HISTORY IN BRICK

Taranaki Daily News, 20 February 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

HISTORY IN BRICK

HAMPTON COURT. (By T.C.L.) In the interior of the stately old palace of Hampton Court there is a vast array of paintings by the- old masters — worth fifty kings’ ransoms, says the guide —which are open to the public. They begin in the King’s Guard chamber at the head of ■ the main staircase, a room that is decorated also with a large number of weapons showing the progress of British military equipment from Tudor days to those of Waterloo. The pictures include works of all descriptions, and while pdrtraits of royalty and aristocracy are much in evidence, there are others which show that even exalted personages were only human. For in the same guard chamber may be seen a life-size portrait of “Queen Elizabeth’s Giant Porter,” a robust looking personage, who. is said to have been Bft. 6ins. in height and proportionately built. Then in Queen Mary’s Room there is a painting of the other extreme of human development. It is a portrait of “Sir’’ Jeffrey Hudson, who was but 18 ins. high until he was over 30 years of age, and then grew two feet more. He was never really knighted, though had the Civil War • ended in a Stuart victory he might have been. Son of a butcher at Oakham, Rutlandshire, Hudson was put under the' protection of the Duchess of Buckingham. When she entertained Charles I. and Queen Henrietta the Queen took a fancy to the .dwarf, and he became a Court favourite. He became more than a plaything. He was extremely intelligent, and during the civil war was given a captaincy in the Royalist cavalry troops. When the throne had fallen Hudson accompanied the Queen to Paris, where he is said to have fought a duel with a man who' ridiculed his stature. His opponent in contempt brought a squirt as a duelling weapon. Hudson produced a pistol and shot him dead. Later he was captured 'by Turkish pirates, and sold as a slave. It’ was during his slavery that he grew to be Bft. 6ins. in height. By some means he found his way 'back to England, and enjoyed a pension from Charles 11. Alleged to be implicated in a “popish plot” he was imprisoned in 1679, and died three years later, but whether in, prison is not quite certain. There are hundreds of rooms in the palace. Their very names breathe history. “Henry VIII.’s Hall,” “King’s and Queen’s Guard Chambers,” “The Gentlemen’s Watching Chamber,’’ “Cardinal Wolsey’s room,” “Queen Anne’s bedroom,” “King William lll.’s bedroom,” in which the visitor is shown George H.’s 'bed and on the walls of which are paintings of the fair but frail beauties who wielded such power in the days of Charles 11. In this room may be seen, too, two quaint old ■barometers and a clock that has been going for over two centuries, and is said to be good for as many more. 'Then there are the King’s writing closet, with its -private staircase to the’ garden, the Haunted Gallery, the Communication Gallery, through which those who were admitted to the Royal presence were conducted, and. decorated now with a series of frescoes painted 450 years ago, but with colours as fresh as ever. They represent the triumphs of Julius Caesar and were a present to the builder of Hampton when it looked as though the English Cardinal Wolsey might become the Pope of Rome. From room to room some chapter in British history is recalled and the wonder of it all is overpowering. They are most inconveniently arranged, of course, as was the wont of the Old builders and architects, with doors leading into each other. An army of servants must have been required to keep the palace reasonably clean and in order, but labour in those Jays was cheap, besides which a. royal person or aristocrat was judged by the number of servants and attendants he kept as well as by the size of his demesne. Mews, or stables, were provided to house an army. They were all substantially built of brick, and to-day serve as residences for those who in some capacity have done service for the State. The private chapel is one of the features of the palace, .and special permission has to be obtained to view it. In design, in decoration and furnishing, and in its windows, itis in harmony with the rest of what is one of the most beautiful and interesting show places of England. And its history! Think of its'builder. Born of the people, shrewd, unscrupulous, daring. The King’s advisor, the man to whom princes deferred and place seekers flattered. At Hampton Wolsey sought refreshment and time for reflection. His servants were bade not to approach him “nearer than a bow shot,” as he paced the walks of the gardens he had just made. There, too, was boru the prince that became Edward VI., whose early death changed the course of British history. At Hampton his elder step-sister Mary spent her honeymoon with dull, gloomy, bigoted Phillip of Spain. In those gardens Shakespeare acted and Queen Elizabeth dallied with Lord Essex and many another suitor. At Hampton Cromwell and King Charles held secret parley. Some say the stern old Puritan tried hard to save the King's life, but Charles would not swerve a hairsbreadth from, his conception of what became a King’s rights, and so the tragedy moved on. The King executed, and the Protector using the palace, just as the Prime Minister of England uses Chequer’s today, as a place where “peace from the plague of politics” can be snatched for a week-end.

Then the contrast of the soberness of his visits with the gaiety of the “Merry Monarch”! It was at Hampton that James 11. received the Papal Nuncio, and so released the forces that cost him his throne. In the park adjoining a molehill caused the hor-e ridden by William 111. to stumble and caused his death, and at the palace the Hanoverian princes made their first acquaintance with British ideas of the pomp that should surround a throne.., Thrilling stories are told of the hauntings of Hampton Court. The ghosts of Lady Jane Seymour and Queen Catherine Howard are both said to haunt the precincts of the palace. On the day of her * execution Queen Catherine Howard, breaking away from her guards, ran towards the chapel where Henry VIII. was attending mass, hoping, as a last resource, to plead with him for mercy. Her custodians, however, much as they may have pitied her, dared not allow her to disturb her royal spouse at his prayers, and, consequently, they dragged her, shrieking and expostulating, through what is now known as the Haunted Gallery to her doom. Her ghost, it is stated, still haunts the scene of the above incident, and on certain nights in the year re-

enacts the part its once material self played, in it. The phantom of Jane Seymour, despite all alleged, attempts to lay it, would still seem to pay nocturnal visits to the Silverstick Gallery, bearing * lighted taper in one of her hands. A third ghost reported to haunt Hampton Court is that of Mrs. Penn, foster mother and nurse of Edward VI. Generally, therefore, this royal palace is a pretty ghostly place. Hampton Court is alive with historical associations and events that influenced and shaped the destinies of Great Britain; To miss Hampton Court, or to visit it without knowing and appreciating : the part it ha# played in the history of the nation, il to miss something of the greatest inter- | est and importance.