Royal Palace of Greenwich

“ Greenwich Hospital presents the most beautiful architectural group of modern England. Take the most gifted architect of the world, bandage his eyes, put him on the terrace on which we stand, and then show him this splendid building, and he will at once tell you that this is and must be a royal palace. How could he ever suspect that all this splendour of columns and cupolas is destined to shelter a couple of thousand of poor, decrepid sailors! ”

“ Throughout our records for many centuries the valley of the Thames has been favoured when our monarchs have sought to establish a new home. Greenwich and London—the Tower, Whitehall, Buckingham Palace—Richmond and Hampton Court, Windsor, Reading and Oxford, are some of the places that have at one time or another been the chosen centre of royal life ”

“ Though no vestige of the palace now remains, it is reasonable to conjecture, from the analogy of contemporary palaces which still exist, that Kennington Palace was a fortified building, with a strongly embattled wall and deep moat. Deserted by Henry VIII., who found Eltham and Greenwich more to his taste, the building materials were all sold and the palace razed to the ground. Some kind of Tudor manor-house was built upon the site, for a survey taken about the middle of the seventeenth century describes a building of some fair size. ”

“ On Rebecca's arrival with the royal attendants at [277] Greenwich Palace, the Queen had ordered that she be given a splendid suite of apartments for her own use, and that she be constantly attended by a number of young gentlewomen assigned to her establishment. The news soon spread through the palace that an American princess or empress had arrived, and she was treated in every way on the footing of a sort of inferior royalty. Elizabeth invited her to share every meal with her, and took delight in her accounts of the manners and customs of the American aborigines. ”

“ Here dwelt dukes and earls and the pick of our nobility. Mark Twain, in The Prince and the Pauper, [144] has pictured for us a Royal river pageant, such as many bright and flashing eyes must have beheld from the windows and steps of the palaces that lined the Strand or Middlesex bank of the Thames between London and Westminster, for the king's town residence stood hard by in Whitehall; and thence to his country palace at Greenwich—Elizabeth's favourite "Manner of Pleasaunce"—the richly caparisoned and [145] silk-canopied State barges fluttered splendidly. ”

“ Her majesty was first to be conducted from her palace in Westminster to the royal apartments in the Tower; and a splendid water procession was appointed for the purpose. At this period, when the streets were narrow and ill-paved, the roads bad, and the luxury of close carriages unknown, the Thames was the great thoroughfare of the metropolis. The old palace of Westminster, as well as those of Richmond and Greenwich, the favorite summer residences of the Tudor princes, stood on its banks, and the court passed from one to the other in barges. ”

“ The Court was a movable institution, constituted by the actual presence of the sovereign. Abundant choice both of 'standing houses' or 'houses of abode' and of country [8] manors was available. [7] The most important palaces, under Elizabeth, were five in number, Whitehall, Hampton Court, Greenwich, Richmond, and Windsor. All of these stood upon the river, and all except Windsor and in part Greenwich dated structurally from the reign of Henry VII or that of Henry VIII. The ancient palace of Westminster, with its royal chapel of St. ”

“ In midsummer the Queen, the Duchess of Kent, and their grand Household moved from Kensington to Buckingham Palace, then new, and an elegant and luxurious royal residence internally, but externally neither beautiful nor imposing. But with the exception of Windsor Castle, none of the English Royal Palaces can be pointed to as models of architectural beauty, or even sumptuous appointments. The palaces of some of our Railway Kings more than rival them in some respects, while those of many of the English nobility are richer in art-treasures and grander in appearance. ”

“ While this strange scene was being enacted within the palace at Greenwich, one of an entirely different nature was occurring in the courtyard. From the road leading from Greenwich a cavalcade approached, headed by a personage invested with the Roman purple, and apparently entitled to and surrounded by all the “pomp and circumstance” of royalty. He was mounted on a richly caparisoned mule with silver-plated harness, adorned with silver bells and tufted with knots of crimson silk. ”

