[36] The Royal Household was considerably reduced by Somerset in the first year of Edward VI, but in Elizabeth’s day it was again augmented in every department, and was the most terrible and disastrous legacy the great Queen bequeathed to her Stuart successor. The only other example of such an extraordinary plethora of Court officials and retainers is to be found at the Court of France under Louis XIV and Louis XV’s unhappy successor, and they were a great factor in bringing about the Revolution.
[37] Harl. 1419. The above account of Henry’s palaces and their contents is taken from this important MSS: the Household Expenses, State Papers, Royal Society’s Papers, temp. Henry VIII, and from the very curious Trevelyan Papers, Camden Society; also from that admirable work, The History of Hampton Court Palace, by Ernest Law, M.A.
[38] These tapestries were duplicates of those still preserved in the Vatican, the cartoons for which are at the South Kensington Museum. They remained in Whitehall till the death of Charles I, when they were sold to Don Alfonso de Cardenas, and passed at his decease to the house of Alva, which in turn sold them to Mr. Peter Tupper, who brought them to England in 1823; in his house they remained until they were resold to Mr. William Trall. In 1863 they were exhibited at the Crystal Palace, and came very near destruction in the fire which devastated the Tropical Department. Their subsequent fate is unknown, but as recently as 1889 the writer saw two of the series in a shop in Wardour Street. In 1890 a series of finely painted cartoons, evidently by Raphael and his pupils, representing scenes from the Acts of the Apostles, identical with these, came from Russia, and were exhibited by the late Mr. Martin Colnaghi and afterwards sold to an American financier.
[39] The Palace of Nonesuch stood near the site of the old manor house and the village church of Chuddington, near Cheam, in Surrey. Henry VIII obtained possession of the manor as a hunting-seat in 1526 by exchange, and erected a magnificent structure of freestone, having a central gate-house and being flanked by lofty towers crowned with cupolas in the form of inverted balloons, which gave the building a decided Oriental appearance. The writers of the sixteenth century are profuse in their laudations of this royal residence, and speak in the most glowing terms of its beautifully furnished apartments, which contained works of art worthy of ancient Greece or of Rome, and of its lovely gardens, its orchards stocked with the choicest of fruit trees, and its extensive park laid out in avenues ornamented by artificial fountains. Its luxuriousness and beauty soon acquired for the new palace the proud appellation of “Nonesuch.” Henry VIII never quite completed it, but in Mary’s reign it passed to the Earl of Arundel, who carried out the original intentions of its founders. Queen Elizabeth frequently resided at Nonesuch, but whether as guest or tenant is uncertain. Charles II presented it to the Duchess of Cleveland, who completely demolished the palace and disparked the lands.
[40] Possibly the “Virgin of the Rocks,” now in the National Gallery.
[41] At the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.
[42] Lately in the possession of the Duke of Norfolk, and now belonging to the nation.
[43] Windsor Castle.
[44] There were several of these allegorical “tables,” one or two of which survive to this day in ancient contemporary engravings.
[45] Among the astronomers was the learned Nicholas Crager. William Parr was also a student of astronomy. The State Papers contain some mention of astronomical instruments purchased for him. Needless to say, this “astronomy” was really only astrology under another name.