78 KEW GARDENS 



economically, that the nation need not have 

 grudged him a " Folly " for once in a way. It 

 was his spendthrift heir who began to restore 

 Windsor Castle, demolishing the Queen's Lodge 

 there, and to rebuild Buckingham Palace in its 

 present form. 



When Kew House had disappeared, the sturdy 

 "Dutch House," now known as Kew Palace, 

 became the occasional retreat of the royal 

 family, its scant accommodations, no doubt, eked 

 . out by those other mansions held on Kew Green. 

 It was here that Addington found the King 

 dining rather before one o'clock on the simplest 

 fare. His mind continued to be rather cranky, 

 as shown by his strange freak of wearing a huge 

 powdered wig in conjunction with the mediaeval 

 trappings of the Order of the Garter. Blindness 

 came gradually on to increase his afflictions. In 

 1809 the nation joyfully celebrated his Jubilee, 

 with much feasting of the poor and the rich 

 relieving of prisoners for debt, pardoning of 

 military culprits, illuminations, libations, and 

 such memorials as the statue on the Weymouth 

 Esplanade, that records the townsfolk's gratitude 

 to the King, whose stay at his favourite bathing- 

 place had so often sent up the price of its 



