The Skirts of the Great City

by N. D'Anvers

Henry VIII. seems to have been at first as much attached to the Richmond Palace as his father had been. He spent the first Christmas after his accession there, and it was in it, on New Year's Day 1511, that his wife, Katharine of Aragon, gave birth to a son, whose advent was celebrated throughout the kingdom with extraordinary rejoicings. The infant on whom so much depended lived, however, but for six weeks, and his father is said to have looked upon his untimely death as a judgment on himself for having married his brother's widow. After the tragic event the king paid but a few short visits to Richmond, lending the palace there between whiles to distinguished guests, amongst whom was the Emperor Charles V. of Germany, who had come to England, in 1533, for his betrothal to the Princess Mary, then only four years old. That same year Henry leased the Richmond estate to Massey Villiard and Thomas Brampton for a term of thirty years at an annual rental of £25, 8s., but he evidently considered it still his own private property, for he made use of the palace whenever it suited his convenience. In 1526, for instance, when he had compelled Wolsey to give up to him the newly completed mansion at Hampton Court, he told the chagrined donor that he could live in his house at Richmond instead, a privilege of which the cardinal availed himself but seldom, so great was his unpopularity in the neighbourhood, the common people, especially those who had been in the service of Henry VII., bitterly resenting that what they irreverently called 'a bocher's dogge should be in the royall manor of Richmond.' For all that, however, Wolsey received Henry VIII. as his guest in it in 1528, when the feast of the patron-saint of England was celebrated with great solemnity in the chapel, all the companions of the Order of the Garter having been present. After his final disgrace the broken-hearted minister paid a last visit to Richmond, taking up his abode on his arrival as usual at the palace, but he soon received a peremptory message from his angry master telling him to withdraw to the Lodge in the Old Deer Park, the history of which is related below.

In 1535 Anne Boleyn, whose doom was already practically sealed, was for a short time at Richmond Palace, and, according to some authorities, it was in a house near by, then owned by Sir George and Lady Carew, that her successor in the king's affection, Jane Seymour, awaited, on the fatal 19th of May 1536, the arrival of her royal lover, to whom she had been married the day before.

It was at Richmond that Anne of Cleves resided whilst the negotiations were proceeding for her divorce from the fickle king, and when they were concluded Henry, in his relief at getting rid of the 'Dutch cow,' as he irreverently called her, gave her the estate for her life. She became much attached to the palace, and the story goes that the once hated wife several times entertained the king in it with such charming hospitality that he nearly fell in love with her. There was even at one time a rumour that she had become the mother of a son whose father was her divorced husband, and it was not until some of the scandalmongers had been publicly tried and severely punished that gossiping tongues ceased to wag on the subject. That Anne did cherish a hope, when Catherine Howard's influence was waning, of regaining her position as queen appears certain, but she had the sense soon to recognise that she had no chance of success, and she lived quietly on in her luxurious home until the death of Henry, when she had to resign it to Edward VI. The latter preferred Richmond Palace to any of his other residences, and spent as much of his time there as his physicians would allow; but they considered Hampton Court healthier, and insisted on his removal there when his health began to fail. It was at Richmond that took place, in the young king's presence, in the summer of 1550—some say in his private chapel, others in that of the neighbouring Carthusian monastery of Jesus of Bethlehem, of which an account is given below—the marriage of Lord Lisle to Lady Anne Seymour and that of Robert Dudley, later Earl of Leicester, to the ill-fated Amy Robsart, who was to pay so dearly for standing in the way of her husband's courtship of Queen Elizabeth. That same year Edward VI. received in the great hall of the palace the French ambassador, Marshal St. André, who had come from France to invest him with the order of St. Michael, on which occasion the courtly manners and generosity of the king completely won the hearts of all his guests.

