King William III and Queen Mary II (William born 4 November 1650, Mary born 30 April 1662; joint sovereigns of England from 13 February 1689 until Mary died 28 December 1694, William died 8 March 1702).
England feared further Catholic sovereigns, not so much a fear of Catholicism as a religion, but a fear of the Catholic countries which might take advantage of an English sovereign and come to dominate the country – Spain had tried it, and at the time Louis XIV of France was trying to take over Europe.
The alternative was James Second’s Protestant daughter, Mary, who was married to William whose maternal grandfather was Charles First of England. Fatherless from birth, raised as a Calvinist, William had spent his life fighting Catholic kings, and would continue to do that on the continent on behalf of the Netherlands, despite being King of England. They served as joint sovereigns, though it is accepted Mary deferred to her husband when he was in England, then served effectively as sovereign when he was out of the country pursuing the interests of his country of birth, which to a large extent coincided with England’s interests.
The marriage was of course political, Mary was 15 and reported to have cried for two days when told her fate, but ultimately they seem to have been happy, and William was devastated when Mary died of smallpox. From England’s point of view this reign signalled the beginning of democracy, rule by Parliament with sovereigns who no longer believed their will was God’s will. Democracy was limited, it did not extend to giving civil rights to Catholics.
Hampton Court Palace is approximately 50% the product of William and Mary. Why William was so enamoured with it is not clear. Some reports say he was asthmatic, Churchill wrote he was tubercular. Asthma seems possible, tuberculosis does not, considering his reasonable length of life and interest in physical activities. The atmosphere in crowded London would not have been good for an asthmatic and he might well have wished to breathe pure air. He visited the Palace of Hampton Court within a couple of weeks of being offered the crown in Whitehall Palace, decided it would be his principle home but later recognizing the inconvenience that imposed on officials working in Westminster or London, also developed a palace in Kensington.
No time was wasted in getting started on turning Hampton Court into a rival for Versailles. This seems to have been a specific intention and William’s war on Louis XIV may have motivated him to show that his English palace was just as splendid as Louis’ French one. Christopher Wren had after the Great Fire of 1666 planned the rebuilding of the City of London, notably Saint Paul’s Cathedral, and held the official position of Surveyor of the Royal Works; he was called to give his opinion on how to achieve William’s intention, and by May had suggestions and cost estimates drawn up and ready for approval. The initial plan was to destroy all of the previous palace with the exception of the Great Hall with its magnificent ceiling – fortunately this was abandoned, perhaps because of cost, almost certainly not because of any romantic attachment to the past.
During the building process at Hampton Court and Kensington Palace there were two incidents of structural collapse and death of workmen; an enquiry in January 1690 put Wren’s reputation to the test, evidence given by rivals and competitors did not help, but Wren was exonerated.
Nottingham House, of which the lower portion of the present north wing is part, was purchased in 1689 for £20,000 by William III , “for its convenience and healthful situation for the king to reside in during the sitting of Parliament.” It was renamed, “Kensington House,” and the king took up residence there in December 1689.
Not long after its purchase by William and Mary, the house was nearly destroyed in November 1691 by fire, and the king himself had a narrow escape from being burned in his bed. The building was at first, comparatively speaking, small, and the grounds only occupied a few acres. Evelyn, in his “Memoirs,” under date February 25, 1690–1, says,” I went to Kensington, which King William has bought of Lord Nottingham, and altered, but was yet a patched-up building, but with the gardens, however, it is a very neat villa.” The king found its sequestered situation congenial with his moody and apathetic disposition, and therefore resolved to make it a royal residence superseding Whitehall.
Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723; official Surveyor of the King’s Works) was engaged to make an Earl’s dwelling fit for a King, he had already been engaged in a massive expansion of the palace of Hampton Court. The palace was considerably enlarged and surrounded by straight cut solitary lawns, and formal stately gardens, laid out with paths and flower-beds at right angles, after the stiffest Dutch fashion. The original Centre Block was expanded by a pavilion added to each corner, the house was re-oriented so that it faced West, then North and South wings were added, followed by a Court of Honour, entered through a gateway with clock above it. When William was away, fighting with King James in Ireland, Queen Mary had further developments with the Queen’s Gallery which had its own stairs, and a separate block to accommodate her Maids of Honour. In 1695 the South Front was added, comprising a long King’s Gallery where William could display his art collection.
William who had much experience in grand designs of gardens and estates gained in his native Holland. After he moved his court to Kensington Palace, wanted a safe way to travel to and from St. James’s Palace. To this purpose there was built in 1690 a broad avenue lit with 300 oil lamps, the first artificially lit highway in Britain, called Route de Roi, the King’s Road, said to be the origin of the current name, Rotten Row. One has to wonder why the name would have been in French at that time, Dutch perhaps, but why French? There are said to be at least 15 other “Rotten Rows” in England and Scotland, to describe derelict or infested housing, and the name might well have been related etymologically to “rat.” Later it became a fashionable place to “see and be seen” from horseback or carriage, but today it is mostly of use to the Household Cavalry, not many Londoners ride horses any more, and much of the previously wide avenue is now grassed over.
