THE ROYAL PALACES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18577, 8 December 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE ROYAL PALACES.

BUCKINGHAM PALACE.

BT A COURT HISTORIAN.

IV. Next to St. James' Palace, Buckingham Palace is the meanest-looking of all Royal residences, and compares very unfavourably with the Tuileries and the Royal Palace at Madrid. For years its dingy front made the thoughtless laugh and the judicious grieve. , When Queen Victoria came to live in it, she was furious at tho stafce in which she found her principal London residence. When she began to have a family, like a good mother she took thought for the housing of the Royal children, and accordingly we fiYvd her writing to Sir Robert Peel, urging improvements. Perhaps the dilapidated state of the palace when Queen Victoria came to the Throne was due in part to the fact that it had not housed a Sovereign for some years. King William IV. disliked the palace, and never stayed in it. At any rate, the Queen's wishes were carried out and £150,000 spent in improving the Royal town house. This involved the building of a private chapel. Later on, various improvements were made in the grounds, j and Prince Albert constructed an ornamental pavilion and summer-house. Thackeray wrote one of his admirable mockheroic poems on the structure. It begins: Ye patrons of gun i us, Minerva and Vanvus, Who live on Parnassus, that mountain of ■ snow; Descend from your station. And make observation, . Of tho Prince's pavilion in awate Funlico. It must be remembered that that part of town in which tho gardens stand was then known by the name of Pimlico, and was not transmogrified into " South Belgravia." At this time the Marble Arch stood before the palace; it was adorned with the largest and most magnificent pair of pates in Europe; they cost three thousand guineas. Jobbery in the Household. The young Queen Victoria root only found her palace in a shabby state materially, but morally. Robbery and jobbery were rampant; and it was estimated by •those who investigated the a flairs of Buckingham Palace that household officials and tradesmen between them were " cuttingup " about £100,000 a year. Prince Albert, tho Prir.ce Consort, set himself to clean up this Augean stable of corruption, incompetence and dishonesty. It was a diffcult task, but the Prince accomplished it, and the Royal expenditure was put upon a commensense basis. Nowadays the household affairs of Buckingham Palace 1 are very well managed indeed; and the present King introduced the system of making cash payments when more favourable terms could be secured. In the bad old days, bills were paid at intervals of years, and the tradesmen took care to recoup themselves for their periods of waiting. It was at Buckingham Palace that the Princess Royal and others of the Royal children, including tho Duke of Connaught, were born The Duke . was born on the birthday of the Duke of Wellington, who was one of his sponsors and gave him his Christian name. The gossips laughed very much at the time over the story of the' blunt old soldier calling at Buckingham Palace and asking after the Queen and " the little boy " "Itis a Prince, Your Grace," replied the nnrse in freezing -tones. The King's OonnUng-Hoase. When King Edward ascended the Throne, an " office " was established in Buckingham Palace for the purpose of dealing with the household accounts, which had been previously examined in a small room in St. James' Palace. Here works a staff of about seven persons, including the Comptroller of the Household. Indeed, every reign has seen some improvement or addition to this Royal residence, formerly the town house of Lord Arlington. When Lord Arlington died, the Duke of Buckingham built a large mansion on the site of Arlington House, greatly praised by writers and critics of the period. . • . George 111. saw the house, liked it, arid bought it from the Duke for £21,000. "Farmer George" was very fond of the place, and lived in it continuously when he was not at Windsor In the library here he had his celebrated talk' with Dr. Johnson, and during the Gordon Riots he remained the whole night in the garden Among the soldiers, chatting with the troops and ordering the Royal servants to supply them with wine and spirits. "Die palace as it now is, was constructed by Nash in 1825, by the orders of George IV. It is remarkable for some fine apartments, despite its nnimposirig outside appearance. The yellow drawing-room is a superb apartment; and the throne room, i 60ft. long, is most impressive. j Pictures and Statuary. The sculpture gallery runs along the whole length of the eastern front's central portion, and is fitted with busts and statues of rulers and statesmen. In the State ballroom hangs Vandyk's celebrated portrait of Charles 1., also, a picture of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, by Wmterhalter. There is also some superb tapestry in tho palace, which was discovered in ' an old, forgotten chest at the time of the wedding of George IV. It was about this period that th» palace was irreverently described bv a contemporary diarist as "dull, dowdy, and decent," A comparatively recent building, the palace has no such record of historical scenes as lias St, James' Palace, Windsor Castle, or Holyrood. Perhaps the • most, exciting moment in its history was when the authorities expected an attack by the Gordon rioters, and 3000 troops were quartered in the palace grounds. The alarm came so suddenly that there was no straw for the soldiers to lie on the first night, but George 111. cheered them up by saying, "My lads. my crown could not procure you straw to-night, but to-morrow there will be some, and in the meantime my servants shall give you plenty of wine." And, as noted above, so it was, and the stout old King remained among his officers and soldiers till the dawn. Attempt on Queen Victoria's Life. On four occasions the neighbourhood of the palace was the scene of an attempt on the life of Queen Victoria. In 1840, as the Queen's carriage turned into Constitution Hill, a pot boy named Edward Oxford fired twice at the Monarch. She showed great presence of mind and courage, and drove straight to the Duchess o' Kent's house to show she was unhurt. Two years later, almost to a day, another shot was fired at the Queen, who "' as driving home. This time the would-be assassin was John Francis, a cabinetmaker, aged 21. He was trijd and transported. Not many weeks afterwards Bean, a deformed lad, presented a pistol at the Sovereign at the Mall, but there were no serious consequences. Again, in 1849, there was an unpleasant incident, when Queen A ictoria, driving down Constitution Hill, was fired at by one William Hamilton, but the pistol was only charged with powder. The miscreant was transported for seven years. The last great historical scene of which the venue was Buckingham Palace was enacted on that night in August. 1914, when the time-limit given to Germany to reply to our ultimatum expired, and vast j crowds surrounded the palace, cheering the I King and Empire.