The Thames and his Tributaries
by Charles McKay.
The Thames at Hampton Court.—The Rape of the Lock.—Magnificence of Wolsey.—The loves of Lord Surrey and the fair Geraldine.—Royal Inhabitants of Hampton Court.—A Cook's Philosophy.—The Picture Gallery.—The Maze.
The lover of poetry, as he sails from Kingston to Hampton Court, will not fail to remember, that upon these waters Pope has laid the scene of his beautiful "Rape of the Lock." It was here,
"While melting music stole along the sky,"
that Mrs. Arabella Fermor, the Belinda of the song, was rowed in her gilded barge, the loveliest of the lovely, with her fair nymphs and well-dressed youths around her, and the "adventurous Baron" Lord Petre, already planning the larceny which gave such offence to the fair one and her family, but which, adorned by the luxuriant fancy of the poet, was the means of giving such delight to all the world besides. Since that time, the Thames at Hampton has been a haunted spot, sacred to the sylphs and all the bright militia of the sky. For their invention Pope is entitled to greater credit than he has ever yet received; for, notwithstanding his own assertion, and the acquiescence of Johnson and other critics, who did not know German, he borrowed nothing but their names from the Rosicrucians,—a fact of which any one will be convinced who will take the trouble to read the "Chiave del Gabinetto del Cabaliere Borri," or the philosophical romance, "The Count de Gabalis," by the Abbé de Villars.
The scenery a both shores of the Thames is here truly beautiful. Cardinal Wolsey saw and became enamoured of it, when it had nothing but its own natural charms to recommend it, and resolved to fix his permanent abode among scenes so lovely. While yet the manor of Hampton belonged to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, Wolsey, whose attendance upon the King at Hanworth drew him frequently to the neighbourhood, and who must have constantly passed it on his way to Esher, a place which belonged to his bishoprick of Winchester, took a liking to the spot, and chose it as the future site of the finest palace that had ever yet been erected in England. He took a lease of the manor, which extended at that time from Ditton to Walton, on the Surrey shore, and included Hampton, part of Hanworth, Teddington, and Hounslow Heath, in Middlesex, from the Prior of St. John, and begun his magnificent building in the year 1515. He had been upwards of ten years employed upon it, when the vastness of the design began to excite the admiration and envy of all who beheld it. His enemies took occasion of the remarks that were universally made to stir up the jealousy of the King against his minister; and Henry asked him why he had built a palace so far surpassing any of those belonging to his sovereign. The Cardinal, prompt at an expedient, but ever princely, replied, that he was merely trying to construct a residence worthy to be given to a King of England. The wrath of the tyrant was appeased, and in exchange for the magnificent gift he gave Wolsey permission to reside in the royal manor and palace of Richmond. Wolsey, however, continued to reside occasionally in that part of the palace of Hampton Court which was already built; for Henry knew too well the fine taste of the Cardinal in architecture to permit any meaner hand to complete what he had begun. Although he thus lived in the palace as a mere tenant, he was in most respects as much its master as if it still remained his own. It was here he gave his magnificent festivals, and particularly that great one to the French ambassadors, of which so minute an account has been handed down to us by Cavendish, a gentleman of his household, and his biographer. The festival was given in the year 1528, after the conclusion of a solemn peace between England, France, and the Emperor of Germany. The ambassadors were successively entertained at Greenwich, London, Richmond, Hampton, and Windsor. The King entertained them at Greenwich,—the Lord Mayor in London,—the King again at his park in Richmond,—and Wolsey at Hampton Court. The reception they met from Wolsey was by far the most magnificent. The account handed down to us by the minute and accurate historian, gives us a grand idea of the power and splendour of that proud churchman. The rich hangings of arras, the massive silver and gold plate, the regiments of tall yeomen in gay liveries that waited upon the guests,—the glare of the torches, the costliness and excellence of the wines, the savour of the meats, and the superabundance of everything, are all set forth very eloquently by honest old Stowe, who seems to have imagined that no feast ever given in the world before could have equalled the Cardinal's. After describing all these things in a style and language of most agreeable roughness and simplicity, he