ROYAL RESIDENCES 11 



the Dutch style, so that it was commonly known 

 as the Dutch House. By some local inquirers 

 it has been identified with the " Dairy House " 

 also mentioned in old books. Opposite this, on 

 the other side of a public road, in the seventeenth 

 century stood a larger mansion, Kew House, as 

 to the original date of which one is not clear, 

 but it may have been at least on the site of a 

 mansion at which her Lord Keeper, Sir John 

 Puckering, entertained Queen Elizabeth. Under 

 Charles II., when Evelyn calls it an "old timber 

 house," it came by marriage to Sir Henry Capel 

 of the Essex family, afterwards Lord Capel, who 

 died Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. From his 

 widow, it passed into possession of Samuel 

 Molyneux, described as secretary to George II., 

 soon after whose death, in 1730, it was taken on 

 a long lease by Frederick Prince of Wales. 



Thus the obscure name of Kew began to 

 appear in the scandalous chronicles of the 

 Georgian period. Frederick's parents, it will 

 be remembered, were much at the neighbouring 

 Richmond Lodge ; and when Queen Caroline 

 took a lease of the Dutch House also, this not 

 very affectionate royal family had a group of 

 residences too close together, one might think, 



