Majesty. When the Queen washed her hands, her Page of the Back Stairs brought a basin and ewer, which the Bedchamber Woman placed before the Queen, knelt on the other side of the table and poured the water over the royal hands, and afterwards pulled on the Queen's gloves, which her Majesty often could not do owing to her infirmity of gout. The page was called back to put on the Queen's shoes. The royal dinner-hour was three, and both the Queen and Prince George showed no little uneasiness if Ministers of State intruded at that time. Six o'clock was the usual hour for Councils. The Queen ate a heavy supper afterwards, and in the privacy of her bedroom the Bedchamber Woman used to bring the cup of chocolate which she always drank before getting into bed. Queen Anne never read, says the Duchess of Marlborough, and in early life cards were her sole interest. The peace of the Palace was sadly disturbed, at this time, by the jealousies of the Duchess of Marlborough and Mrs. Masham. • Having heard accidentally,' the Duchess wrote, “in conversation with my friends in how great state Mrs. Masham received her company at Kensington, by the description that was made of her chambers, I had a great suspicion upon me that she had made use of part of my lodgings, which were what the Queen had given me and furnished for me soon after her coming to the Crown, and had particularly expressed to me that they were the same suite that my Lord Albemarle, King William's Dutch favourite, had in his reign. However, to know the truth of the matter she went to Kensington and complained to her Majesty. The Queen only answered, “Masham has none of your rooms.' She repeated this so often, and was so positive in it, that the Duchess began to believe that there was some mistake. This was but the beginning of the most terrific Palace squabbles, the truth being that some alteration had been made by the Queen in the apartments; for Prince George was dying of gout and asthma, and had been moved down to the ground floor, from which it was easy for him to reach the garden. The sick-room of the Prince was repeatedly invaded by the furious Duchess, and became the scene of the most violent disputes with her royal mistress. Kensington Palace, in October 1708, was saddened by the Prince's death and there was an armistice in the Palace warfare. The Queen's grief was great, and she left Kensington for a time. Three months later the faithful Houses of Parliament were importuning her with petitions to marry again. It was at Kensington Palace, one Sunday in April 1710, that the imperious Duchess had her last interview with the Queen over whom she had ruled and tyrannised for thirty years. The affectionate Mrs. Morley and the adoring Mrs. Freeman had long dropped those endearing terms and relapsed into a furious paperwarfare. The Duchess followed her last letter to Kensington, in order that there might be no answer written, and stationed herself outside the Queen's apartments on the window-seat of the back stairs, where she sat like a Scotch lady waiting for an answer to a petition. The Queen was alone and writing when the Duchess was admitted. In reply to the expostulations of her visitor, the Queen reiterated that whatever she had to say she might write. Later, finding it impossible to stem the torrent of words, she threatened to leave the room. In a former stormy interview, the Duchess had set her back against the door and told her Sovereign that she should stay and hear all she chose to say! This time she retired sobbing into the gallery, saying she was sure her Majesty would suffer for her inhumanity. “That will be to myself,' replied Queen Anne. So ended the last conversation of these two celebrated women, and Mrs. Masham henceforth ruled supreme. In the autumn of 1713, Anne's health had begun to fail, and in the May following she moved from Windsor to Kensington Palace. Her last weeks there were made uneasy by the dread lest her brother, the Pretender, should land in England, or George of Hanover come over to her Court to claim a place as her heir. In June news reached Kensington that Sophia, Electress of Hanover, was dead. Party factions were raging, and the Queen was kept sitting at Council till she fainted at two in the morning. Two Councils had been interrupted by the illness of the Queen, and the third was fixed for the evening of Thursday, July 29. Mrs. Danvers, a lady of the Household, came into the Presence Chamber at Kensington Palace and found the Queen standing waiting alone and staring at the clock. Silence was only broken by the ticking, and Mrs. Danvers inquired whether her Majesty saw anything unusual there in the clock. The Queen turned, and Mrs. Danvers saw death in the look. Help was called in, and the Queen put to bed delirious and murmuring about 'the Pretender her poor brother.' The Queen's illness was kept a secret in the Palace, and after being bled she 법 seemed somewhat recovered. The Duke of Shrewsbury was brought to her bedside to receive the White Staff of Lord Treasurer. The Queen put it into his hands, saying, 'For God's sake use it for the good of my people!'