POLITICAL HISTORY 



his accession. Henry VIII. resided there less constantly. Elizabeth 

 was there continually and died there. Henry VIII. had begun to build 

 another Surrey palace Nonsuch, in the land which he acquired in 1539. 

 It stood as a flagrant instance of the high-handed selfishness of the king. 

 In 1525 he had acquired Hampton Court by gift from Wolsey, and by 

 degrees in later years he added large estates to it, by purchase, exchange 

 or confiscation, the two former being generally more decent forms of the 

 latter process. He got into his hands the Surrey manors of Cuddington, 

 Esher, Maiden, Weybridge, Byfleet, Imber Court, Weston, Moulsey 

 Prior, West Moulsey, Walton Leigh and Oatlands. Cuddington, where 

 Nonsuch stood, was taken in exchange for the rectory with tithes and 

 glebe of Little Melton in Norfolk, granted to a layman. He erected 

 them all with some Middlesex manors into the Honour of Hampton 

 Court by Act of Parliament, 3 1 Hen. VIII. 7, constituting it as a royal 

 forest. At Cuddington he pulled down the manor house, all other 

 houses and the church, and enclosed two parks of 1,600 acres. His 

 government several times by Act of Parliament had expressed itself in 

 vigorous terms of rebuke against the misdeeds of the makers of enclosures, 

 who evicted husbandmen and poor persons and caused the decay of towns, 

 that is of farmsteads. 



The palace at Nonsuch was unfinished at the death of Henry. The 

 Earl of Arundel bought it from Queen Mary and his son-in-law Lord 

 Lumley sold it to Elizabeth in 1 591. Oatlands was also a royal residence 

 at this time. Henry had acquired that too by not very reputable means. 

 The owner was John Rede, a minor. The king's minister, Cromwell, 

 was appointed his guardian, and as such, with the formal consent of his 

 ward, conveyed Oatlands to the king in exchange for the suppressed 

 priory of Tandridge. The Redes were only newcomers themselves at 

 Oatlands ; the de Codingtons, who had to exchange the site of Nonsuch, 

 were a family established there for some 300 years. Esher, surrendered 

 by Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, had belonged to his see since the 

 days of Peter des Roches. The presence and the removals of the court 

 between these various palaces pressed grievously upon Surrey. When 

 the court left Richmond the county had to provide 80 carriages, when 

 it left Nonsuch 1 1 o, when it left Oatlands i oo. The counties across the 

 Thames supplied the rest. Mr. Bray, quoting from a manuscript 

 belonging to the cathedral of Canterbury, gives a remonstrance from the 

 county against the strict enforcement in its case of the ' Act for the 

 increase of Horses,' l because being one of the least and most barren of 

 English counties ' it is most charged of anie by reason that her Majesty 

 (Elizabeth) lieth in or about the shire continuallie, and thereby (it) is 

 chardged with contynualle removes and caridge of coles, wood and other 

 provision to the Court ; and likewis with contynuall caridge for the 

 Admiraltie and the Master of the Ordynance ; also by my Lord 

 Treasurer for the reparacions of her Majesty's houss.' It was also 

 heavily assessed in subsidies, for it lay so near the court ' that both 



1 27 Hen. VII. 6. 



367 



