Hampton Court Part 2

Entirely different is the impression which we take away with us of the Orange portion of Hampton Court Palace from that which remains in memory of the Tudor parts. From the west and north we see nothing but the medley of red brickwork, gables, turrets, and irregular chimneystacks. From the east and south sides we get views that contrast greatly with those of the older portions. Here we have long straight fronts broken with many stone-framed windows, and surmounted by a regular stone parapet that quite inadequately masks the more modern chimneystacks. These south and west fronts are sometimes criticized by those who regret the parts of the Tudor palace demolished to make room for them, but they are by no means wanting in either dignity or beauty. Their red brick--less rich in tone than that of the Tudor buildings--is much broken with white stone ornamentation, and the southern side as seen from the gardens through ma.s.sed shrubs is particularly fine. This part of the palace probably remains in the memory of most visitors as being Hampton Court, and it is only natural that it should be so, for it is the portion mainly seen from the grounds, and it is the portion with which visitors make the most intimate acquaintance--for within it, on the first floor, are the many State Rooms in which are hung the magnificent collection of pictures.

To reach the State Rooms, as has been said, we enter the Clock Court and catering across it to the right pa.s.s under the colonnade which uglifies the front of Wolsey's rooms, and so come to the King's Great Staircase by which the public reaches the galleries. This staircase, its walls and ceiling painted by Verrio, has on the whole a somewhat sombre and certainly unpleasing effect. It is true that we have in it one of the most notable examples of Verrio's decorative achievements, but it is an example which I frankly find unattractive. It is sombrely gorgeous but in an unrestful fashion, with its sprawling G.o.ds, G.o.ddesses, and heroes in all manner of impossible positions, its pillars overhung with clouds or clouds swooping down, as though weighted with the figures, about the pillars. Beneath in a brownish tone are painted various "trophies". The art of decoration, one cannot help feeling, was at the time that William the Third had this staircase painted, at a very low ebb indeed.

Curiosity may make some visitors pause to single out from the medley the figures of the Fates, the Caesars, or particular G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, but most will pa.s.s on into the n.o.ble King's Guard Room with its wonderful mural decoration of muskets, pikes, and pistols. Though there are some pictures here--notably, opposite the fireplace, a large portrait by Zucchero of Queen Elizabeth's porter--it is chiefly the old arms marvellously arrayed in diverse patterns that take the eye.

Upwards of a thousand pieces are said to have been utilized in decorating this room--their arrangement being made by a gunsmith who had earlier done similar work at Windsor Castle and the Tower of London. It may be added that he utilized his materials more successfully than did Verrio in painting the staircase, and it is pleasant to learn that Gunsmith Harris's work was so well appreciated that he was granted a pension by way of reward. From the tall windows at the farther end of the Guard Room we look out over the Privy Garden to the river, with the terraced Queen Mary's Bower on the right.

It is not necessary to describe in detail the things to be seen in the long succession of State Rooms, from the entrance to them by the King's Great Staircase to the exit by the Queen's Great Staircase.

Varying in size in accordance to the purpose for which they were designed, audience rooms, bedrooms, writing closets, or galleries, all are lofty rooms, and some of the smallest are the most crowded with pictures--as, for example, the Queen Mary's closet--leaving which we pa.s.s from the rooms that occupy the first floor of the south front to those of the rather longer east front. Details as to the paintings, tapestries, or furnishings would alone occupy more than the s.p.a.ce of this little book, and the visitor in search of such details will find them in the official handbooks. The tall windows, rising from the window seat level, and affording beautiful views of the grounds, form a feature of the Orange portion of the buildings, which shows a distinct advance upon the earlier style of fenestration--picturesque as are the smaller type of windows of the Tudor period.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EAST FRONT FROM THE LONG WATER]

The southern range of rooms formed the King's suite, and pa.s.sing from the Guard Room, we go successively through: the First Presence Chamber, in which are to be seen Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller's "Beauties" of the Orange Court; the Second Presence Chamber, the most memorable thing in which is Van Dyck's fine equestrian portrait of Charles the First; the Audience Chamber with a portrait of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, over the fireplace; the King's Drawing Room; King William's Bedroom, with an ornate ceiling painted by Sir William Thornhill, and the great canopied bed with time-worn crimson silk hangings; the King's Dressing Room, in which are several Holbeins including two portraits of Henry the Eighth; and the last of King William's rooms, the Writing Closet, in which are to be seen Zucchero's portrait of Queen Elizabeth in fancy dress, also a smaller one of her, and a remarkable full length of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, in scarlet costume.

