A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



of speaking to your majesty.' ' Well, Verrio,' said 

 the king, ' what is your request ? ' ' Money, sir, 

 money ; I am so short of cash that I am not able 

 to pay my workmen ; and your majesty and I 

 have learnt by experience that pedlars and painters 

 cannot give long credit." The king smiled, and 

 said he had but lately ordered him 1,000. 

 ' Yes, sir,' replied he, ' but that was soon paid 

 away, and I have no gold left.' ' At that rate," 

 said the king, 'you would spend more than I do, 

 to maintain my family.' ' True,' answered Verrio, 

 ' but does your majesty keep an open table as 

 I do?' 04 



James II never appears to have lived at Hamp- 

 ton Court during his reign, though he held a 

 council there on 29 May 1687, when 'the militia 

 was put down, and the licensing of ale-houses was 

 put in other hands than the justices of the 

 peace.' 6 " He was, however, often at Hounslow, 

 where he encamped in 1687 with an army of 

 16,000 men, a force which apparently only met 

 with derision. 626 



The reign of William and Mary opens a new 

 era in the history of Hampton Court Palace, as 

 under their auspices more than half the original 

 Tudor building was pulled down. Wren's new 

 palace was erected, and the whole place assumed 

 very much the appearance it has now. 6 * 7 The 

 quietness of the situation, the distance from 

 London, and perhaps something congenial to 

 William's Dutch taste in the formal lines of the 

 avenues and the long canal, formed no doubt part 

 of the attraction which the place evidently had 

 for him. Mary has never been given credit for 

 any feelings of sympathy for her father, and has 

 often been censured for her apparent heartlessness, 

 but perhaps one reason for her affection for Hamp- 

 ton Court was that James II had never lived 

 there as king, and she could have had no memories 

 of the place connected with him. From the be- 

 ginning of their reign Mary and her husband paid 

 frequent short visits to the palace, 628 and one of 

 William's first acts was to offend the religious 

 susceptibilities of a large proportion of his subjects 

 by refusing to continue the ancient custom of 

 ' touching for the king's evil,' a practice which he 

 had the blunt common-sense to denounce as a 

 'silly superstition.'" 9 At Easter as usual a crowd 



of diseased folk arrived at the palace, but had to- 

 be content with the customary dole and no 

 ceremony. 680 



William seems to have decided at once that the 

 old palace was inconvenient and ill-arranged. 

 Queen Mary wrote to a friend in Holland that it 

 had been much neglected, 6 " and almost imme- 

 diately after their first visit Christopher Wren was 

 appointed architect and the works began. 6 " 

 Wren's building will be dealt with in another 

 place, 6 ** but while plans and elevations were being 

 prepared, and the work of demolition had actually 

 begun, the king and queen still passed a great deal 

 of time in the palace. On 31 March 1689 they 

 publicly received the sacrament in the chapel from 

 the Archbishop of York, in preparation for their 

 coronation at Westminster on 1 1 April. 654 They 

 soon afterwards returned to Hampton Court, and 

 the Princess Anne joined them there. 6 " The 

 routine of their life was sufficiently simple ; Queen 

 Mary superintended everything herself, inspecting 

 the building and the gardens, making fringe, and 

 playing ' Bassett.' " 6 In May a declaration of 

 war with France was issued from Hampton Court, 

 and during that month the king and Prince George 

 of Denmark went from the palace to inspect the 

 fleet at Portsmouth. 6 *' The king hunted in the 

 parks, and occupied himself during the first 

 summer by visiting the camp formed on Hounslow 

 Heath on i 3 August. He rode over from Hampton 

 Court to review the troops there on 1 7 August. 6 * 8 



An alarm was caused in July by intelligence of 

 a supposed plot to attempt the king's life, to set 

 fire to Whitehall and other places in London, and to 

 seize the Tower. 639 Several companies of foot and 

 horse were kept under arms all night round the 

 palace, the guards were doubled, and stringent 

 measures taken to prevent the entry of suspicious 

 persons, but nothing further seems to have hap- 

 pened. The king, however, remained constantly 

 at Hampton Court, and the life of the court was 

 so quiet as to cause great dissatisfaction among the 

 people. 640 Lord Halifax took upon himself to in- 

 form William that ' his inaccessibleness and living 

 so at Hampton Court altogether, and at so active 

 a time, ruined all business,' and remonstrated with 

 him on the loss of time caused to the ministers, 

 who took five hours to come and go. The king 



6a< Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of 

 Painting (ed. 1849), ii, 470. 



Hist. AfS. Cam. Ref. vii, App. 

 504. 



6 * 6 Antiy. Repcrt. i, 230. 



ej ~ Certain alterations, notably in the 

 clock court in the reign of George II, 

 took place at a later date, but the main 

 features are practically the same as they 

 were left by Wren. 



* M Luttrell, Relation of State Affairs, 

 i ; Diary of Henry, Earl of Clarendon 

 (ed. 1828), ii, 267 ; Conduct of the 

 Duchess of Marlhorough (ed. 1742), 1155 

 Evelyn, Diary, Mar. 1689. 



* w Macaulay, Hist. Engl. chap, xiv, 

 quoting Athenian Mercury, 16 Jan. 

 1691 ; Paris Gazette, 23 Apr. 1691. 



630 Queen Anne afterwards 'touched,' 

 Samuel Johnson among others, for the 



' King's Evil,' but the practice fell into 

 disuse, and was not revived by the 

 House of Hanover ; Cal. Treas. Papers, 

 1702-7, p. 142 ; Hist. MSS. Com. Ref. 

 'Wentworth Papers,' 359, 375. 



681 Lettres de Marie, Reine a"Agleterre 

 (cd. Countess M. van Bentinck), 116. 



683 Aud. Off. Declared Accts. (P.R.O.) 

 bdle. 2482, R. 294; Wren, Parentalia 

 (ed. 1750), 326 ; Hist. MSS. Com. Ref. 

 xiv, App. ii, 431. 



133 See account of architecture, p. 377 

 et seq. 



681 Luttrell, op. cit. i, 520 ; Lamberty, 

 Memoir es de la Dernier e Revolution en An- 

 glcttrre, ii, 235. The queen suppressed 

 the fiddlers and other musicians who 

 used to play in the chapel. William 

 adhered to the Dutch custom of wear- 

 ing his hat in church. 



358 



684 She had her own suite of apart- 

 ments, but William treated her with 

 scant courtesy, refusing to pay her 

 allowance and acting inconsiderately in 

 other ways ; Aud. Off. Accts. (P.R.O. ), 

 bdle. 2448, R. 122, Apr. 1688, Mar. 

 1689 ; Lamberty, op. cit. ii, 468 ; vide 

 also Conduct of the Duchess of Marl- 

 borough (ed. 1742), 24-30, 33-5. 



636 Ibid. 115. 



687 Luttrell, op. cit. i, 533 ; Land. 

 Gax. 17 May 1689, cit. Law, op. cit. 

 iii, 9 ; Lamberty, op. cit. ii, 385. 



888 Luttrell, op. cit. i, 570-1. 



689 Ibid. 561 ; Lamberty, op. cit. 

 ii, 512; Hist. MSS. Com. Ref. xii, 

 App. vii, 252, 'Newsletter, 23 July 

 1689.' 



640 Burner, Hist, of His Own Tines, 

 ii, 2. 



