Situation of Kensington Palace-Houses near it-Kensington Palace Gardens-The "King's Arms "-Henry VIII.'s Conduit-Palace GreenThe Kensington Volunteers-The Water Tower-Thackeray's House: his Death-Description of the Palace-The Chapel-The Principal Pictures formerly shown here-Early History of the Building-William III. and Dr. Radcliffe-A "Scene" in the Royal ApartmentsDeath of Queen Mary and William III.-Queen Anne and the Jacobites-"Scholar Dick," and his Fondness for the Bottle-Lax Manners of the Court under the Early Georges-Death of George II.-The Princess Sophia-Caroline, Princess of Wales-Balls and Parties given by her Royal Highness-An Undignified Act-The Duke of Sussex's Hospitality-Birth of the Princess Victoria-Her Baptism-Death of William IV., and Accession of Queen Victoria-Her First Council-Death of the Duke of Sussex-The Duchess of Inverness-Other Royal Inhabitants. As in France, so also in England, nearly all the palaces of royalty are located outside the city. Greenwich, Eltham, Hatfield, Theobalds, Nonsuch, Enfield, Havering-atte-Bower, Oatlands, Hampton Court, Kew, Richmond, all in turn, as well as Kensington, have been chosen as residences for our sovereigns. Kensington Palace, though actually situated in the parish of St. Margaret, Westminster, is named from the adjoining town, to which it would more naturally seem to belong, and it stands in grounds about 350 acres in extent. Palace Gate House, a spacious mansion, with ornamental elevation, standing on the north side of the High Street, near the entrance to the Palace, was long the residence of the late Mr. John Forster, the historian, biographer, and critic, and the friend of Charles Dickens. A broad roadway, leading from the High Street of Kensington to the Bayswater Road, and known as Kensington Palace Gardens, contains several costly mansions, including one of German-Gothic design, built for the Earl of Harrington in 1852. In the High Street, close by the entrance to the Palace, is the "King's Arms" Tavern, at which Addison was a frequent visitor, when he took up his abode in his adopted home at Holland House as the husband of Lady Warwick. On the west side of Palace Green, in what was formerly called the King's Garden, Henry VIII. is said to have built a conduit, or bath, for the use of the Princess Elizabeth, when a child. It was a low building, with walls of great thickness, and the roof covered with bricks. The interior was in good preservation when Faulkner wrote his "History of Kensington," and afforded a favourable specimen of the brickwork of the period. It is clear, from an entry in the parish books, though unnoticed by Faulkner, that Queen Elizabeth, at least on one occasion subsequent to her childhood, stayed within the parish, for the parish officers are rebuked and punished for not ringing "when Her Majesty left Kensington." Probably this 139 the last century. In 1801 an engraving was published, showing the presentation of colours to the regiment; the original painting, together with the colours themselves-which were worked by the Duchess of Gloucester and her daughter, the Princess Sophia Matilda-are now in the Vestry Hall. In 1876 these colours were placed in front KENSINGTON PALACE, FROM THE GARDENS. entry refers to some visit which she paid to Holland House, where no doubt she was entertained as a guest by the then owner, the old Earl of Holland, or by Sir Walter Cope, who built the original mansion. On Palace Green are the barracks for foot-soldiers, who still regularly mount guard at the Palace. The Green, called in ancient documents the "Moor," was the military parade when the Court resided here, and the royal standard was hoisted on it daily. Among the historical associations of this place must not be overlooked the Old Kensington Volunteers, which was formed towards the close of of the Princess Louise, when she opened the New National Schools here, and the vicar of Kensington drew the attention of her Royal Highness to this work of her ancestors. Dr. Callcott, whom we have already mentioned as living near the Gravel Pits, was band-master in the above corps, which was disbanded at the Peace of Amiens, and also in the Kensington Corps of Volunteer Infantry, which was established in 1803. On this green there stood formerly a water-tower of singular construction; it was built in the reign. of Queen Anne, but had long ceased to be used when Faulkner wrote his "History of Kensington" in 1820. It was of red brick, and consisted of three storeys, surrounded by two heavy battlemented turrets; it is said to have been designed by Sir John Vanbrugh. The tower was removed in 1850. In 1846, Thackeray removed from London to Kensington, taking up his abode at No. 13, Young Street, which connects the Square with the High Street, occupying also by day, for working purposes, chambers at 10, Crown Office Row, Temple. He afterwards removed to Onslow Square, Brompton; but about 1861, or the following year, he again removed to the more congenial neighbourhood of Kensington Palace, and took up his permanent abode in the "Old Court Suburb," about which Leigh Hunt has gossiped so pleasantly. He took on a long lease a somewhat dilapidated mansion, on the west side of Palace Gardens. His intention at first was to repair and improve it, but he finally resolved to pull it down, and build a new house in its place. This, a handsome, solid mansion of choice red brick, with stone facings, was built from his own designs, and he occupied it until his death. "It was," remarks Mr. James Hannay, "a dwelling worthy of one who really represented literature in the great world, and who, planting himself on his books, yet sustained the character of his profession with all the dignity of a gentleman." A friend who called on him there from Edinburgh, in the summer of 1862, knowing of old his love of the poet of Venusia, playfully reminded him what Horace says of those who, regardless of their death, employ themselves in building houses: "Sepulchri regarded as an investment of a portion of his fortune, left no cause for regret. Mr. John Forster has told us, in his "Life of Charles Dickens," how the latter met Thackeray at the Athenæum Club, just a week before his death, and shook hands with him at parting, little thinking that it was for the last time. "There had been some estrangement between them since the autumn of 1858. . . . Thackeray, justly indignant at a published description of himself by a member of a club to which both he and Dickens belonged (the Garrick), referred the matter to the committee, who decided to expel the writer. Dickens, think ing expulsion too harsh 66 a penalty for an offence thoughtlessly given, and, as far as might be, manfully atoned for by withdrawal and regret, interposed to avert the extremity. Thackeray resented the interference, and Dickens was justly hurt at the manner in which he did So. Neither," adds Mr. Forster, was wholly in the right, nor was either altogether in the wrong." The affair, however, is scarcely worth being added as a fresh chapter to the "Quarrels of Authors." Thackeray had often suffered from serious illness, so that his daughter was not much alarmed at finding him in considerable pain and suffering on Wednesday, the 23rd of December, 1863. He complained of pain when his servant left his room, wishing him "good-night," and in the morning, on entering, the man-servant found him dead. He had passed away in the night from an effusion of blood on the brain. HENRY VIII.'S CONDUIT. (See page 139.) Immemor struis domos." "Nay," said he, "I am memor sepulchri, for this house will always let for so many hundreds "-mentioning the sum-"a year." Thackeray was always of opinion, that notwithstanding the somewhat costly proceeding of pulling down and re-erecting, he had achieved the result, rare for a private gentleman, of building for himself a house which, Mr. Hannay wrote:-"Thackeray is dead; and the purest English prose writer of the nineteenth century, and the novelist with a greater knowledge of the human heart as it really is than any onewith the exception, perhaps, of Shakespeare and Balzac-is suddenly struck down in the midst of us. In the midst of us! No long illness, no lingering decay, no gradual suspension of power; almost pen in hand, like Kempenfelt, he went down. Well said the Examiner-Whatever little feuds may have gathered about Mr. Thackeray's public life lay lightly on the surface of the minds Kensington Palace.] HISTORICAL PAINTINGS IN KENSINGTON PALACE. 141 private closet of William III., and contained his writing table and escritoire; and the 'Patchwork Closet' had its walls and chairs covered with tapestry worked by Queen Mary." that chanced to be in contest with him. They could be thrown off in a moment, at the first shock of the news that he was dead.' It seemed impossible to realise the fact. No other celebritybe he writer, statesman, artist, actor-seemed so The palace contains a comfortable though far thoroughly a portion of London. That 'good grey from splendid or tasteful suite of state apartments, head which all men knew' was as easy of recog- the ceilings and staircases of which are ornamented nition as his to whom the term applied, the Duke with paintings by Kent. The grand staircase leads of Wellington. Scarcely a day passed without his from the principal entrance to the palace, on the being seen in the Pall-Mall districts; and a Lon-west, by a