continues, "The trumpets were blowen to warn to supper; the officers discreetely conducted these noblemen from their chambers into the chamber where they should sup, and caused them there to sit downe; and that done, their service came uppe in such abundance, both costly and full of subtleties, and with such a pleasant noise of instruments of music, that the Frenchmen (as it seemed) were rapte into a heavenly paradise. The Cardinall was not yet come, but they were all merrie and pleasant. Before the second course, the Cardinall came in booted and spurred, all sodainely amongst them, and bade them 'Proface!' [much good may it do you!] at whose coming there was a great joye, with rising everie man from his place. The Cardinall caused them to sit still and keep their roomes; and, being in his apparell as he rode, called for a chaire and sat in the midst of the high table. Anone came up the second course, with so many dishes, subtleties, and devices, above a hundred in number, which were of so goodly proportion and costlie, that I think the Frenchmen never saw the like. The wonder was no less than it was worthie indeed. There were castles, with images the same as in Paul's church, for the quantity as well counterfeited as the painter should have painted it on a cloth or wall. There were beasts, birds, and personages, most lively made and counterfeited, some fighting with swords, some with guns and cross-bowes, some vaulting and leaping, some dancing with ladies, some on horses in complete harnesse, jousting with long and sharp speares, with many more devices. Among all other was a chess-board made of spiced plate, with men thereof the same; and for the good proportion, and because the Frenchmen be verie expert in that play, my Lord Cardinall gave the same to a gentleman of France, commanding there should be made a goodlie case for the preservation thereof in all haste, that he might convey the same into his countrey. Then took my lord a bowle of gold filled with ippocrass, and putting off his cappe said, 'I drink to the King my sovereign lord, and next unto the King your master,' and therewith drank a good draught. And when he had done, he desired the grand master to pledge him, cup and all, the which was well worth five hundred marks, and so caused all the lords to pledge these two royal princes. Then went the cups so merriely about, that many of the Frenchmen were fain to be led to their beds."
In less than two short years afterwards, what a change came over the fortunes of the minister! To quote again the words of the same historian, Wolsey, being in disgrace, left London, and having no house of his own to go to, "rode straight to Esher, which is a house belonging to the bishoprick of Winchester, not far from Hampton Court, where my lord and his family continued for the space of three or four weekes without either beds, sheetes, table-clothes, or dishes to eate their meate in, or wherewith to buye anie. Howbeit there was good provision of victual, and of beer and wine; but my lord was compelled of necessitie to borrowe of Master Arundel, and of the Bishop of Carlisle, plate and dishes both to drinke and eate his meate in."
It was then when, to use his own words to his attached servants who thronged around him, "he had nothing left him but the bare clothes on his back," that he first began to be really convinced that
"He had touch'd the highest point of all his greatness,
And from the full meridian of his glory
Was hastening to his setting, and to fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
No man to see him more!"
Wolsey was again taken into favour, and again disgraced, and died before the palace was completed. Henry continued the work with great vigour, and was always much attached to the place. He took a sort of dislike to it after the death of his favourite wife, the Lady Jane Seymour, who expired within its walls two days after giving birth to King Edward the Sixth. With more grief than might have been expected from so mere an animal, he could not bear to look at the palace for several weeks, and retired to mourn his loss in private, clinging pertinaciously to the garments of sable, and refusing to be comforted. But the fit soon wore off; he found himself another wife, in the person of Anne of Cleves, "a great Flanders mare," as he called her; a compliment which she might have returned with as much elegance, and with more justice, by calling him a "great English hog." He never tired of her, for the good reason that he always hated her. She was allowed to reside at Hampton Court, until all the preparations were made for her divorce, when the King, according to Stowe, wishing to get rid of her, "caused her to remove to Richmond, persuading her it should be more for her health and pleasure, by reason of the cleare and open air there."
