HE day after the death of Queen Anne, King George was proclaimed her successor; and soon after his accession he entered into possession of Kensington Palace. Taking, on his part, also, a fancy to the place, he decided, about the year 1721, to erect a new and additional suite of state rooms, the building of which was intrusted to William Kent, as we shall fully explain in our description of the new state rooms constructed by him. Otherwise, we hear scarcely anything of George I. in connection with Kensington. He lived here, indeed, in the greatest seclusion with his German favourites, and was scarcely ever seen, even in the gardens, which in his reign first became the fashionable promenade, where, in the words of Tickell, who wrote a poem on the subject, in imitation of Pope’s “Rape of the Lock”—
“The dames of Britain oft in crowds repair
To groves and lawns, and unpolluted air,
Here, while the town in damps and darkness lies,
They breathe in sunshine, and see azure skies.”
N the reign of George II. Kensington became more than ever the favourite residence of the court, and much insight into life within the walls of the Palace at this time is afforded us by such books as Lady Suffolk’s “Memoirs,” Lady Sundon’s “Letters,” Walpole’s “Reminiscences,” and, above all, of course, by Lord Hervey’s “Memoirs.” Here is a malignant little sketch drawn by that treacherous, satiric hand: “His Majesty stayed about five minutes in the gallery; snubbed the Queen, who was drinking chocolate, for being always ‘stuffing;’ the Princess Emily for not hearing him; the Princess Caroline for being grown fat; the Duke of Cumberland for standing awkwardly; Lord Hervey for not knowing what relation the Prince of Sultzbach was to the Elector Palatine; and then carried the Queen to walk, and be re-snubbed, in the garden.”
It was the Princess Emily just mentioned who played a practical joke one evening at Kensington on Lady Deloraine, by drawing her chair from under her just as she was going to sit down to cards, thus sending her sprawling on the floor. The King burst out laughing, and, to revenge herself, Lady Deloraine played his august Majesty the same trick soon after, which not unnaturally led to her being forbidden the court for some time.
Although Queen Caroline had to put up with a good deal of snubbing, she managed, at the same time, usually to get her own way. She was very fond of art; and it was she who discovered, stowed away in a drawer at Kensington Palace, the famous series of Holbein’s drawings. These she had brought out, and she arranged all the pictures in the State Rooms according to her liking. Her substituting good pictures for bad in the great Drawing-Room during one of the King’s absences in Hanover, led to the famous and oft-quoted scene between Lord Hervey and his Majesty, who, nevertheless, did not interfere with the Queen’s alterations.
Caroline was also devoted to the then fashionable craze of gardening, and was continually planning and altering at Kensington. It was at her instance—as we shall see presently in greater detail—that the large extent of land, formerly the park of old Nottingham House, and also a portion of Hyde Park, was laid out, planted, and improved into what we now know as “Kensington Gardens.”
Queen Caroline died in 1737, while George II. survived her twenty-three years, expiring at Kensington Palace on the morning of the 25th of October, 1760, at the age of seventy-eight. His end was extremely sudden. He appeared to be in his usual health, when a heavy fall was heard in his dressing-room after breakfast. The attendants hurried in, to find the King lying on the floor, with his head cut open by falling against a bureau. The right ventricle of his heart had burst.