long corridor, the sides of which are doner showing to 'country cousins' the wonders painted to represent a gallery crowded with spectaof the metropolis, generally knew how to arrange for them to get a sight of the great English writer." The palace has been described as a "plain brick building, of no particular style or period, but containing a heterogeneous mass of dull apart ments, halls, and galleries, presenting externally no single feature of architectural beauty; the united effect of its ill-proportioned divisions being irregular and disagreeable in the extreme." This criticism can hardly be considered too severe. Certain portions of the exterior, it is true, are admired as fine specimens of brickwork in their way; but it cannot be concealed that the general effect of the brick is mean and poor. tors on a Court day, in which the artist has introduced portraits of himself; of "Peter, the Wild Boy;" of Ulric, a Polish lad, page to George I.; and of the Turks Mahomet and Mustapha, two of his personal attendants, who were taken prisoners by the Imperialists in Hungary, and who, having become converts to Christianity, obtained posts at Court. Mahomet was extremely charitable, and Pope thus records his personal worth : "From peer or bishop 'tis no easy thing To draw the man who loves his God and king. The chapel royal is as plain and ordinary am apartment as a Scottish Presbyterian would wish to see; but it is remarkable for containing some fine communion plate. Divine service is performed here regularly by a chaplain to the household, and the public are admitted. The following particulars of the interior of the palace, some of which stand good even at the present day, we glean from John Timbs' "Curiosities of London," published in 1855-"The great staircase, of black and white marble, and graceful ironwork (the walls painted by Kent with The fine collection of historical paintings which mythological subjects in chiaroscuro, and archi- once adorned the walls of Kensington Palace tectural and sculptural decoration), leads to the is unrecorded in Dr. Waagen's "Art and Artists in suite of twelve state apartments, some of which England." The fact is that they have been, for are hung with tapestry, and have painted ceilings. the most part, dispersed, and many of them now The 'Presence Chamber' has a chimney-piece richly are to be found at the Palace of Hampton Court, sculptured by Gibbons, with flowers, fruits, and and other public buildings. Mr. George Scharf, heads; the ceiling is diapered red, blue, and gold F.S.A., in his "Notes on the Royal Picture Galupon a white field, copied by Kent from Hercula- leries," states that Kensington Palace, during the neum; and the pier-glass is wreathed with flowers, reign of George II., appears to have contained by Jean Baptiste Monnoyer. The King's Gallery,' many, if not most, of the finest pictures. He in the south front, has an elaborately painted alle- especially notes Vandyck's pictures of King Charles. gorical ceiling, and a circular fresco of a Madonna, and his Queen, Cupid and Psyche, and the same after Raphael. 'The Cube Room' is forty feet painter's "Three Children of Charles I.;" Queen in height, and contains gilded statues and busts, Elizabeth in a Chinese dress, drawn when she was and a marble bas-relief of a Roman marriage, by a prisoner at Woodstock; Kneller's portraits of Rysbrack. The 'King's Great Drawing-room' King William and Queen Mary, in their coronation was hung with the then new paper, in imitation of robes (Kneller was knighted for painting these the old velvet flock. The 'Queen's Gallery,' in the pictures); Tintoretto's grand pictures of "Esther rear of the eastern front, continued northwards, has fainting before Ahasuerus," and "Apollo and the above the doorway the monogram of William and Nine Muses." It appears that about the time of Mary; and the pediment is enriched with fruits and the fire at Whitehall, the series of old heads and flowers in high relief and wholly detached, probably foreign portraits were transferred to Kensington, carved by Gibbons. The 'Green Closet' was the as Vertue-on the title to his engravings of them, in "Rapin," published in 1736-mentions them as and altered, but was yet a patched-up building, being in the latter palace; and Walpole, in the but with the gardens, however, it is a very neat first edition of his "Anecdotes" (1762), especially villa." The king found its sequestered situation alludes to the early royal portraits at Kensington. congenial with his moody and apathetic disposition, He also speaks of a chamber of very ancient and therefore resolved to make it a royal residence portraits among them one of the Duke of Norfolk superseding Whitehall. The