CHAPTER VI 

 MARLBOROUGH HOUSE 



SO long ago that, according to Stowe, " it was before the time 

 of man's memory " there was founded on the pleasant 

 land lying to the west of what was formerly the village of 

 Charing, a hospital for fourteen deserving maidens, all lepers. It 

 was attached to a religious house dedicated to S. James the Less, 

 Bishop of Jerusalem. " Divers citizens of London," says the 

 ancient chronicler, " gave six-and-fifty rents thereto," and later on 

 we learn that " sundry devout men of London " gave to the hospital 

 four hides of land in the fields of Westminster. These and other 

 grants in Charlcote (now Chalk Farm), Hampstead, and Hendon, 

 were confirmed to it by Edward L, who also endowed it with the 

 benefits and privileges of a six days' fair to commence on the eve 

 of S. James. Thus originated the May-Fair, that, up to the reign 

 of George II., was afterwards held regularly in the Piccadilly 

 meadows ; a fair that has bequeathed its name to the fashionable 

 London locality that occupies the ground upon which it was held. 

 The inmates of the convent and hospital, remained in peaceful 

 possession till Henry VIII. cast his covetous eyes upon their fertile 

 acreage. He seized the land to turn it into a nursery for deer, and 

 an appendage to the Tiltyard at Whitehall, giving in exchange 

 for it some ground in Suffolk ; he pensioned off the sisterhood, 

 casting adrift the unhappy lepers and pulling down the hospital 

 and convent, and building in their place the Palace of S. James. 

 The old gate-house and turrets constructed of brick that once 

 was red, and erected in the very year of Henry's marriage with 

 Anne Boleyn still face us, when, at the present day we look down 



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