Queen Mary was at the palace in 1553, and there received the news of the rebellion headed by Wyatt, which caused her to hasten to London, where her prompt action saved the situation. She returned to Richmond in triumph, and summoned her council to meet her there to discuss the arrangements for her marriage with Philip II. of Spain, on which she was determined in spite of the opposition of her subjects. Her happiest days were spent in the old palace on the green before she realised how vain were her hopes of winning her husband's affections and becoming the mother of an heir to the throne; but after her husband's return to Spain she took a dislike to Richmond. When the Princess Elizabeth was suspected of a plot against her sister's life she was sent from her prison in the Tower to Richmond Palace under the care of the stern Sir Henry Bedingfield, and she was so much pleased with her new place of confinement that she begged to be allowed to remain there. It was whilst she was at Richmond that she was offered a free pardon if she would renounce her claim to the throne and marry the Duke of Suffolk, but she firmly refused, and was therefore removed to Woodstock, where she was kept in close confinement, only escaping condemnation to death by pretending that she had been converted to Roman Catholicism. Later, when Mary's fears of her sister's disloyalty were allayed, and her beloved Philip was once more with her, a grand entertainment was given at Richmond, at which Elizabeth was present, and in the summer of 1558 the queen paid her last visit to the palace, contracting there, it was said, the chill which caused her death, though, as a matter of fact, she had long been in a critical condition of health.

With the accession of Elizabeth a fresh era of prosperity began for Richmond, which was one of the new queen's favourite places of residence, and to which she often went by water, her magnificent state barge escorted by a whole fleet of richly decorated boats bearing her retinue. In Richmond Palace Elizabeth received many of the suitors for her hand, including the young Eric IV., King of Sweden, whom she admitted to some little intimacy, even introducing him to her favourite astrologer, Dr. Dee of Mortlake, though she never had the slightest intention of accepting him; and there, too, she carried on a simultaneous flirtation with the Earls of Leicester and Essex, to the latter of whom she seems to have been really deeply attached. Even after both had passed away she kept up the old traditions, making a gallant attempt to hide the fact that her heart was broken, for she wrote love-letters, some of them from Richmond, to the young Lord Mountjoy; and on one occasion is said to have rewarded a commoner, Mr. William Sydney, with a kiss as a reward for his sprightly dancing of a coranto in her presence in the great hall of the palace. To the last Elizabeth loved her Richmond home; and it was in its chapel that she listened, not long before her death, to a sermon from Dr. Rudd, Bishop of St. David's, on the realistic description of old age in the 12th chapter of Ecclesiastes, remaining, it is related, apparently unmoved even when the preacher, with extraordinary want of tact, referred to her own wrinkles as an example of the ravages of time. The discourse over, however, the queen rose, opened a window with her own hands as if to mark her displeasure, and turning to the doctor told him he could in future keep his disparaging observations to himself, adding, 'I see that some wise men are as big fools as the rest.'

According to some authorities it was at Richmond that the aged sovereign received the news that her beloved Earl of Essex had been executed, a tragedy she had hoped to have prevented, though she had signed his death-warrant, by her promise that she would pardon him at the last moment, however great his crime, if he sent back to her a ring she had given him. Unfortunately there is no reliable historical proof of the truth of the touching story that he did entrust the ring to be given to the queen to the Countess of Nottingham, who kept it back, only confessing the truth on her death-bed to Elizabeth, who shook her violently, declaring that God might forgive her, though she never would; but there is no doubt that the tragic end of the earl hastened her own death. She knew full well that she was doomed soon to follow her favourite to the grave, and often made covert allusions to her conviction, as when she said to Lord Howard, 'I am tied with a chain of iron round my neck, all is changed with me now.' The last few months of her life were spent at Richmond, and she passed peacefully away, after declaring she had no wish to live longer, on March 24, 1603, according to tradition, for which there seems, however, to be no convincing evidence, in a small room still in existence above one of the entrance-gates of the palace. Her body was taken down the river to Whitehall in the very barge she had so often used in life, and never again was Richmond the scene of a great historic pageant. James I. cared little for his property there, and gave it to his eldest son, Henry, of whom, as is well known, he was extremely jealous, preferring that he should not reside at court.