His next Queen, Catherine Howard, was for awhile judged worthy to appear at his festivals in Hampton Court; but, being anything but a discreet woman, and her husband growing tired of her, she was divorced by the most summary of all divorces,—the executioner's knife. The new Queen, Catherine Parr, was married in a very short time afterwards, with great pomp and rejoicings at Hampton Court. The ceremony was performed in July, 1543; and, from that period to the death of Henry, the palace was a constant scene of gaiety.
It was in one of these festivals that the poetic Earl of Surrey first became, or thought himself, enamoured of the fair Geraldine, whose name is almost as famous in connection with his, as that of Laura with the amorous Petrarch's. In his description and praise of his love he says,
"Foster'd she was with milk of Irish breast:
Her sire an earl—her dame of princes' blood.
From tender years in Britain doth she rest
With kynge's child, where tasteth costly food,
Hunsdon did first present her to mine eyen,
Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight:
Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine."
The story of the great love entertained by this agreeable poet and accomplished gentleman for the beautiful Geraldine has been much commented on, and forms a romantic episode in his unfortunate life. It would be much more romantic if it were true as tradition has handed it down to us. He is said to have written her name and some amorous verses upon a window at Hampton Court,—to have excited thereby the jealousy of the King,—and finally to have been brought to the scaffold from that, among many other causes. The name of the lady whom he has celebrated was for a long time unknown, until Horace Walpole proved that she was the Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, daughter of the Earl of Kildare, and one of the maids of honour of the Princess Mary. When Surrey first saw her, he was a married man, living affectionately with his wife, and the fair Geraldine was a mere child of thirteen years of age. Surrey himself was in his twenty-fourth year. There is no doubt that he was struck with her beauty, and that he has celebrated her in the tenderest amorous poetry. Whether he loved her is quite another question. It should be remembered that Surrey's great master in the art of poetry was Petrarch, whom he devoutly and enthusiastically studied; and that effectually to imitate him, it was necessary that he should have a lady-love, upon whose imaginary coldness or slights he might pour out the whole flow of his amorous versification.
There is not the slightest evidence to show that his attachment, if the name can be bestowed upon a mere conceit, ever went beyond this, or was anything more than admiration, sedulously encouraged for the sake of rhyming. Cowley, who was never in love but once, and then had not resolution enough to tell his passion, thought himself bound, as a true poet, to pay some homage at the shrine, and published "The Mistress," a collection of amorous poems, addressed to an imaginary beauty. Something of the same kind was the much-talked-of love of Surrey for the young Geraldine. She was married in her fifteenth year to Sir Anthony Brown, but Surrey continued to rhyme, without offending either his own wife, or the lady's husband,—a circumstance which serves to show that the persons most concerned were fully aware of the real state of the case. The assertion that Henry VIII. took any jealousy or dislike to Surrey on account of it is quite unfounded. The noble poet first saw the Lady Geraldine in 1541. In the following year, so high was he in his sovereign's favour, that he was made a Knight of the Garter. On the invasion of France in 1544 by Henry, the vanguard of the army was commanded by the Duke of Norfolk, Surrey's father, while Surrey himself was appointed to the honourable post of Marshal of England.
During the progress of the war he was made commander of Guinses, and afterwards of Boulogne; in which latter post, in conseuence of a panic terror among his men, he was defeated by the French. It was this circumstance, and not his pretended love for Geraldine, that first lessened the good opinion which his sovereign entertained of him. The real cause of his condemnation and death has not been very clearly ascertained; but it is quite absurd to suppose that Henry's jealousy of him in the matter of Geraldine had anything whatever to do with it.
