In the beginning of 1649 came the culminating tragedy and two years later the manor of Hampton Court was sold to one John Phelps. The Palace itself was presumably not included in the transaction, for shortly afterwards it was occupied by Oliver Cromwell.
During the troubles between King and Parliament some damage was done at Hampton Court—damage which may well be deplored, but which will always be done by the least thoughtful in any such conflict. We may, to-day particularly, regret the destruction of the stained glass in the windows of the Great Hall, but in defence of the iconoclasts it must be remembered that stained glass was associated by them with those aspects of religion which they were banded together to overthrow. Destruction is one of the most persistent of primitive instincts, and should such an outbreak as that of the sixteenth century occur again—there would again be wanton destruction.
Under the Commonwealth Hampton Court of course saw none of the pageantry to which kings and queens had accustomed it, but on 18 November, 1657, it was here that Oliver Cromwell’s daughter, Mary, was married to Lord Falconbridge, and the nuptials were honoured with “Two Songs” from the pen of Andrew Marvell, in one of which the poet used the courtly conceit applicable to a November marriage of:
“They have chosen such an hour
When she is the only flower.”
In August of the following year the Protector’s other daughter, his favourite one, it is said, Mrs. Elizabeth Claypole, died at Hampton Court, and the grieved father was taken ill of the malady of which less than a month later he died at Whitehall. In the Journal of Fox the Quaker occurs the following striking passage about a meeting with Cromwell. “I met him riding into Hampton Court Park, and before I came to him, as he rode at the head of his life guard, I saw and felt a waft of death go forth against him, and when I came to him he looked like a dead man.”
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MASTER CARPENTER’S COURT
After Oliver Cromwell’s death it was proposed that Hampton Court Palace should be sold, but the supporters of the Commonwealth under Richard Cromwell were at loggerheads on the subject, one party thinking that the place should be reserved “for the retirement of those that were engaged in Public affairs, when they should be indisposed in the summer season”, the other, “that such places might justly be accounted amongst those things that prove temptations to ambitious men, and exceedingly tend to sharpen their appetite to ascend the Throne”. To-day we may say that it is fortunate that the first party won the day, and the Parliament duly ordered “that the House called Hampton Court, with the outhouses and gardens thereunto belonging, and the little park where it stands, be stayed from sale, until the Parliament takes further order”. Still the Parliament men were evidently determined that the view taken by those who regarded such places as temptations to power should not be forgotten, for Richard Cromwell was formally taken to task for having the temerity to go to Hampton to hunt the deer! Then, despite the temptation it might prove, the Long Parliament offered Hampton Court to General Monck, but that astute man, thinking it a dangerous gift, would accept no more than the custody and stewardship of it for life—and was thus able to hand it over to Charles the Second on the accomplishment of that Restoration, in which he probably already regarded himself as an important factor.