Prince Henry lived much at Richmond, receiving there, in 1606, the French and Spanish ambassadors, who were both eager to secure for their respective sovereigns an alliance with him, and during the last few years of his life he began to form the famous collection of pictures which is still, after going through many vicissitudes, one of the most valued possessions of the English royal family. He was resident at the palace during the whole of the summer before his untimely death, which took place at St. James's Palace in 1612, and was, according to his doctors, the result of over-indulgence in bathing in the Thames. He was deeply mourned by the people of Richmond, with whom he was extremely popular, on account of his genial unassuming manners. He left his pictures to his brother Charles, to whom the Richmond estate was transferred by their father in 1617. The new owner was often at the palace before his accession to the throne, constantly adding to the art treasures in it, and his beloved Steenie was often his guest there. It was from it that the two inseparable friends started in 1623 on their wild expedition to Spain, Charles intending to woo the Infanta incognito before committing himself to an engagement. Two months after Charles became king he was welcoming a very different bride, Henrietta Maria of France, on whom he bestowed the Richmond Palace as part of her marriage portion; and although they both preferred Whitehall and Buckingham Palace, the young couple were several times in residence there before their troubles began. The Richmond home was also turned to account as a place of education for their children, the princesses Elizabeth, Mary, and Anne were there for some years under the care of the Countess of Roxburgh, and there Anne died in 1640, from what her doctor called a 'suffocating cataar.' A year later her brother Charles was sent to Richmond with his tutor, Bishop Duppa, by the Parliament that was already at daggers drawn with his father, and there he enjoyed a time of comparative security and happiness before he became involved in the doom that overtook his parents, and started on his weary wanderings as the disinherited heir of a murdered father. During the four years' Civil War Richmond Palace was practically deserted, and in 1647 the pictures in it were taken down, those likely to spread papal doctrines being burned, and the others dispersed. In 1649 a survey of the property was made by order of Cromwell, when its value was assessed at £10,782, 10s. 2d., and shortly afterwards it was sold to aid in raising money to pay the arrears due to the soldiers of the Parliamentary army. The greater part of the historic building was pulled down, and in 1650 what was left of it was bought by Sir Gregory Norton, who had been one of the king's judges, and had signed the warrant for his execution. According to some authorities Sir Gregory resided in the dismantled mansion until his death, which took place in 1652, whilst others assert that he was turned out of it at the Restoration, when he narrowly escaped sharing the fate of the other regicides. However that may be, the palace, hallowed by so many memories, was certainly occupied for a short time by the widowed queen Henrietta Maria, who actually received in it, as her guest, the notorious Lady Castlemaine, one of Charles II.'s many mistresses, who had left him in a fit of temper at a moment's notice. The story goes that the king joined her at Richmond the next morning, in the hope of patching up a reconciliation, when he probably had a stormy interview with his mother, who must indeed have mourned over his many iniquities, and wondered that all his troubles should have taught him so little.

The Queen Dowager left Richmond for France, never to return, in 1665, giving over the palace to Sir Edward Villiers, who two years later either lent or rented it to a relative of his, Lady Frances Villiers, who had charge of the three young children of the Duke of York, the future James II., two of whom, the Dukes of Kendal and Cambridge, died in 1667. On the accession of James II., Richmond Palace was given back to the Crown, but the new king never lived in it, though he sent his infant son, who was to have such a melancholy career as the Pretender, to be cared for there. The child, who was so delicate that he had not been expected to live, throve in his new surroundings, and was taken back to Windsor in time to share his parents' flight on the landing of the Prince of Orange. After the new revolution the royal demesne at Richmond was long deserted, William III. and his consort having paid only flying visits to it. The Princess Anne, daughter of James II. by his first wife, who had been very happy there with her little brothers before their untimely death, begged hard to be allowed to live in it, but permission was refused, and it was not until the accession of George II. that it was again used as a royal residence. The palace was given by him to his wife, Queen Caroline, who built for the accommodation of the ladies of her court the four substantial mansions on the west side of the green that are still known as Maids of Honour Row. In 1770 Richmond Palace was for a few months the home of Queen Charlotte, who, as already stated in connection with Kew, had a great love for the whole neighbourhood. Since then, unfortunately, further portions of the grand old mansion, that at one time with its dependencies occupied ten and a half acres of ground, have been pulled down, and all that is now left are the entrance gateway—on which, carved in stone, is the coat of arms of Henry VII.—of what is still known as the Wardrobe Court, and a portion of the buildings that once surrounded the latter, which are leased by the Crown to different tenants, and still bear witness with their ornate internal decoration, their quaint nooks and corners, and their secret passages, to the good old days gone by, when they were but a small part of a stately palace, capable of accommodating hundreds of distinguished guests, that was the scene of many a courtly pageant and many an exciting intrigue.