. On the Saturday it was known that she was dying. The Privy Council had assembled in the royal bedroom ; whilst, in another apartment of the Palace, an excited conclave of Jacobite courtiers were discussing the situation with Lady Masham; and Dr. Atterbury, the Bishop of Rochester, was proposing to go out at once and proclaim the Chevalier at Charing Cross. Dr. Mead, the Whig physician, declared that the Queen's end was at hand, and the Council despatched a messenger to Hanover. Queen Anne drew her last breath between seven and eight on August 1, 1714, and, like her predecessor, she died on a Sunday morning. The night that the Queen died, Colonel Scott of Brotherstown was in command of the guard at Kensington Palace. He went to Dr. Arbuthnot, one of the Queen's physicians, and desired the doctor to tell him whenever the Queen was dead, but the doctor told him that he durst not; upon which the Colonel desired the doctor to let him know by the sign of putting to the window a white handkerchief; to which the doctor agreed. As soon as the Queen was dead Doctor Arbuthnot gave the sign; upon which the Colonel hastened to the Earl Marshal's house, woke him from his bed, and in vain desired him to rise immediately and proclaim James Stuart king, as the Queen, his sister, was dead, which none out of Kensington Palace knew but him. Such, at least, is the story. There are but few memories of Kensington Palace connected with George the First, though he was there with a German Court, and brought over with him two German ladies, the Duchess of Kendal and the Countess of Darlington, whom his English subjects laughed at for their thinness and fatness respectively. But the Elector of Hanover, who could never speak English, nor cared to learn it, preferred his palace at Herrenhausen to that at Kensington. Still, George the First made some embellishments and additions. Kent was employed by him to put in the great staircase and the Cupola room. The black marble stairs, with some good ironwork, still exist, and lead from the courtyard entrance up to the old state apartments. On the walls are painted archways crowded with grotesque figures, among which are Peter the Wild Boy, and Mahomet and Mustapha, two Turkish servants whom the King brought over from Hanover, and many others now forgotten. Two hundred years and sad neglect have made the painter's work very dim unless the sun shines on it. The Cupola room is a high square apartment of very elegant proportions, decorated with Ionic columns and classic carvings in the taste of last century. Marble niches once contained statues of pagan gods and goddesses, and over the fireplace is a bas-relief of a Roman marriage by Rysbrach. George the First died—not at Kensington, but in Germany— in 1727, and the Palace passed to new owners, George the Second and Caroline of Anspach his wife. This was, perhaps, the liveliest time in the history of Kensington Palace. The gardens were added to: some say to the extent of 300 acres, which made them about their present size. They were kept in the greatest order; and in the summer-time, when the Court was not there, were resorted to by a vast concourse of the most polite company. The full promenade was on Saturdays, but later changed to Sundays, and remained so till the custom went out in the last years of George the Third. Kent was employed by Queen Caroline to lay out her additions to the gardens. He was the most famous landscape gardener of the age, of whom it has been said, “Mahomet imagined an elysium: Kent created many. The Doge of Genoa sent her Majesty, as a present, a number of tortoises which were turned out in the gardens; and the trees, we are told, swarmed at that time with an extraordinary number of squirrels. Queen Caroline made the Round Pond, and raised a mount in the corner of the garden now occupied by the Albert Memorial, on which was a charming temple, made to turn round and afford shelter from every wind. From this spot there was a fine view over the country as far as the silvery Thames and the pleasant hills of Surrey. Kent carried the landscape-gardener's art so far that he planted dead trees with mossy trunks and decaying branches. In an old bureau at Kensington Palace, