HAMPTON COURT PALACE IN STUART TIMES.* Mn. LAW'S original intention
was to complete his work on Hampton Court Palace in two volumes, but finding he could not do this without sacrificing important matter, he stopped the new volume at the death of James II., leaving the events from that time to the present to be dealt with in another volume. We wish Mr. Law had kept to his original intention. We do not, of course, know what he has in store for the third volume, but we think the work might have been judiciously compressed into two. Many people will fight shy of three volumes who would welcome two, whilst others who want some fresh information about the Palace and its grounds will find it obscured by such superfluous details as, for instance, occupy a whole chapter on the conference between Anglicans and Puritans in 1603. The second volume is certainly not equal to the first. Not that it is less in- teresting, for the contents, whatever the treatment, cannot be otherwise than full of interest, but because the interest has rather shifted from the Palace to those who dwelt in it. To a certain extent this is inevitable, for the earlier volume had the advantage of dealing with the origin and growth of the Tudor Palace, whilst the other is restricted to alterations and additions. In order, therefore, to provide materials for some sort of framework, it became necessary to trench on the domain of history, and Mr. Law was tempted to write much that had already been written and rewritten by others. He has, however, done this with judgment, and the result is a very readable book, notwithstanding that the Palace itself is often overlooked. Mr. Law is conscientious in giving the authorities for his statements, and emphasises his narrative with pertinent extracts, though certain passages of the latter are somewhat forcible for a book of this description.
Soon after his accession, James I. paid a visit to Hampton Court, and it was from the Palace that on July 17th, 1603, he issued a summons to all persons who had £40 a year in land or upwards, to come and receive the honour of knighthood, intending to enrich himself either by means of the fees
• (1.) The History of Hampton Court Palace in Stuart Tunes. By Ernest Law, B.A. London : George Bell and Sons. 1888.—(2) Etchings of Hampton Court Palace. By Arthur Robertson. With Notes by Ernest Law, B.A. London : Catty and Dobson. appertaining thereto, or by fines in the event of refusal. Six days later, seven hundred would-be knights were ready to receive the honour; and on July 23rd the King created three hundred at Whitehall. He had previously (July 21st) created eleven Peers in the Great Hall, in the presence of the Queen and Court. James I. returned to Hampton Court to spend Christmas, and determined to have some grand masques as the principal feature of the festivities. Mr. Law has given a full and graphic description of the grand Royal masque, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, which took place in the Great Hall on January 8th, 1604, and must have been a most brilliant spectacle. Scenery representing a. mountain was erected at the lower end, rising high into the roof, and con- cealing the whole of the end wall; the King, attended by Ambassadors and courtiers, sat under a canopy of state at the further end of the hall, near the south oriel window, and watched the progress of the entertainment; at one point, the twelve goddesses and others were to be seen all at once coming down the winding pathway of the mountain, preceded by the Three Graces clad in silver robes and marching to the sound of music, which was played by minstrels attired as satyrs, and half-hidden among the rocks. The Queen took the part of Pallas, and according to Dudley Carleton, " bare the bell away for good grace and good footmanship." This was the first Royal dramatic representation ever witnessed in England, and made no small stir in the country. We should like to see the whole scene reproduced in the Great Hall under Mr. Law's guidance. He puts forth a strong plea for a revival of such entertainments. They are thoroughly English, and specially adapted for modern representation, whilst it may be mentioned in their favour that Ben Jonson took special pleasure in writing the libretto for such masques, that Inigo Jones was proud of designing the scenery, and that Bacon, Selden, and other famous men vied with one another in arranging the details. In striking contrast to The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, there followed a few days later the famous Hampton Court Conference between the Anglicans and Puritans, in which the King took such a prominent part. The sittings were held in the King's Privy Chamber, one of the large rooms on the east side of the Clock Court, and the King availed himself of the opportunity for dis- playing his religious knowledge ; but the only other result of the Conference was to leave the two parties in that attitude of uncompromising hostility which later on developed into the great Civil War. In 1606, the Queen's brother, Christian IV., King of Denmark, came to Hampton Court, and appears to have passed a festive time there. He "hunted and killed deare, with great pleasures ;" and his visit seems to have been made an excuse for a course of " tilting matches, running at the ring, tennis, hunting, shooting, sports, masques, banquets, and carousals of all kinds." From the description given by Sir John Harrington of this visit, we fear he led his entertainers into excess ; for he not only induced the English nobles to drink freely, but even "the ladies abandon their sobriety, and are seen to roll about in intoxication." James I. was devoted to hunting—in his own fashion—and gained considerable unpopularity by the strictness with which the game was preserved. Mr. Law does not tell us if he was a good shot, but he states that the King used to take " pot- shots" from behind a tree at the tame deer. Nor is it made clear whether this was done with a gun or with a long-bow, which he sometimes used. The Queen frequently shared her husband's sport, but on one occasion unfor- tunately killed the King's favourite hound, instead of a stag. When he heard who had done this, he did not wish her to be troubled about it, for he said he should love her never the worse, and the next day sent her a diamond worth £1,000, as a legacy from his dead dog. Many of the incidents offer attractive material for the historical painter. We find Shakespeare taking a part in his own plays ; James I. hunting the stag in Bushey Park; Henry, Prince of Wales, practising with bow and arrows ; Charles I. and Henrietta Maria strolling about the gardens in the days of their honeymoon; Charles I. and Cromwell pacing the cloisters of the Palace and discussing the affairs of the country ; Charles I. giving a dinner to Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Cromwell and Mr. and Mrs. Ireton ; Cromwell and his family listening enraptured to Milton as he played on the organ in the Great Hall; and Charles II., as a, young man, playing tennis in the court he had just renovated.
