, though, as a matter of fact, she had long been in a critical condition of health.

With the accession of Elizabeth a fresh era of prosperity began for Richmond, which was one of the new queen's favourite places of residence, and to which she often went by water, her magnificent state barge escorted by a whole fleet of richly decorated boats bearing her retinue. In Richmond Palace Elizabeth received many of the suitors for her hand, including the young Eric IV., King of Sweden, whom she admitted to some little intimacy, even introducing him to her favourite astrologer, Dr. Dee of Mortlake, though she never had the slightest intention of accepting him; and there, too, she carried on a simultaneous flirtation with the Earls of Leicester and Essex, to the latter of whom she seems to have been really deeply attached. Even after both had passed away she kept up the old traditions, making a gallant attempt to hide the fact that her heart was broken, for she wrote love-letters, some of them from Richmond, to the young Lord Mountjoy; and on one occasion is said to have rewarded a commoner, Mr. William Sydney, with a kiss as a reward for his sprightly dancing of a _coranto_ in her presence in the great hall of the {238} palace. To the last Elizabeth loved her Richmond home; and it was in its chapel that she listened, not long before her death, to a sermon from Dr. Rudd, Bishop of St. David's, on the realistic description of old age in the 12th chapter of Ecclesiastes, remaining, it is related, apparently unmoved even when the preacher, with extraordinary want of tact, referred to her own wrinkles as an example of the ravages of time. The discourse over, however, the queen rose, opened a window with her own hands as if to mark her displeasure, and turning to the doctor told him he could in future keep his disparaging observations to himself, adding, 'I see that some wise men are as big fools as the rest.'

According to some authorities it was at Richmond that the aged sovereign received the news that her beloved Earl of Essex had been executed, a tragedy she had hoped to have prevented, though she had signed his death-warrant, by her promise that she would pardon him at the last moment, however great his crime, if he sent back to her a ring she had given him. Unfortunately there is no reliable historical proof of the truth of the touching story that he did entrust the ring to be given to the queen to the Countess of Nottingham, who kept it back, only confessing the truth on her death-bed to Elizabeth, who shook her violently, declaring that God might forgive her, though she never would; but there is no doubt that the tragic end of the earl hastened her own death. She knew full well that she was doomed soon to follow her favourite to the grave, and often made covert allusions to her conviction, as when she {239} said to Lord Howard, 'I am tied with a chain of iron round my neck, all is changed with me now.' The last few months of her life were spent at Richmond, and she passed peacefully away, after declaring she had no wish to live longer, on March 24, 1603, according to tradition, for which there seems, however, to be no convincing evidence, in a small room still in existence above one of the entrance-gates of the palace. Her body was taken down the river to Whitehall in the very barge she had so often used in life, and never again was Richmond the scene of a great historic pageant. James I. cared little for his property there, and gave it to his eldest son, Henry, of whom, as is well known, he was extremely jealous, preferring that he should not reside at court.