William III. usually held his Courts at Kensington, and the decoration of the apartments of its palace was one of the chief amusements of his royal consort. And yet, fond as he was of Kensington, King William would often say that he preferred to be hunting on the shores of Guelderland rather than riding over the glades of this place or Hampton Court – a taste in which he was followed by George II. Indeed, with a natural love for his Dutch home, William made this palace and the gardens surrounding it look as much like his native country as he could.
Although William was not over-fond of his new subjects, and his Court, for the most part, was as gloomy as his gardens, yet there still might occasionally be seen here some of the liveliest wits and courtiers that have left a name in history. Here came the Earl of Dorset, Prior’s friend, who had been one of the wits of the Court of Charles II.; Prior himself, too, was there, and succeeded in obtaining an appointment as one of the “gentlemen of the king’s bedchamber;” Congreve, whose plays were admired by Queen Mary; Halifax, who is spoken of as a “minor wit, but no mean statesman;” Swift, and Sir William Temple; Burnet, the gossiping historian, who afterwards became a bishop; the Earl of Devonshire, “whose nobler zeal,” as Leigh Hunt puts it, “had made him a duke, one of a family remarkable for their constant and happy combination of popular politics with all the graces of their rank.” Among other visitors here at this period, too, were Lord Monmouth, afterwards Earl of Peterborough, “the friend of Swift and Pope, conqueror of Spain, and lover, at the age of seventy, of Lady Suffolk;” Sheffield, afterwards Duke of Buckinghamshire, “a minor wit and poet, in love with (the rank of) the Princess Anne;” and last not least, Peter the Great, the “semi-barbarian, the premature forcer of Russian pseudo-civilisation, who came to England in order to import the art of shipbuilding into his dominions in his own proper mechanical person.” Peter is stated to have frequently dined at Kensington Palace; and it has been wondered how the two sovereigns got on so well together. Leigh Hunt tells a story that one day the king took the Russian monarch to the House of Lords, when the latter, owing to a natural shyness, made the lords and the king himself laugh, by peeping strangely at them out of a window in the roof. He got the same kind of sight at the House of Commons; and even at a ball at Kensington, on the Princess Anne’s birthday, he contrived to be invisibly present in a closet prepared for him on purpose, where he could see without being seen.
Here, when William was ill with the dropsy, he called in the Court physician, Dr. Radcliffe, to pay him a professional visit. Showing him his swollen ankles, he exclaimed, “Doctor, what do you think of these?” “Why, truly,” answered Radcliffe, “I would not have your Majesty’s two legs for your three kingdoms.” With this ill-timed jest, though it passed unnoticed at the moment, it is needless to add that the doctor’s attendance on the Court at Kensington ceased. It is true that in 1714 he was sent for by Queen Anne upon her death-bed; but he was too ill to leave his house at Carshalton. His refusal, however, nearly exposed him to “lynch law,” for the mob at the West End threatened to kill him if he came to London. The mob, however, was disappointed, for a few months later he died of the gout.
The following story, relating to a scene which happened in the royal apartments here, we tell in the words of Lord Sackville, as they stand recorded in the gossiping pages of Sir N. W. Wraxall:—”My father, having lost his own mother when very young, was brought up chiefly by the Dowager Countess of Northampton, his grandmother, who being particularly acceptable to Queen Mary, she commanded the countess always to bring her little grandson, Lord Buckhurst, to Kensington Palace, though at that time hardly four years of age; and he was allowed to amuse himself with a child’s cart in the gallery. King William, like almost all Dutchmen, never failed to attend the tea-table every evening. It happened that her Majesty having one afternoon, by his desire, made tea, and waiting for the king’s arrival, who was engaged in business in his cabinet, at the other extremity of the gallery, the boy, hearing the queen express her impatience at the delay, ran away to the closet, dragging after him the cart. When he arrived at the door, he knocked, and the king asked, ‘Who is there?’ ‘Lord Buck,’ answered he. ‘And what does Lord Buck want with me?’ replied his Majesty. ‘You must come to tea directly,’ said he; ‘the queen is waiting for you.’ King William immediately laid down his pen, and opened the door; then taking the child in his arms, placed Lord Buckhurst in the cart, and seizing the pole, drew them both along the gallery, quite to the room in which were seated the queen, Lady Northampton, and the company. But no sooner had he entered the apartment than, exhausted with the effort, which had forced the blood upon his lungs, and being naturally asthmatic, threw himself into a chair, and for some minutes was incapable of uttering a word, breathing with the utmost difficulty. The Countess of Northampton, shocked at the consequences of her grandson’s indiscretion, which threw the whole circle into great consternation, would have punished him; but the king interposed in his behalf; and the story is chiefly interesting because (as serving to show how kindly he could behave to a troublesome child) it places that prince in a more amiable point of view than he is commonly represented in history.”
1694: Queen Mary, consort of William III, died here of the small-pox, at the age of 32, and the king’s attachment to the palace is said to have increased, from the circumstance of it having been the scene of the last acts of the queen, who was justly entitled to his affection.
1702: It was here that the king also died, in consequence of an accident in riding at Hampton Court a few days previously. William, knowing that death was approaching, sent for his friends Albemarle, Auverquerque, and Bentinck, while Bishops Burnet and Tillotson read the last prayers by his bedside. After his Majesty’s death, bracelets composed of the queen’s hair were found on his arm.