A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



After the Revolution Middlesex was connected even more intimately 

 than before with the life of the Court. William III very soon discovered 

 a predilection for Hampton Court, and after he had altered and added to 

 the palace he was seldom in London. The king's Dutch friends formed 

 quite a colony in southern Middlesex, and after the duke of Schomberg 

 received an English peerage he took his title from Brentford. The 

 Princess Anne also lived at Hampton Court during the early part of the 

 reign, and until her relations with the queen made it desirable that she 

 should find a house of her own. While the question of her income was 

 before Parliament she withdrew to Lord Craven's house at Kensington 

 Gravel Pits, which he had lent as a nursery for her son, the duke of 

 Gloucester. 



Another royal palace was built by William III at Kensington. It 

 was near enough to London for all business of state and yet it was free 

 from the smoke which so much affected the king's asthma. Early in 1 690 

 he bought the lease of Lord Nottingham's house at Kensington, and the 

 palace was hastily finished on his return from the Irish campaign.* 09 The 

 political intrigues of the reign centred round Kensington and Hampton 

 Court Palaces. The feud between the queen and Princess Anne still 

 continued, and after the duke of Marlborough's disgrace and the duchess's 

 subsequent exclusion from the queen's presence at Kensington, Anne 

 fled from Hampton Court and took refuge at Syon House,* 10 the property 

 of the duke of Somerset since his marriage with the heiress of the Percies. 

 During the winter of 1693-4 the queen was at Kensington Palace, while 

 Anne was at Berkeley House and her son at Campden House, but as 

 her quarrel with Queen Mary still continued, the entree to Kensington 

 was barred to her although open to her son. On 28 December, 1694 

 (O.S.), the Queen died at Kensington. Immediately after her death 

 Somers negotiated a reconciliation between the king and his sister-in- 

 law. 411 Anne came to Campden House, whence she was carried in a 

 sedan chair, for she could not walk, into the presence of the king at 

 Kensington. Her political interests as heir-apparent being now the same 

 as the king's, they agreed to sink the memory of many mutual injuries.* 18 



On 3 1 December the House of Peers went in a body to Kensington 

 to present an address to the king deploring the death of Queen Mary. 

 The same afternoon the Commons came with a still longer address and a 

 still more urgent appeal that the king would direct his attention to his 

 own preservation.* 13 William lived indeed in great danger of assassina- 

 tion by the Jacobites, and one of the many plots against his life was 

 connected with Middlesex. In 1696 Sir George Barclay came to England 

 from the court of St. Germains, bearing a commission from James II 

 requiring all his loving subjects to rise in arms on his behalf.* 1 * Barclay 

 interpreted his commission to mean that he should get rid of the usurper 

 as best he could. He gathered about him a band of forty conspirators, 



* Daliymple, Memoirs, App. ii, 150. 41 Loud. Gaz. No. 2758. 



'" Conduct of the Duchess of Marlborough, 108. 4I> Evelyn's Diary (cd. Bray), 505. 



" White Kennet, Hist. ofEngl. iii, 674. 4 Wilson, Memoirs of the Duke of Berwick, i, 1 34. 



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