Edward VI. often resided at Hampton Court. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood were much attached to him, being proud that their village was the birth-place of the King. When there was a rumour that the Protector, Somerset, entertained a design to seize his person, they armed, unsolicited, for his defence; a proof of their devotion, which Edward strove to repay by relieving them from the inconvenience and annoyance of the royal chase, which inclosed a vast extent of country, and which had been formed in the latter years of his father's life, when he was old and fat, and unable to ride far in search of his sport. Mary and her husband, Philip, passed their honeymoon at Hampton Court, and afterwards gave a grand entertainment to the Princess Elizabeth, the presumptive heiress to the crown. Elizabeth, on her accession, also resided occasionally at Hampton Court; and there is a tradition that Shakspeare made his very first appearance on any stage before her, in a little apartment of the palace set apart for theatrical representations.
In the reign of James, Hampton Court was the place of meeting of the celebrated conference on faith and discipline, between the divines of the Church of England and the Puritans, and in which the sign of the cross in baptism, the ring in marriage, the use of the surplice, and the bowing at the name of Jesus, were severally attacked by the one, and defended by the other party. James presided, to his own great delight, over their deliberations, and gave so much satisfaction to the Church of England, that he was declared by the Archbishop of Canterbury to be a man who delivered his judgments by the special assistance of the Spirit of God.
Daring the prevalence of a severe plague in London, Charles I. and his family took refuge in this palace, where it was thought the air was more wholesome than in any other part of England. Fifteen years afterwards he was driven here by a pest of a different description, the riotous apprentices of the capital. In the year 1647, this place became, for a third time, his temporary prison for a few months, prior to his unfortunate escape to the Isle of Wight; an event which associates this building with the most remarkable incident in British history.
After the execution of the King, Cromwell occasionally resided here. The Long Parliament had issued their orders for the sale of the house and grounds; but the order was stayed, and it was voted as a residence for the Lord Protector. Here, in 1657, his daughter, Mary, was married to the Lord Falconbridge; and here, also, in the year succeeding, his favourite daughter, Mrs. Claypole, expired, to the great grief of her sire.
At the Restoration, Hampton Court was given, as a reward to the great instrument of that event, Monk, Duke of Albemarle. He wisely accepted a sum of money instead of a palace, which he had not revenues sufficient to inhabit in becoming state, and the place once more reverted to the Crown. Charles II, and his brother, both occasionally visited Hampton, and resided in it for months at a time; but, it was not until the reign of William and Mary that the palace again acquired the importance which it had in some measure lost since the days of the eighth Henry.
William III. and his illustrious consort were alike partial to this residence; and under their superintendence various alterations were made from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. Three of the old courts built by Wolsey, were pulled down, the present state-rooms and staircases were erected, and the pleasure-gardens laid out in the Dutch style, with the long canal, to put his Majesty in mind of his native country. The canal is forty feet broad, and more than half a mile in length; and, were it not quite so straight as the Dutch taste imperatively commands, would be a very pleasing object in the view from the gardens. In this favourite residence, William, as is well known, met his death, He was riding from Kensington to Hampton Court; and when he had arrived in his own grounds, his horse stumbled, and the King was thrown to the ground with such violence as to fracture his collar-bone. Being of a weakened constitution, he died from the effects of the accident fifteen days afterwards. The spot in the gardens is still shown where his horse stumbled.
Queen Anne spent much of her time in this palace, where, according to Pope, she sometimes took counsel, and sometimes tea. Pope himself was a frequent visiter to the gardens, where he used to amuse himself in walking about for hours at a time, sometimes alone, and sometimes in company with an agreeable maid of honour, Miss Lepel, afterwards Lady Hervey.
George I. gave several grand entertainments here, and had plays performed for the amusement of his visiters. George II. had similar tastes; and, in the year 1718, caused Wolsey's grand hall to be fitted up as a theatre, for the performance of Shakspeare's plays. Among others, it is recorded that "Henry VIII," showing the fall of Wolsey, was enacted by the express command of his Majesty. During the life-time of this monarch he allowed his son, the Prince of Wales, and the father of George III, to reside occasionally at Hampton Court. George III. was more partial to Windsor; and, though he visited Hampton, never slept in it. It has never since been honoured by the residence of the Kings of England. William IV, when Duke of Clarence, was appointed ranger of Bushy Park adjoining, in 1797, and steward of the honour; and the former office is still held by his widow, the Dowager Queen Adelaide, who has a pretty residence in the Park.