palace was con-as then existing in the Princess Dowager's house siderably enlarged by William III., at the suggestion at Kew. A catalogue of these pictures was taken of Queen Mary, from designs by Sir Christopher by Benjamin West, at the king's desire, in 1818. Wren, and surrounded by straight cut solitary Unlike the portraits in most galleries, many of lawns, and formal stately gardens, laid out with paths those at Kensington had no names attached to and flower-beds at right angles, after the stiffest them; and thus, if we may judge from a com- Dutch fashion. Queen Anne added very largely plaint made by the unfortunate Princess Caroline to the size of the house, and also to the beauty of of Wales, their interest was in a great measure the gardens, such as that beauty may have been. destroyed. The fine collection of Holbein's original The orangery, a fine detached building at a little drawings and designs for the portraits of the lead- distance on the north side, was built for her by ing personages in the Court of Henry VIII., now Sir Christopher Wren. The eastern front of the in the Royal Library at Windsor, was accidentally palace itself was added by George I., from the discovered by Queen Caroline in a bureau here, designs of Kent. The north-western angle was shortly after the accession of George II. added by George II., in order to form a nursery for his children; and to his queen, Caroline of Anspach, we owe the introduction of the ornamental water into the gardens and pleasuregrounds. The house, which had been growing all this time in size, was finally brought to its present size or appearance by the Duke of Sussex, who added or rebuilt the rooms that form the angle on the south-west. The Duchess of Kent's apartments were in the south-east part of the palace, under the King's Gallery. A melancholy interest hangs about the irregular pile, for within its walls died William III. and his wife, Queen Mary; her sister, Queen Anne, and her consort, Prince George of Denmark, who was carried hence to his tomb in Westminster Abbey; George II.; and lastly, the Queen's favourite uncle, the Duke of Sussex. The palace has a character of its own among the other residences of the royal family. Leigh Hunt hits the right nail on the head when he speaks of it as possessing "a Dutch solidity." "It can be imagined full of English comfort," he adds; "it is quiet, in a good air, and, though it is a palace, no tragical history is connected with it; all which considerations give it a sort of homely, fireside character, which seems to represent the domestic side of royalty itself, and thus renders an interesting service to what is not always so well recommended by cost and splendour. Windsor Castle is a place to receive monarchs in; Buckingham Palace, to see fashion in; Kensington Palace seems a place to drink tea in; and this is by no means a state of things in which the idea of royalty comes least home to the good wishes of its subjects." Such, then, is a rough outline of the history of the once favourite residence of the House of The original mansion was the suburban resi- Hanover. "In the metropolis of commerce," obdence of Lord Chancellor Finch, afterwards Earl serves Macaulay, "the point of convergence is the of Nottingham, and as such it bore the name of Exchange; in the metropolis of fashion it is the "Nottingham House," of which the lower portion Palace." This was eminently true, as we have of the present north wing is part. It was pur- seen, of the Palace at Whitehall in the days of the chased for the sum of £20,000 from his successor second Charles, who made his Court the centre of by William III.; and, as Northouck writes, "for fashionable gaiety as well as of political intrigue. its convenience and healthful situation for the Under the first of our Hanoverian kings this centre king to reside in during the sitting of Parliament." was transferred to Kensington. But the centre had Shortly after its purchase by the Crown, the house lost much of its attractiveness under them. "The was nearly destroyed by fire, and the king himself Revolution," Macaulay writes, "gave us several had a narrow escape from being burned in his bed. kings, unfitted by their education and habits to be The building was at first, comparatively speaking, gracious and affable hosts. They had been born small, and the grounds only occupied a few acres. and bred upon the Continent. They never felt Evelyn, in his "Memoirs," under date February themselves at home on our island. If they spoke 25, 1690-1, says: "I went to Kensington, which our language, they spoke it inelegantly and with King William has bought of Lord Nottingham, effort. Our national character they never under |