Turning at an angle through Queen Mary's closet we pa.s.s on to inspect the series of rooms which Her Majesty did not live to occupy, and from the generous windows we get beautiful views of the yew-grown lawns and the park beyond--the view straight up the Long Ca.n.a.l from the Queen's Drawing Room is particularly fine, especially when the broad gravel walks between the avenued yews are dotted with summer visitors, and the beds are gorgeous with many flowers set in the wide greenery of the lawn. Before reaching the Drawing Room we come to the Queen's Gallery, hung with rich tapestry and ornamented with splendid china vases, and the Queen's Bed Room, the bed hung with remarkably fresh-looking ornate hangings in red and gold. Beyond the Drawing Room are the Queen's Audience Chamber, the Public Drawing Room, and at the end of the eastern front the Prince of Wales' suite.

Through the farther end of the Drawing Room is the Queen's Presence Chamber, with another magnificent canopied bed, and beyond it, the Queen's Guard Room, giving on to the stairs. These last two rooms look out on to the Fountain Court, of which they form the northern side, but they do not exhaust the rooms open to public inspection; for along the eastern side of the Court is a series of smaller rooms, containing further pictures and furnishings. Owing to the smallness of these rooms, their darkness, and the fact that visitors can only pa.s.s straight through them from door to door, close inspection of the pictures is not easy. Along the whole length of the southern side of the Fountain Court is the King's Gallery or Great Council Chamber--a magnificent room in which used to hang the Raphael Cartoons now at South Kensington. The room was, indeed, designed by Sir Christopher Wren as a setting for those famous pictures; and the walls are now covered by reproductions of them in tapestry. On the west side of the Court is the Communication Gallery leading to the Queen's Great Staircase, and it is worthy of note that from the last of the State Rooms the visitor should carry away impressions of one of the most splendid of Hampton Court's many splendid art treasures. Along the wall here are the nine large tempera pictures by Mantegna--"one of the chief heroes in the advance of painting in Italy"--in which are represented "The Triumph of Caesar". Says Mr. William Michael Rossetti, "these superbly invented and designed compositions, gorgeous with all splendour of subject-matter and accessory, and with the cla.s.sical learning and enthusiasm of one of the master spirits of the age, have always been accounted of the first rank among Mantegna's works".

Though in part restored, these paintings, by an artist who died more than four hundred years ago, are full of interest for their vivid presentation of a rich imagination of a great historical event. In front of the victor--in the last of this series of paintings--is borne a device bearing his famous words "Veni, Vidi, Vici"--and it is worthy of recollection that one tradition places the scene of Julius Caesar's final victory over the Britons at Kingston, not far from where this splendid delineation of his triumphal pageant on his return to Rome has hung for close upon three centuries. Though it is a fine final memory to bring away from the rooms, it is perhaps to be regretted that this series of paintings is in the last of the galleries through which we pa.s.s; for, as I have learned from various visitors--after going through more than a couple of dozen rooms and galleries, housing about a thousand pictures, and tapestries besides other articles of interest--the eye has become wearied and the mind overcharged with an embarra.s.sment of riches. Several people have told me that they have come through these last galleries scarce noticing what was on the walls at all. It is a pity that the rule of having to pa.s.s through the rooms always in one order cannot be maintained only on Sundays, holidays, and such days as there are crowds, when such order is necessary for the comfort of all; at other times, when there are but few people about, it might surely be permissible to enter or leave the State Rooms by either of the great staircases.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WILDERNESS IN SPRING]

Of the riches of art in the Palace this is not the place to speak in detail, it is only possible to hint at them. Before leaving the Communication Gallery for the exit staircase there are small rooms to the left which call for inspection--rooms which not only mark internally the linking of the original Tudor Palace with the Orange additions, but which also are traditionally a.s.sociated with the builder of the Palace himself, for here is Wolsey's Closet. In the outer lobby the most interesting object is the drawing (after Wynegaarde) of Hampton Court Palace as seen from the Thames in 1558.

From this may be noted the extent of building demolished, or masked, when Wren carried out his work of rebuilding for William the Third.

The Closet is chiefly notable for its beautiful ceiling, its mullioned window, and its fine linen-fold panelling which, however, though of old workmanship, has been brought together here from various parts of the Palace. The room is supposed, from the frieze, to have been at one time much larger than it now is. In the corner, between fireplace and window, is a small room, sometimes described as an oratory. Though other of Wolsey's rooms remain, they are part of the private apartments of the Palace, and not, of course, accessible to visitors, and this small Closet and its lobbies is, therefore, worth lingering over.

