sor. Hampton, part of Hanworth, Teddington, and Hounslow Heath, in Middlesex, from the Prior of St. John, and begun his magnificent building in the year 1515. He had been upwards of ten years employed upon it, when the vastness of the design began to excite the admiration and envy of all who beheld it. His enemies took occasion of the remarks that were universally made to stir up the jealousy of the King against his minister; and Henry asked him why he had built a palace so far surpassing any of those belonging to his sovereign. The Cardinal, prompt at an expedient, but ever princely, replied, that he was merely trying to construct a residence worthy to be given to a King of England. The wrath of the tyrant was appeased, and in exchange for the magnificent gift he gave Wolsey permission to reside in the royal manor and palace of Richmond. Wolsey, however, continued to reside occasionally in that part of the palace of Hampton Court which was already built; for Henry knew too well the fine taste of the Cardinal in architecture to permit any meaner hand to complete what he had begun. Although he thus lived in the palace as a mere tenant, he was in most respects as much its master as if it still remained his own. It was here he gave his magnificent festivals, and particularly that great one to the French ambassadors, of which so minute an account has been handed down to us by Cavendish, a gentleman of his household, and his biographer. The festival was given in the year 1528, after the conclusion of a solemn peace between England, France, and the Emperor of Germany. The ambassadors were successively entertained at Greenwich, London, Richmond, Hampton, and WindThe King entertained them at Greenwich, the Lord Mayor in London,—the King again at his park in Richmond, and Wolsey at Hampton Court. The reception they met from Wolsey was by far the most magnificent. The account handed down to us by the minute and accurate historian, gives us a grand idea of the power and splendour of that proud churchman. The rich hangings of arras, the massive silver and gold plate, the regiments of tall yeomen in gay liveries that waited upon the guests, the glare of the torches, the costliness and excellence of the wines, the savour of the meats, and the superabundance of everything, are all set forth very eloquently by honest old Stowe, who seems to have imagined that no feast ever given in the world before could have equalled the Cardinal's. After describing all these things in a style and language of most agreeable roughness and simplicity, he continues, "The trumpets were blowen to warn to supper; the officers discreetely conducted these noblemen from their chambers into the chamber where they should sup, and caused them there to sit downe; and that done, their service came uppe in such abundance, both costly and full of subtleties, and with such a pleasant noise of instruments of music, that the Frenchmen (as it seemed) were rapte into a heavenly paradise. The Cardinall was not yet come, but they were all merrie and pleasant. Before the second course, the Cardinall came in booted and spurred, all sodainely amongst them, and bade them Proface!' [much good may it do you!] at whose coming there was a great joye, with rising everie man from his place. The Cardinall caused them to sit still and keep their roomes; and, being in his apparell as he rode, called for a chaire and sat in the midst of the high table. Anone came up the second course, with so many dishes, subtleties, and devices, above a hundred in number, which were of so goodly proportion and costlie, that I think the Frenchmen never saw the like. The wonder was no less than it was worthie indeed. There were castles, with images the same as in Paul's church, for the quantity as well counterfeited as the painter should have painted it on a cloth or wall. There were beasts, birds, and personages, most lively made and counterfeited, some fighting with swords, some with guns and cross-bowes, some vaulting and leaping, some dancing with ladies, some on horses in complete harnesse, jousting with long and sharp speares, with many more devices. Among all other was a chess-board made of spiced plate, with men thereof the same; and for the good proportion, and because the Frenchmen be verie expert in that play, my Lord Cardinall gave the same to a gentleman of France, commanding there should be made a goodlie case for the preservation thereof in all haste, that he might convey the same into his countrey. Then took my lord a bowle of gold filled with ippocrass, and putting off his cappe, said, I drink to the King my sovereign lord, and next unto the King your master,' and therewith drank a good draught. And when he had done, he desired the grand master to pledge him, cup and all, the which was well worth five hundred marks, and so caused all the lords to pledge these two royal princes. Then went the cups so merriely about, that many of the Frenchmen were fain to be led to their beds." In less than two short years afterwards, what a change came over the fortunes of the minister! To quote again the words of the same historian, Wolsey, being in disgrace, left London, and having no house of his own to go to, "rode straight to Esher, which is a house belonging to the bishoprick of Winchester, not far from Hampton Court, where my lord and his family continued for the space of three or four weekes without either beds, sheetes, tableclothes, or dishes to eate their meate in, or wherewith to buye anie. Howbeit there was good provision of victual, and of beer and wine; but