Thanks to the liberality and kind feeling of the Government, the palace, with its pictorial treasures, is open five days in the week, for the inspection of the public. Three pleasant hours were those which we passed in the state apartments, looking first at the portrait of one departed King or hero, and then at another; or viewing the resemblances of the fair and the witty, who captivated the heart, or pleased the vanity of the susceptible Charles, or at the more unfortunate Jane Shore, who enslaved the affections of a truer lover, King Edward IV.
At last we came away without seeing the one-fiftieth part of what was to be seen. One hour, at least, of that time we spent in the gallery built by Sir Christopher Wren, for the reception of the seven cartoons of Raphael; and, had not hunger and thirst, and all the necessities of the world and the flesh, interfered with us, and with our faculty of admiration, we might have remained there to this day.
As we walked leisurely through the various apartments, we noticed that of the royal beds,—which are still preserved there in the same state as when their occupants were alive,—those of William III, Queen Anne, and George II, attracted much more attention from many people than the pictures. One couple especially we noticed, apparently servant-girls, who stopped before each bed for several minutes. They took no notice whatever of the pictures; and we were curious to hear what remarks they made. We kept as close to them as possible, for that purpose; and, when they stopped opposite the state-bed of Queen Anne, we listened to their conversation, and heard a piece of very common, but very true and valuable philosophy, which we certainly did not expect.
"Oh! a very fine bed, to be sure!" said one; "and must have cost a thousand guineas, all complete."
"I shouldn't wonder," replied the other; "but, Lord! what does it matter? A hundred years hence, and you and I will sleep in as good a bed as Queen Anne. Queens and poor cooks all sleep in the grave at last."
If there is one thing more than another which we hate as impertinent and ungentlemanly, it is to turn round after passing a woman, and look her in the face; but we could not repress our curiosity to have a glance at the face of this one. We expected to find some pensive pretty countenance, cheeks pale with thought, and a bright intelligent eye; but we were disappointed. The speaker was a vulgar little woman, with a snub-nose almost hidden between a pair of such fat red cheeks as we have seldom seen, and her little grey eyes looked dull and sleepy. "Tis a pity we looked," was our first thought; but we discouraged it with the reflection that beauty and philosophy were not necessarily companions, and that this ugly cook-maid was, perhaps, as kind as she was sensible.
Having lingered so long in the interior, we took a stroll into the gardens, that we might glance at all the curiosities of the place. Passing the tennis-court, the finest in England, we entered by a small gate into a place called the "Wilderness," laid out originally under the direction of King William III. to hide the somewhat unseemly and irregular brick walls at this side of the palace. This part of the gardens is arranged into the most natural wildness; and, during a hot summer's day is a delightful retreat, cool as water, and all alive with the music of a thousand birds.
While here, we could not, of course, refrain from visiting the famous Maze, also formed by King William III. We tried our skill to discover the secret of the labyrinth, and saw many boys and girls, and not a few children of larger growth, and of both sexes, busily engaged in the same attempt, shouting and laughing each at the failure of the other, and ting with the unusual exertion. We were not more successful than the rest, until we took the little guide-book usually sold in the palace, out of our pocket, when, after some little difficulty, we unravelled the mystery by the aid of the map and a pencil. It is full of "passages which lead to nothing," and a pleasant spot, we should, think for frolicsome lovers, either just before, or in the first fortnight of the honeymoon. For our part we saw no fun in it, more especially as we were growing hungry, and had visions of roast-fowl and flasks of claret dancing before our eyes. We therefore took a hasty farewell of the Maze and the Palace, and proceeded to the Toy Inn, where our dinner awaited us.