During the latter part of a promenade through the State Rooms, as has been pointed out, we go practically round the four sides of the Fountain Court, and when descending the stairs and leaving the hall below them, we find ourselves in the north-western corner of the Cloisters that surround the Court. Entirely differing from the Tudor ones, this is the most impressive of all the courts here, with its cloisters surrounding a quadrangle of greenery in the midst of which a fountain plays. Whether looked at from the gallery windows, where the plashing of the water may be heard on a summer day, or examined in our walk round the Cloisters, the Fountain Court is a beautiful and restful place, which, with its surrounding of untrodden gra.s.s--starred in spring with myriad daisies--forms a delightful contrast to the white cloister pillars and the red brick walls above. Over the windows of the King's Gallery on the south side are a dozen round, false windows, filled with time and atmosphere darkened paintings. These paintings, now but dimly discernible as such, were the work of Louis Laguerre, who had been employed in "restoring" the Mantegna "Triumph"

in the Communication Gallery, who was very highly esteemed as an artist by William the Third, and who was granted by that monarch apartments in Hampton Court. Probably these pictures, representing the Twelve Labours of Hercules, are beyond fresh restoration, otherwise they might presumably be cleaned and glazed to save them from disappearing completely. Laguerre is said also to be responsible for the painting of imitation windows in similar circular s.p.a.ces on the south front of the Palace--imitations which are frankly hideous. The s.p.a.ces would look far better if filled with plain brick or stone.

Perhaps some of these s.p.a.ces being occupied with practical windows, it was thought necessary for the sake of symmetry to make the rest appear such to the casual glance. Around the Fountain Court--along the north cloister of which the public way pa.s.ses to the gardens--are entrances to various apartments allotted to private residents. On the east side flights of steps go up to the two private suites, known as the Gold Staff Gallery, at the south-eastern corner of the Palace above the State Rooms. One of these suites--at the south-east angle--is interesting as being the one in which, according to tradition, took place that "Rape of the Lock", which Pope was to celebrate in the most remarkable poem of its kind in the language. Hither came the fair Belinda--Arabella Fermor--to play that game of ombre which the poet was to make famous; and here, her triumph at cards achieved, she was taking coffee--

"For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crowned The berries crackle and the mill turns round"--

when "the Peer", Lord Petre, "spreads the glittering forfex wide" and snips off the lock of hair!

"Then flash'd the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.

Not louder shrieks to pitying heav'n are cast, When husbands or when lapdogs breathe their last, Or when rich china vessels fall'n from high In glitt'ring dust and painted fragments lie!"

The Gold Staff Gallery has tragedy as well as comedy in its history, for at one time the other suite formed out of it--that facing south--was occupied by Richard Tickell, grandson of that Thomas Tickell, who, though a poet of some note in his day, is chiefly remembered from his a.s.sociation with Addison. Richard Tickell, who was also a poet and political writer, married as his first wife the beautiful Mary Linley, sister-in-law of Sheridan. On 4 November, 1793, Tickell--who appears to have been financially embarra.s.sed--threw himself from the window of one of his rooms here, and was killed instantly on the gravel path below. Though it was officially decided at the time--thanks, it is believed, to the influence of Sheridan--that it was an accidental death, the historians have no hesitation in describing the tragedy as suicide.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LONG WALK]

VII

Fascinating as are the old courts and the galleries with their magnificent art collections, the grounds which surround the Palace are, in their way, no less enticing. Indeed, if we might judge by the thronging crowds in flower time, the gardens form for the majority of visitors the most attractive part of the place. These gardens, wonderfully varied and beautifully kept, are not by any means extensive for so n.o.ble a Palace, but they prove an unfailing delight.

They are markedly divisible in character into three portions--the north where is the Wilderness and Maze; the south where are the Privy and Pond Gardens, the Great Vine House and Queen Mary's Bower; and the east--or Great Fountain Garden--with its rich herbaceous border along the Broad Walk, its level lawns set with great jewels of floral colour, its compact yews, its radiating walks, its water-lily pond, and beyond the gleaming stretch of the Long Ca.n.a.l and the tall trees that border the Park. In all parts of these gardens are to be seen beauties that delight the eye and linger in the memory, and each of them successively draws the sightseers.

These gardens have seen many changes during the centuries of the Palace's history, changes largely from one kind of formality to another, judging from the plans of them at various times. As I have said that the majority of visitors enter the Palace precincts by way of the Western Trophy Gate, and as such visitors would naturally reach the grounds by the eastern entrance beyond the cloistered Fountain Court, it may be well to say something first of the eastern gardens--which certainly, in summer, form the most florally gorgeous part of the whole. We come out here in the middle of the Broad Walk, which stretches from near the Kingston Road to the Thames' side. In front of us, bordered by old yew trees, are gravel walks radiating to the House or Home Park, the centre one leading, round a fountain pond starred in summer with lovely water lilies of various colours, to the head of the Long Ca.n.a.l, where are many water fowl--swans, geese, and ducks of different species--expectant of the visitors' contributions of bread or biscuit.

