After the King's execution, the fine collections of art which once decorated the walls of Hampton Court were scattered abroad, and now form the choicest treasures of foreign and private galleries, and the honour[#] of Hampton Court and the palace were sold in 1651 to a Mr. John Phelps, a member of the House of Commons, for the sum of £10,765 19s. 9d.; but in 1656 Oliver Cromwell, enriched by the wreck of the State, again acquired possession of the palace, for which he had a great predilection, and consequently made it his chief residence. The marriage ceremonies of Elizabeth, daughter of Cromwell, with Lord Falconberg were performed here on November 18, 1657, and in the following year the Protector's favourite daughter, Mrs. Claypole, who disapproved of her father's doings, here breathed her last. Hither Cromwell would repair, when Lord Protector of the realm, to dine with his officers. Thurloe thus records the fact: 'Sometimes, as the fit takes him, he dines with the officers of his army at Hampton Court, and shows a hundred antic tricks, as throwing cushions at them, and putting hot coals into their pockets and boots. At others, before he has half dined, he gives orders for a drum to beat, and calls in his foot-guards to snatch off the meat from the table and tear it in pieces, with many other unaccountable whimsies.... Now he calls for his guards, with whom he rides out, encompassed behind and before ... and at his return at night shifts from bed to bed for fear of surprise.' He was constantly attended by a dog, who guarded his bedroom door. One morning he found the dog dead. He then remembered the prediction a gipsy had made to Charles I., that on the death of a dog in a room the King was then in, the kingdom he was about to lose would be restored to his family. 'The kingdom is departed from me!' cried Cromwell, and he died soon after.
[#] Hampton Court had been erected into an honour when it became the property of Henry VIII. An honour in law is a lordship, on which inferior lordships and manors depend by performance of customs and services. But no lordships were honours but such as belonged to the King.
After the Restoration the palace, which of course reverted to the Crown, was occasionally occupied by Charles II. Here he spent his honeymoon on his marriage with Catherine of Braganza. He had married her for money; he received with her a dowry of half a million, besides two fortresses—Tangier in Morocco and Bombay in Hindostan. He soon neglected her for Lady Castlemaine and hussies of her character. Pepys, indeed, under May 81, 1662, records: 'The Queen is brought a few days since to Hampton Court, and all people say of her to be a very fine and handsome lady, and very discreet, and that the King is pleased enough with her, which I fear will put Madame Castlemaine's nose out of joint.' But Pepys was a bad prognosticator on this matter. The unhappy Queen, neglected and forgotten, spent most of her time in a small building which overlooked the river Thames, and was considered a sort of summer residence. It was known by the name of the Water Gallery, and occupied the site in front of what is now the southern façade of King William's quadrangle, on whose erection the Water Gallery was entirely removed.
When the great plague of 1665 spread westward in the Metropolis, the 'merry monarch' and his suite again retired to Hampton Court, where, like Boccaccio's Florentines under a similar calamity, they sought oblivion of fear in a continual succession of festivities. Persons who are curious on such matters will find an amusing account of those doings in the autobiography of Sir Ralph Esher, edited by Leigh Hunt.
Pepys, it appears, paid frequent visits to Hampton Court, but was, it seems, not always well treated. Thus, on July 23, 1665, he writes: 'To Hampton Court, where I followed the King to chapel and heard a good sermon.... I was not invited any whither to dinner, though a stranger, which did also trouble me; but' (he adds philosophically) 'I must remember it is a Court.... However, Cutler carried me to Mr. Marriott's, the housekeeper, and there we had a very good dinner and good company, among others Lilly, the painter.' Pepys was easily consoled for the snub the 'quality' treated him to.
James II. also occasionally visited Hampton Court, but the palace was neglected, and did not actually again become a royal residence till the accession of William III. and Queen Mary. He, as we have already mentioned on a former occasion, made the palace what it now is by pulling down the buildings erected by Henry VIII., and covering the site with the present Fountain Court and the State apartments surrounding it. According to a drawing by Hollar, showing Hampton Court as furnished by Henry VIII., the eastern front was really picturesque, and agreed perfectly with the architectural features of Wolsey's building. Still, according to the notions of the seventeenth century, the apartments were not suitable for a royal residence, especially as William intended to make it a permanent and not a merely temporary one. Moreover, the King took a personal pleasure in building and planting and decorating his residence. He determined to create another Loo on the banks of the Thames. A wide extent of ground was laid out in formal walks and parterres; limes, thirty years old, were transplanted from neighbouring woods to make shady alleys. The new court rose under the direction of Wren, and with it the grand eastern and southern fronts. It is said that the King once entertained the idea of erecting an entirely new palace at the west end of the town of Hampton on an elevation distant about half a mile from the river Thames, but the design was abandoned from a consideration of the length of time necessary for such an undertaking. Horace Walpole informs us that Sir Christopher Wren submitted another design for the alterations of the ancient palace in a better taste, which Queen Mary wished to have executed; but she was overruled. The same authority says: 'This palace of King William seems erected in emulation of what is intended to imitate the pompous edifices of the French monarch.'
Unfortunately for William, he found after a time that Hampton Court was too far from the Houses of Lords and Commons and the public offices, but being unable to stand the impure air of London, he took up his residence at Kensington House, which was then quite in the country. But he frequently visited Hampton Court, and it was there he met with the accident which caused his death. On February 20, 1702, he was ambling on a favourite horse named Sorrel through the park. He urged the horse to strike into a gallop just at a spot where a mole had been at work. The horse stumbled and went down on his knees; the King fell off and broke his collar-bone. The bone was set, and the King returned to Kensington in his coach; but the jolting of the rough roads made it necessary to reduce the fracture again. He never recovered the double shock to the system, and fever supervening, he died a few days subsequently.
The Princess of Denmark, afterwards Queen Anne, in this palace gave birth on July 24, 1689, to the Duke of Gloucester, who died at eleven years of age, and thus made room for the House of Brunswick. Anne occasionally resided here after her accession to the throne.
The Great Hall had in Queen Elizabeth's time been used as a theatre; it was fitted up for a similar purpose by George I. in 1718. It was intended that plays should have been acted there twice a week during the summer season by the King's company of comedians, but the theatre was not ready till nearly the end of September, and only seven plays were performed in it in that season. The first play, acted on September 23, was 'Hamlet.' On October 1, curiously enough, 'Henry VIII., or the Fall of Wolsey,' was represented on the very spot which had been the scene of his greatest splendour, recalling the events of the life of the founder of the princely pile. The King paid the charges of the representation and the travelling expenses of the actors, amounting to £50 a night, besides which he made a present of £200 to the managers for their trouble. It was never afterwards used but once for a play, performed on October 16, 1731, for the entertainment of the Duke of Lorraine, afterwards Emperor of Germany; but the fittings were not removed till the year 1798.
In 1829 the parish of Hampton obtained permission of George IV. to fit up the hall for divine service during the rebuilding of Hampton Church, and it was so used for about two years.