CHAPTER VI 
MARLBOROUGH HOUSE 
O 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 I., 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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