Right and left as we emerge from the Palace the Broad Walk stretches, inviting us in each direction with a brilliant display of many coloured flowers--more especially in spring and early summer, when the gardens, attractive at all times, are perhaps at their very best. Old plans of the grounds of Hampton Court show that these eastern gardens have seen the greatest changes during successive centuries. At one time the Long Ca.n.a.l stretched much closer to the Palace, and after it was shortened the intervening gardens were for a period a veritable maze of intricate ornamental beds with small fountains dotted about them; at another time they showed an array of formally cut pyramidal evergreens disposed along the sides of the walks.

It was probably the coming of William and Mary to Hampton Court that caused special attention to be paid to the grounds, for Queen Mary appears to have been greatly interested in the matter. Many and various as have been the re-plannings it may be believed that never have the gardens looked better than at present, when taste in things floricultural has broken away from the formalism of scroll-pattern borders and indulgence in the eccentricities of topiarian art--is even, it is to be hoped, on the way to free itself finally from the ugliness of "carpet bedding"--when plants are largely grouped and ma.s.sed instead of being placed in alternate kinds at regular intervals in geometrical patterns. Present day taste with its appreciation of garden colour, of ma.s.ses and groups of particular kinds, instead of isolated plants dotted about with irritating regularity, is found beautifully exemplified in the numerous beds cut in the lawns of the eastern gardens, and in the long borders which run north and south of the palace along one side of the Broad Walk. Here, from the beginning of the year, when the patches of cerulean, "glory of the snow", and of low-growing irises of a deeper blue, begin that procession which is soon to develop into a very pageantry of colour--from when myriad yellow crocuses first star the lawns with gold in February--is given a succession of changes that may well tempt the lover of gardens to Hampton Court again and again. These beds and borders with their succession of spring bulbs and summer flowers, their brilliant annuals and ma.s.sed perennials are not only a delight to the eyes of all, but that they afford endless hints, are as it were horticulturally educational to garden-loving visitors, may be gathered from the frequency with which such visitors are seen to consult the name-labels of the various plants.

The southern end of the Broad Walk is semi-circular with an outlook over the river, upwards, to where Molesey Lock and Weir are cut from view by the hideous Hampton Court Bridge, and downwards, towards Thames Ditton and Kingston. It is one of the most charming views on the river near London, the many trees on islands and banks shutting off the neighbouring town. On a hot summer day, the decorated houseboats moored to the Surrey bank and the innumerable small craft pa.s.sing up and down help to form a delightful and characteristic bit of the Stream of Pleasure. That the view is one that is well appreciated is shown by the fact that on such an afternoon the Water Gallery, as this view point is named, generally attracts and holds many of the visitors to the Palace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LONG WATER IN WINTER]

The name of the Water Gallery survives from that of the building which at one time stood here, the "dependance" which Queen Mary occupied while the Palace was being rebuilt, and which was demolished when the alterations were completed. East from this point runs the Long Walk, parallel with, but well above, the towing path, and affording a good view along the river on one hand and glimpses of the park on the other. This walk led to the old Bowling Green and Pavilions. Some distance along it a gate gives on to the towing path leading to Kingston Bridge.

South of the Palace--shut off from the eastern gardens by a climber-covered wall--is the smaller but very beautiful Privy Garden, with its turf-banked terraces on either side, its sunken centre filled with a wonderful variety of shrubs and trees. From the terrace walk on the left we may look over the wall to the eastern gardens and park; along the right-hand terrace is formed Queen Mary's Bower, an intertwisted avenue of trimmed and cut wych-elms, some of the distorted trunks of which might have inspired more than one of Dore's Dante ill.u.s.trations. This shady bower is in summer particularly delightful, and from the farther end of it is to be had, through and above the evergreens of this Privy Garden, a beautiful view of the south front of the Palace. At the farther end of the Privy Garden, fencing it from the towing path, are some magnificent iron gates and screens.

Along the gravel walk, immediately against the south front of the Palace, are ranged in summer great tubs with orange trees, believed to be those originally planted here by Queen Mary--though it is not easy to realize that they are over three hundred years old! And close to this wall of the Palace stand two heroic Statues, Hercules with his club, and another; it might be thought, half of the quartette of figures that, as old views of the Palace show, at one time stood on the low columns which rise above the bal.u.s.trading of the roof, only that quartette is said to have consisted of G.o.ddesses, since removed to Windsor. In an old engraving, dated 1815, two figures are still to be seen on the skyline.

