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EAST FRONT FROM THE LONG WATER

The southern range of rooms formed the King’s suite, and passing from the Guard Room, we go successively through: the First Presence Chamber, in which are to be seen Sir Godfrey Kneller’s “Beauties” of the Orange Court; the Second Presence Chamber, the most memorable thing in which is Van Dyck’s fine equestrian portrait of Charles the First; the Audience Chamber with a portrait of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, over the fireplace; the King’s Drawing Room; King William’s Bedroom, with an ornate ceiling painted by Sir William Thornhill, and the great canopied bed with time-worn crimson silk hangings; the King’s Dressing Room, in which are several Holbeins including two portraits of Henry the Eighth; and the last of King William’s rooms, the Writing Closet, in which are to be seen Zucchero’s portrait of Queen Elizabeth in fancy dress, also a smaller one of her, and a remarkable full length of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, in scarlet costume.

Turning at an angle through Queen Mary’s closet we pass on to inspect the series of rooms which Her Majesty did not live to occupy, and from the generous windows we get beautiful views of the yew-grown lawns and the park beyond—the view straight up the Long Canal from the Queen’s Drawing Room is particularly fine, especially when the broad gravel walks between the avenued yews are dotted with summer visitors, and the beds are gorgeous with many flowers set in the wide greenery of the lawn. Before reaching the Drawing Room we come to the Queen’s Gallery, hung with rich tapestry and ornamented with splendid china vases, and the Queen’s Bed Room, the bed hung with remarkably fresh-looking ornate hangings in red and gold. Beyond the Drawing Room are the Queen’s Audience Chamber, the Public Drawing Room, and at the end of the eastern front the Prince of Wales’ suite.

Through the farther end of the Drawing Room is the Queen’s Presence Chamber, with another magnificent canopied bed, and beyond it, the Queen’s Guard Room, giving on to the stairs. These last two rooms look out on to the Fountain Court, of which they form the northern side, but they do not exhaust the rooms open to public inspection; for along the eastern side of the Court is a series of smaller rooms, containing further pictures and furnishings. Owing to the smallness of these rooms, their darkness, and the fact that visitors can only pass straight through them from door to door, close inspection of the pictures is not easy. Along the whole length of the southern side of the Fountain Court is the King’s Gallery or Great Council Chamber—a magnificent room in which used to hang the Raphael Cartoons now at South Kensington. The room was, indeed, designed by Sir Christopher Wren as a setting for those famous pictures; and the walls are now covered by reproductions of them in tapestry. On the west side of the Court is the Communication Gallery leading to the Queen’s Great Staircase, and it is worthy of note that from the last of the State Rooms the visitor should carry away impressions of one of the most splendid of Hampton Court’s many splendid art treasures. Along the wall here are the nine large tempera pictures by Mantegna—“one of the chief heroes in the advance of painting in Italy”—in which are represented “The Triumph of Cæsar”. Says Mr. William Michael Rossetti, “these superbly invented and designed compositions, gorgeous with all splendour of subject-matter and accessory, and with the classical learning and enthusiasm of one of the master spirits of the age, have always been accounted of the first rank among Mantegna’s works”. Though in part restored, these paintings, by an artist who died more than four hundred years ago, are full of interest for their vivid presentation of a rich imagination of a great historical event. In front of the victor—in the last of this series of paintings—is borne a device bearing his famous words “Veni, Vidi, Vici”—and it is worthy of recollection that one tradition places the scene of Julius Cæsar’s final victory over the Britons at Kingston, not far from where this splendid delineation of his triumphal pageant on his return to Rome has hung for close upon three centuries. Though it is a fine final memory to bring away from the rooms, it is perhaps to be regretted that this series of paintings is in the last of the galleries through which we pass; for, as I have learned from various visitors—after going through more than a couple of dozen rooms and galleries, housing about a thousand pictures, and tapestries besides other articles of interest—the eye has become wearied and the mind overcharged with an embarrassment of riches. Several people have told me that they have come through these last galleries scarce noticing what was on the walls at all. It is a pity that the rule of having to pass through the rooms always in one order cannot be maintained only on Sundays, holidays, and such days as there are crowds, when such order is necessary for the comfort of all; at other times, when there are but few people about, it might surely be permissible to enter or leave the State Rooms by either of the great staircases.

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THE WILDERNESS IN SPRING

Of the riches of art in the Palace this is not the place to speak in detail, it is only possible to hint at them. Before leaving the Communication Gallery for the exit staircase there are small rooms to the left which call for inspection—rooms which not only mark internally the linking of the original Tudor Palace with the Orange additions, but which also are traditionally associated with the builder of the Palace himself, for here is Wolsey’s Closet. In the outer lobby the most interesting object is the drawing (after Wynegaarde) of Hampton Court Palace as seen from the Thames in 1558. From this may be noted the extent of building demolished, or masked, when Wren carried out his work of rebuilding for William the Third. The Closet is chiefly notable for its beautiful ceiling, its mullioned window, and its fine linen-fold panelling which, however, though of old workmanship, has been brought together here from various parts of the Palace. The room is supposed, from the frieze, to have been at one time much larger than it now is. In the corner, between fireplace and window, is a small room, sometimes described as an oratory. Though other of Wolsey’s rooms remain, they are part of the private apartments of the Palace, and not, of course, accessible to visitors, and this small Closet and its lobbies is, therefore, worth lingering over.