Prince Henry lived much at Richmond, receiving there, in 1606, the French and Spanish ambassadors, who were both eager to secure for their respective sovereigns an alliance with him, and during the last few years of his life he began to form the famous collection of pictures which is still, after going through many vicissitudes, one of the most valued possessions of the English royal family. He was resident at the palace during the whole of the summer before his untimely death, which took place at St. James's Palace in 1612, and was, according to his doctors, the result of over-indulgence in bathing in the Thames. He was deeply mourned by the people of Richmond, with whom he was extremely popular, on account of his genial unassuming manners. He left his pictures to his brother Charles, to whom {240} the Richmond estate was transferred by their father in 1617. The new owner was often at the palace before his accession to the throne, constantly adding to the art treasures in it, and his beloved Steenie was often his guest there. It was from it that the two inseparable friends started in 1623 on their wild expedition to Spain, Charles intending to woo the Infanta incognito before committing himself to an engagement. Two months after Charles became king he was welcoming a very different bride, Henrietta Maria of France, on whom he bestowed the Richmond Palace as part of her marriage portion; and although they both preferred Whitehall and Buckingham Palace, the young couple were several times in residence there before their troubles began. The Richmond home was also turned to account as a place of education for their children, the princesses Elizabeth, Mary, and Anne were there for some years under the care of the Countess of Roxburgh, and there Anne died in 1640, from what her doctor called a 'suffocating cataar.' A year later her brother Charles was sent to Richmond with his tutor, Bishop Duppa, by the Parliament that was already at daggers drawn with his father, and there he enjoyed a time of comparative security and happiness before he became involved in the doom that overtook his parents, and started on his weary wanderings as the disinherited heir of a murdered father. During the four years' Civil War Richmond Palace was practically deserted, and in 1647 the pictures in it were taken down, those likely to spread papal doctrines being burned, and the others dispersed. In 1649 a {241} survey of the property was made by order of Cromwell, when its value was assessed at £10,782, 10s. 2d., and shortly afterwards it was sold to aid in raising money to pay the arrears due to the soldiers of the Parliamentary army. The greater part of the historic building was pulled down, and in 1650 what was left of it was bought by Sir Gregory Norton, who had been one of the king's judges, and had signed the warrant for his execution. According to some authorities Sir Gregory resided in the dismantled mansion until his death, which took place in 1652, whilst others assert that he was turned out of it at the Restoration, when he narrowly escaped sharing the fate of the other regicides. However that may be, the palace, hallowed by so many memories, was certainly occupied for a short time by the widowed queen Henrietta Maria, who actually received in it, as her guest, the notorious Lady Castlemaine, one of Charles II.'s many mistresses, who had left him in a fit of temper at a moment's notice. The story goes that the king joined her at Richmond the next morning, in the hope of patching up a reconciliation, when he probably had a stormy interview with his mother, who must indeed have mourned over his many iniquities, and wondered that all his troubles should have taught him so little.

The Queen Dowager left Richmond for France, never to return, in 1665, giving over the palace to Sir Edward Villiers, who two years later either lent or rented it to a relative of his, Lady Frances Villiers, who had charge of the three young children of the Duke of York, the future James II., two of whom, {242} the Dukes of Kendal and Cambridge, died in 1667. On the accession of James II., Richmond Palace was given back to the Crown, but the new king never lived in it, though he sent his infant son, who was to have such a melancholy career as the Pretender, to be cared for there. The child, who was so delicate that he had not been expected to live, throve in his new surroundings, and was taken back to Windsor in time to share his parents' flight on the landing of the Prince of Orange. After the new revolution the royal demesne at Richmond was long deserted, William III. and his consort having paid only flying visits to it. The Princess Anne, daughter of James II. by his first wife, who had been very happy there with her little brothers before their untimely death, begged hard to be allowed to live in it, but permission was refused, and it was not until the accession of George II. that it was again used as a royal residence. The palace was given by him to his wife, Queen Caroline, who built for the accommodation of the ladies of her court the four substantial mansions on the west side of the green that are still known as Maids of Honour Row. In 1770 Richmond Palace was for a few months the home of Queen Charlotte, who, as already stated in connection with Kew, had a great love for the whole neighbourhood. Since then, unfortunately, further portions of the grand old mansion, that at one time with its dependencies occupied ten and a half acres of ground, have been pulled down, and all that is now left are the entrance gateway--on which, carved in stone, is the coat of arms of Henry VII.--of what is still {243} known as the Wardrobe Court, and a portion of the buildings that once surrounded the latter, which are leased by the Crown to different tenants, and still bear witness with their ornate internal decoration, their quaint nooks and corners, and their secret passages, to the good old days gone by, when they were but a small part of a stately palace, capable of accommodating hundreds of distinguished guests, that was the scene of many a courtly pageant and many an exciting intrigue.

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