my lord was compelled of necessitie to borrowe of Master Arundel, and of the Bishop of Carlisle, plate and dishes both to drinke and eate his meate in." It was then when, to use his own words to his attached servants who thronged around him, "he had nothing left him but the bare clothes on his back," that he first began to be really convinced that "He had touch'd the highest point of all his greatness, And from the full meridian of his glory Was hastening to his setting, and to fall Like a bright exhalation in the evening, No man to see him more!" Wolsey was again taken into favour, and again disgraced, and died before the palace was completed. Henry continued the work with great vigour, and was always much attached to the place. He took a sort of dislike to it after the death of his favourite wife, the Lady Jane Seymour, who expired within its walls two days after giving birth to King Edward the Sixth. With more grief than might have been expected from so mere an animal, he could not bear to look at the palace for several weeks, and retired to mourn his loss in private, clinging pertinaciously to the garments of sable, and refusing to be comforted. But the fit soon wore off; he found himself another wife, in the person of Anne of Cleves, " a great Flanders mare," as he called her; a compliment which she might have returned with as much elegance, and with more justice, by calling him a great English hog." He never tired of her, for the good reason that he always hated her. She was allowed to reside at Hampton Court, until all the preparations were made for her divorce, when the King, according to Stowe, wishing to get rid of her, "caused her to remove to Richmond, persuading her it should be more for her health and pleasure, by reason of the cleare and open air there." - the His next Queen, Catherine Howard, was for awhile judged worthy to appear at his festivals in Hampton Court; but, being anything but a discreet woman, and her husband growing tired of her, she was divorced by the most summary of all divorces, executioner's knife. The new Queen, Catherine Parr, was married in a very short time afterwards, with great pomp and rejoicings at Hampton Court. The ceremony was performed in July, 1543; and, from that period to the death of Henry, the palace was a constant scene of gaiety. It was in one of these festivals that the poetic Earl of Surrey first became, or thought himself, enamoured of the fair Geraldine, whose name is almost as famous in connection with his, as that of Laura with the amorous Petrarch's. In his description and praise of his love he says, "Foster'd she was with milk of Irish breast: Her sire an earl-her dame of princes' blood. The The story of the great love entertained by this agreeable poet and accomplished gentleman for the beautiful Geraldine has been much commented on, and forms a romantic episode in his unfortunate life. It would be much more romantic if it were true as tradition has . handed it down to us. He is said to have written her name and some amorous verses upon a window at Hampton Court, to have excited thereby the jealousy of the King,-and finally to have been brought to the scaffold from that, among many other causes. name of the lady whom he has celebrated was for a long time unknown, until Horace Walpole proved that she was the Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, daughter of the Earl of Kildare, and one of the maids of honour of the Princess Mary. When Surrey first saw her, he was a married man, living affectionately with his wife, and the fair Geraldine was a mere child of thirteen years of age. Surrey himself was in his twenty-fourth year. There is no doubt that he was struck with her beauty, and that he has celebrated her in the tenderest amorous poetry. Whether he loved her is quite another question. It should be remembered that Surrey's great master in the art of poetry was Petrarch, whom he devoutly and enthusiastically studied; and that effectually to imitate him, it was necessary that he should have a lady-love, upon whose imaginary coldness or slights he might pour out the whole flow of his amorous versification. There is not the slightest evidence to show that his attachment, if the name can be bestowed upon a mere conceit, ever went beyond this, or was anything more than admiration, sedulously encouraged for the sake of rhyming. Cowley, who was never in love but once, and then had not resolution enough to tell his passion, thought himself bound, as a true poet, to pay some homage at the shrine, and published "The Mistress," a collection of amorous poems, addressed to an imaginary beauty. Something of the same kind was the muchtalked-of love of Surrey for the young Geraldine. She was married in her fifteenth year to Sir Anthony Brown, but Surrey continued to rhyme, without offending either his own wife, or the lady's husband, a circumstance which serves to show that the persons most concerned were fully aware of the real state of the case. tion that Henry VIII. took any jealousy or dislike to Surrey on account of it is quite unfounded. The noble poet first saw the Lady Geraldine in 1541. In the following year, so high was he in his sovereign's favour, that he was made a Knight of the Garter. On the invasion of France in 1544 by Henry, the vanguard of the army was commanded by the Duke of Norfolk, Surrey's father, while Surrey himself was appointed to the honourable post of Marshal of England. The asser During the progress of the war he was made commander of Guinses, and afterwards of Boulogne; in which latter post, in consequence of a panic terror among his men, he was defeated by the French. It was this circumstance, and not his pretended love for Geraldine, that first lessened the good opinion which his sovereign entertained of him. The real cause of his condemnation and death has not been very clearly ascertained; but it is quite absurd to suppose that Henry's jealousy of him in the matter of Geraldine had anything whatever to do with it. Edward VI. often resided at Hampton Court. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood were much attached to him, being proud that their village was the birth-place of the King. When there was'a rumour that the Protector, Somerset, entertained a design to seize his person, they armed, unsolicited, for his defence; a proof of their devotion, which Edward strove to repay by relieving them from the inconvenience and annoyance of the royal chase, which inclosed a vast extent of country, and which had been formed in the latter years of his father's life, when he was old and fat, and unable to ride far in search of his sport. Mary and her husband, Philip, passed their honeymoon at Hampton Court, and afterwards gave a grand entertainment to the Princess Elizabeth, the presumptive heiress to the crown. Elizabeth, on her accession, also resided occasionally at Hampton Court; and there is a tradition that Shakspeare made his very first appearance on any stage before her, in a little apartment of the palace set apart for theatrical representations. In the reign of James, Hampton Court was the place of meeting of the celebrated conference on faith and discipline, between the divines of the Church of England and the Puritans, and in which the sign of the cross in baptism, the ring in marriage, the use of the surplice, and the bowing at the name of Jesus, were severally attacked by the one, and defended by the other party. James presided, to his own great delight, over their deliberations, and gave so much satisfaction to the Church of England, that he was declared by the Arhbishop of Canterbury to be a man who delivered his judgments by the special assistance of the Spirit of God. During the prevalence of a severe plague in London, Charles I. and his family took refuge in this palace, where it was thought the air was more wholesome than in any other part of England. Fifteen years afterwards he was driven here by a pest of a different description, the riotous apprentices of the capital. In the year 1647, this place became, for a third time, his temporary prison for a few months, prior to his unfortunate escape to the Isle of Wight; an event which associates this building with the most remarkable incident in British history. After the execution of the King, Cromwell occasionally resided here. The Long Parliament had issued their orders for the sale of the house and grounds; but the order was stayed, and it was voted as a residence for the Lord Protector. Here, in 1657, his daughter, Mary, was married to the Lord Falconbridge; and here, also, in the year succeeding, his favourite daughter, Mrs. Claypole, expired, to the great grief of her sire. At the Restoration, Hampton Court was given, as a reward to the great instrument of that event, Monk, Duke of Albemarle. He wisely accepted a sum of money instead of a palace, which he had not revenues sufficient to inhabit in becoming state, and the place once more reverted to the Crown. Charles II, and his brother, both occasionally visited Hampton, and resided in it for months at a time; but, it was not until the reign of William and Mary that the palace again acquired the importance which it had in some measure lost since the days of the eighth Henry. William III. and his illustrious consort were alike partial to this residence; and under their superintendence various alterations were made from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. Three of the old courts built by Wolsey, were pulled down, the present state-rooms and staircases were erected, and the pleasure-gardens laid out in the Dutch style, with the long canal, to put his Majesty in mind of his native country. The canal is forty feet broad, and more than half a mile in length; and, were it not quite so straight as the Dutch taste imperatively commands, would be a very pleasing object in the view from the gardens. In this favourite residence, William, as is well known, met his death. He was riding from Kensington to Hampton Court; and when he had arrived in his own grounds, his horse stumbled, and the King was thrown to the ground with such violence as to fracture his collar-bone. Being of a weakened constitution, he died from the effects of the accident fifteen days afterwards. The spot in the gardens is still shown where his horse stumbled. Queen Anne spent much of her time in this palace, where, according to Pope, she sometimes took counsel, and sometimes tea. Pope himself was a frequent visiter to the gardens, where he used to amuse himself in walking about for hours at a time, sometimes alone, and sometimes in company with an agreeable maid of honour, Miss Lepel, afterwards Lady Hervey. George I. gave several grand entertainments here, and had plays performed for the amusement of his visiters. George II. had similar tastes; and, in the year 1718, caused Wolsey's grand hall to be fitted up as a theatre, for the performance of Shakspeare's plays. Among others, it is recorded that "Henry VIII," showing the fall of Wolsey, was enacted by the express command of his Majesty. During the life-time of this monarch he allowed his son, the Prince VOL. VI. Y |