PLAYGROUND OF HENRY VIII

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 11 September 1926, Page 11

PLAYGROUND OF HENRY VIII

SPLENDOUR AND INTRIGUE.

"VTODEBN London is to-day drinking • ten where Henry VIII. used to tilt. A new tea house has been built in front of the sixteenth century tower from the top of which ladies of King Henry's court, once watched their favourites ride forth to joustings. On Whit .Mondav 2000 persons spent their holiday at Hampton Court and drank tea off the new restaurant’s marble-topped tables. Many monarch's have had a hand in the embellishment of Hampton Court. Built bv the magnificent Cardinal Wolsey in ’Join, the baronial hall proved too expensive a toy even for that rich churchman. So Wolsey, with his usual adroitness, gracefully divested himself of that which proved an embarrassment bv giving the palace to the King who had befriended him in obscure days. Henry VIII. spent much of his time at the pleasant country place, laying out new gardens and hunting over its wooded areas. Sandwiches and ginger beer are sold to-day where the wild boar used to scurry to safety. Within the" historic walls of Hampton Court the fickle. Henry courted, married or plotted against most of his six' wives. The superstitious still say that the ghost of Catherine Howard rushes moaning along the haunted gallery, and that the tower clock stops when anyone long resident in the palace dies. Jane Seymour died there, and her son, Edward VI.. was baptised in the chapel, where service is still held each Sunday for families still living (by courtesy of the Crown) in Royal apartments.

While George 11. was the last sovereign who used Hampton Court as a residence, it was not until Victoria ascended the throne that it was opened to the public. To-day the Great Hall where Henry, and later his daughter Elizabeth, entertained with a lavishness that loft the countryside speechless, is given

HAMPTON COURT OF OLD

over to an army of workmen. The Gothic room, one" of the most, splendid, experts assert, in England, is being restored. and the adjoining rooms are lull of fragments of gilt and carved wood. The great, tapestries woven specially for the walls are at present in London for safe keeping. It was at Hampton Court that. Henry VIII. first’ became jealous of Anne Boleyn, and where one of those, little scenes was enacted which ended in the ladv’s loss of her head. One. day, while watching the tilting from the tower, now surrounded by modern tables and chairs, Queen Anne dropped her handkerchief. It was rescued and returned by a gentleman of the court, a participant in the match. But .the King did not choose apparently to consider tlic incident accidental. He suspected his Queen. Immediately he rose from his seat, went below and, mounting his horse, left the festive scene, followed by six of his gentlemen. Shortly thereafter Henry learned of heavier offences, and these he used against the fair and defenceless Queen. The scroll of Hampton Court records a long list of brilliant events; Wolscv\s banquet to the French Ambassador, served by 500 retainers in the iCardinal ’s livery; Henry VlTl. ’s masques and mummings; Queen Elizabeth’s hunting parties and late suppers. As a girl Elizabeth used often to visit Hampton Court, and she spent at least one f Christmas here- with Queen Mary, who married Philip of Spain. Here, too, came Oliver Cromwell and his Roundheads in their snug-fitting uniforms. And here his daughter Elizabeth was married. Prior to this invasion of royal halls by commoners, Charles I. had been a prisoner here. From this spot he escaped to the Isle of Wight, a futile escape, which did not, after all, save his head.