Beyond the steps up to Queen Mary's Bower, a gateway leads us to the farther Privy Gardens. On the right may be observed where Wren's additions end abruptly against the windows of Queen Elizabeth's Chambers, and her monogram is to be seen carved boldly above the first-floor window in a decorative ribbon pattern, while above the second-floor window are her initials beside a crowned Tudor rose, each carving having the date 1568.

Here we are in the Pond Garden--or series of gardens--on the right, over a low old wall, is a small turfed and flower grown enclosure with the long Orangery at the farther side. On the left is a close grown hedge, beyond which are a succession of small garden enclosures, only the centre one of which is kept up as a show place, and this is the delightful quadrangular enclosed s.p.a.ce sometimes spoken of as the Dutch Garden. This sunk garden, with its turf, its stone walks, that are not walked upon, its small evergreens, cut by topiarian art into the semblance of birds, its low-growing plants rich in varicoloured flowers, its evergreen arbour at the farther end as a background to a statue of Venus, its little fountain in the centre, is a spot that always attracts visitors--attracts and holds them by its spell of quiet beauty.

At the farther end of the gravel walk is the gla.s.shouse in which for close upon a hundred and fifty years has flourished the great grape vine, which always proves an enormous attraction to those who come to see the Palace. The vine--a Black Hamburg--was planted in 1768, and it annually bears about twelve hundred bunches of grapes, many incipient bunches being removed in accordance with the custom of viticulture to allow the rest to mature the better. The vine has been known to bear well over two thousand pounds weight--or about a ton--of grapes in a single season. It is not, however, though sometimes so described, the largest grape vine in England.

To the north of the Palace--reached by a gate in the wall of the Long Walk, or first seen by those who come to Hampton Court Palace through the Lion Gate--is the Wilderness, a half-cultivated place contrasting greatly with the parts of the grounds that we have already been visiting. Here are tall trees of various kinds, ma.s.sed shrubs, and broad stretches of turf spangled with daffodils and other bulbs in the spring; within it is a smaller wilderness overlooked by many visitors forming a kind of wild garden, its many flowers growing upon the rocky banked sides of the tortuous paths, with groups of slender bamboo, flowering shrubs and brambles,--a place which is particularly fascinating in the late springtime.

Here, too, close to the Lion Gate, is that Maze which is always a popular feature with holiday-makers old and young. Between the Wilderness and the Palace lies the Old Melon Ground, now apparently utilized by the gardeners whose incessant work maintains the grounds of Hampton Court in so beautiful a state. West of the Wilderness is the Old Tilt Yard, long since given over from joustings and tiltings to the cultivation of plants, and not open to the public.

To go back to the eastern garden, we see at its farther edge the lime avenue, with beyond it the Home Park, the two separated by shady ca.n.a.ls well grown with gorgeous water lilies and bordered by clumps of fine foliage plants. It was presumably in the Park near here that George Cavendish found Henry the Eighth engaged at archery practice when he came to tell him of the death of Wolsey. It was in this Park, at the farther end near Kingston Bridge, that Fox saw Oliver Cromwell just before his fatal seizure, and it was in this Park, it is believed, that the tripping of his horse over a molehill caused William the Third's fatal fall. Just across the road bordering the northern boundary of the Palace grounds lies the great extent of Bushy Park, with its magnificent chestnut avenue; and mention may be made of the fact that had King William lived, and Wren's plans been fully carried out, that avenue would have been the approach to the grand new Palace front which it was designed to make. As it is we have but such part of the Tudor palace as the rebuilders allowed to remain, and we have but such part of the Orange palace as destiny allowed William to complete.

What we have, however, is a splendid whole, consisting, it may be, of incongruous parts, yet one that for charm, for beauty generally and in detail, and for fullness of interest, has but few rivals. Whether we visit it on some quiet day in winter, or in the time when the grounds are at their floral best, and when there are many hundreds of people thronging the galleries and gardens on Sunday afternoons or on popular holidays, it always gives us the same feeling of satisfaction that comes of beautiful surroundings. In the smaller courts and in the shady cloisters may be found in the heat of summer the soothing sense that is one of the secret charms of haunts of ancient peace.

Cardinal Wolsey built himself a lordly pleasure house, unthinking of the fickleness of a monarch's favour; Dutch William sought to make of it a rival to Versailles; and each, though he did not completely realize his design, may be said to have builded better than he knew--in providing for succeeding ages a place of beauty "in which the millions rejoice".