It will be news to many to learn that Oliver Cromwell lived so much in Hampton Court Palace after he became Lord Protector, and that on State occasions he observed much of the princely splendour of James I. and Charles I. Some, too, will hear for the first time that he was not always so austere as he is represented, but that with his ordinary friends and associates he maintained a boisterous familiarity. He would vie with them in making impromptu verses, and would some- times smoke. Once a week he dined with his officers, and on these occasions would be very merry, showing them a hundred " antick tricks," such as pelting them with cushions, and putting live coals into their boots. At his daughter's wedding, he amused himself by throwing sack. posset over the ladies' dresses, and daubing the seats of their chairs with wet sweetmeats. He had, however, other tastes, and he was not indifferent to the beauty of the old tapestries, for he not only had the Great Hall decorated with them, but he hung his own bedroom with fine tapestry hangings of Vulcan and Venus. It does not seem to be known how he became possessed of the bulk of the furniture and chattels at Hampton Court Palace, which were claimed by Mrs. Crom- well after his death ; but many of these she had to relinquish.
The well-known " Diana " fountain in Bushey Park appears to have been moved from the Privy Garden to its present position by William ILL, and the statue on the top is described in the inventory of 1659 as that of Arethusa, Evelyn stating it to be by Fanelli. Mr. Law says that, "as she holds an apple in her hand, it seems probable that it represents Venus." We do not agree with Mr. Law here, and for this reason. Arethusa was, in mythological story, the nymph of the famous fountain near Syracuse, and there was, therefore, reason for selecting her as the chief figure on a fountain where bronze sirens were to be seen seated on dolphins. Moreover, there was already another statue of Venus in the Privy Garden. Perhaps it is not an apple, but a shell, which lies in the hand of the statue. The fact that Arethusa, was one of the nymphs in attendance on Diana may in some way have given rise to the misnomer under which the fountain is now known, or it may have been acquired, as Mr. Law suggests, from its sylvan surroundings.
Mr. Law has been liberal with his illustrations, and judicious in their selection, those from old pictures in the Palace and the reproductions from contemporary plates being carefully executed. Those taken from sketches designed specially for this work are by no means equal to those in the first volume. Of those portions of the Palace which remain as they were during the seventeenth century, we should like to have seen some photogravure specimens ; and we rather wonder that Mr. Law did not give a fac-simile of the curious painting now in the Palace, which represents Charles II. taking leave of the Dutch Court in 1660. The portraits are excellent. That of Catherine of Braganza quite supports Mr. Law's description of her personal appearance, but it is not like the more flattering miniature portraits of her in the Duke of Buccleuch's col- lection. However, contemporary writers differed about her good looks. Mr. Law, however, harps too much upon the ugliness of the Portuguese ladies of the Queen's household. Considerable structural repairs and alterations were carried out in Charles IL's reign, in addition to refurnishing and re- decorating. The latest improvements from Paris and the other Continental cities where the King had played, were intro- duced into the Tennis Court. The game of tennis, which had been condemned by the Puritans as " ungodly and sinful," revived after the Restoration, and became very fashionable, new courts being built at Whitehall and St. James's on the model of the one at Hampton Court. Charles H. seems to have been a fair player, though Pepys was disgusted at the obsequiousness of the courtiers, who extolled the King's play when there was no cause for it. Charles II. was also very fond of the gardens, and sent across the Channel for French gardeners. It was during his reign that the well- known dwarf yew-trees were planted, together with the great avenues of lime-trees which radiate from the centre of the east front of the Palace, and point rather to the influence of French taste. It was Charles II., too, who dug the great canal, now a favourite skating resort in severe winters, and Mr. Law thinks this, with its fringe of lime trees, due to the Dutch scenery with which he had become so familiar. On one occa- sion, Evelyn saw the beautiful gondola sent to the King by the State of Venice floating on the Thames, but he writes that " it was not comparable for swiftness to our common wherries,
though managed by Venetians." Although James II. was frequently at Hounslow Heath, it is not certain whether he ever spent a night at Hampton Court Palace, but he held a Council there in May, 1687. From his death to the present time, the history of the Palace has yet to be written; and we hope that Mr. Law will insert in his concluding volume some good illustrations of the Palace as it actually appeared at the close of the Stuart era, not omitting one of the whole east front, prior to the erection of the existing building, and showing where it differs from the view in the first volume of the Palace as finished by Henry VIII.
We are not favourably impressed with a series of ten etchings by Mr. Arthur Robertson, for which Mr. Law has written the letterpress. As views of Hampton Court Palace they will, perhaps, find favour in the neighbourhood, but as works of art, standing on their own merits, they can claim little attention. The beautiful Gothic roofing of the Great Hall in No. 5 contains better work than the others, but they all appear to us bare and cold, lacking finish, and containing little of the delicate touch and careful manipulation which characterise the work of our modern etchers. In two of the plates there is a palpable omission of shadow to figures standing in broad sunshine, in another the light is made to come from both sides at once, and the buildings generally are weak and unsubstantial.
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