“ Henry was delighted with his new residence, and proceeded to add new buildings, and to enclose nearly all St. James's Park up to the site of Buckingham Palace. Covering a vast extent of ground, the palace rambled from Scotland Yard along the riverside, to where Downing Street now stands, and spread across the roadway by means of a long gallery. Never so beautiful as Westminster, the Whitehall of the Tudors was a mass of brick buildings, erected without any particular scheme just as occasion required, resulting, as Besant declares, in a building "without dignity and without nobility." ”

“ Before recapitulating the events of the Queen’s early life here, we must give a brief outline of the history of the Palace since it became a royal residence.
The original building, of which it is probable that a good deal still stands, was erected mainly by Sir Heneage Finch, Lord Chancellor and Earl of Nottingham, who acquired the estate, including some hundred and fifty acres of meadow and park—now Kensington Gardens—from his brother Sir John Finch. ”

“ After the Wars of the Roses had crushed the power of the great nobles, it was no longer necessary for the monarch to dwell within a fortress, and it was then that the gracious and commodious palaces of Whitehall, Hampton Court, and Greenwich, arose in England. The Scottish Kings, having at the same time reached a greater control over their headstrong nobles, also began transforming their castles into palaces, and to erect Holyrood and Falkland to gratify their desire for more luxurious residences. ”

“ The palace here was afterwards much enlarged by the succeeding Kings, who when the court was kept at Greenwich often retired hither; and here were made the statutes of Eltham by which the King’s house is still governed. There are however no traces of the palace left. The town has the honour of giving the title of Earl to the 273Prince of Wales; and there are here the houses of several rich citizens, and two charity schools. ”

“ Buckingham Palace, the London residence of the monarch, is the most familiar of all the royal palaces to the general British public, in so far as everyone, sooner or later, migrates to London. Unfortunately the spectator sees only a somewhat depressing and stereotyped building, lacking the majestic proportions of Windsor and the stately beauty of Hampton Court, representing, indeed, the very lowest ebb of English architecture. ”

“ In order to erect a flamboyant palace, Kew House was pulled down by royal command in 1802, and a new "castellated structure of carpenters' Gothic" put up under the direction of Wyatt, the architect who was responsible for the alterations and repairs of Windsor Castle. Fortunately it was never finished, owing to the poor King's illness, and it has been said that George IV. never did a better deed in his life than when he demolished the ridiculous palace perpetrated by his father. While the building was in progress the Royal Family moved into the Dutch House. ”

“ Westminster, though immune from other foes, suffered terribly from fires, which have robbed us of the greatest part of one of the most picturesque of palaces. Just after Edward I. had finished repairing his royal dwelling a huge fire broke out, so tremendous that the palace was rendered uninhabitable, obliging the King to accept the hospitality of York Place, the London house of the Archbishops of York. Edward II. rebuilt the palace, which remained the main royal residence until a disastrous fire in 1512 drove the monarchs away for ever. ”

“ But she added one architectural feature, the beautiful orangery designed by Sir Christopher Wren, standing near the north-east of the palace, a building famous for the beauty of its proportions and the delicacy of its detail. At one time it was much neglected and even ran the danger of being pulled down, but was happily preserved and carefully restored in 1898. The "dull woman with a dull [pg 56] husband," as Leigh Hunt bluntly summarizes Queen Anne and Prince George of Denmark, both died in the palace to which they were much attached, Prince George dying in 1708, six years before his wife. ”

“ Edward VI. was born in this palace, and mostly resided here, during his short, but happy reign. Gloomy Queen Mary and her false hearted husband, Philip of Spain, spent their honey-moon, or rather vinegar-moon, here. Queen Elizabeth here gave several great festivals, and her successor, the mean and pedantic James I. held a great religious conference in the privy-chamber,—he, the most immoderate of bigots, sitting as moderator. Here he entertained some great French princes at one time, very handsomely; every thing being on a royal scale except the host. ”

“ From the time of Edward I., the English monarchs had a royal residence here, but by the time of Charles II., this old palace had become a rather mouldy and tumble-down affair, so he commanded that it should be demolished entirely, and a magnificent structure of freestone erected in its place. We read that "riches take to themselves wings," but King Charles's riches seem to have gone off with one wing, for he had only means enough to finish that much of his new palace, and even that cost him thirty-six thousand pounds—an enormous sum for his time, or for any time, indeed. ”

“ Here stood York House, where Bacon was born, and Durham Place, where Raleigh lived, with his study in a turret overlooking the river; there also were Arundel House and Essex House, where great men pined and plotted.
At Whitehall stood Wolsey's Palace, enlarged by Henry VIII., and Elizabeth's favourite residence when not at Nonsuch in Surrey, Windsor, Greenwich, or Richmond. The tilt-yard stood where the Horse Guards now stands. St. James's Palace, also built by Henry VIII., where the Queen's melancholy-bigot sister had died, was seldom inhabited by the Court ”

“ Stepney, Hampstead, Westend, and Peckham fairs have been crushed by the police, that ‘stern, rugged nurse’ of national morality; and although Greenwich fair continues, it is any thing but what it used to be. Greenwich, however, will always have a charm: the fine park remains—trees, glades, turf, and the view from the observatory, one of the noblest in the world—before you the towers of these palaces built for a monarch’s residence, now ennobled into a refuge from life’s storms for the gallant defenders of their country, after their long and toilsome pilgrimage—then the noble river ”

“ In 1217, Henry III. was reigning in undisputed possession of the realm, and to him belongs the credit of having done more towards making the Tower worthy of a royal abode, than any of his predecessors or successors upon the English throne. The most stately of its buildings, after the Great Keep, are due to his love of art and architecture. The Royal Chapel, the Great Hall, and the Palace chambers, which he either built or decorated, are frequently mentioned in the chronicles of Henry’s reign, and were the outcome of his taste and love of magnificence. ”

“ Sunderland, finding neither of these matters touched the King, drew from the bosom of his grey satin waistcoat a roll of papers.
"Sir Christopher Wren showed me these this morning," he said, "and doubted if he dared bring them to Your Majesty. They are those plans for the turning of Greenwich Palace into a hospital that Her Majesty had ever at heart."
The three men watching caught their breath at the delicate bluntness of my lord. This time there could be no doubt that the King had heard; he made some incoherent answer and held out his hand for the plans, which he unrolled and gazed at. ”

“ Greenough, Horatio, an American sculptor, spent most of his life in Rome and Florence; executed the colossal statue of Washington in front of the Capitol in Washington City, and a group of figures entitled "The Rescue" (1803-1852) .
Greenwich (78) , an important borough of Kent (officially within the county of London) , on the Thames, 5 m. SE. of London Bridge; its active industries embrace engineering, telegraph works, chemical works, &c.; the Royal Observatory, founded by Charles II. in 1675, occupies a commanding site within the Park ”

“ The whole space was occupied by small courts and gardens, lodgings, and offices; and the buildings in the reign of Henry III. seem to have encroached upon the outer ward, where were two posterns for the service of the palace. These buildings, after the manner of royal houses, were always under repair; and seem to have absorbed much of the money expended on the Tower. The main guardhouse stands on the site of Cold Harbour. The foundation of the Queen’s Gallery and great hall have lately been laid open. Norman masonry, part of the ward-wall, has also been discovered. ”

“ After he departed, no monarch ever resided in the palace, which was given to a Cromwellian officer during the Commonwealth, but which, at the Restoration, again became the property of the Crown.
Lying deserted and neglected all through the eighteenth century, the palace became a quarry for those who needed building materials, till in 1820 it was bought by Mr. John Bruce of Grangehill, who, with the assistance of Sir Walter Scott, arrested the ruin and restored the remaining structure. ”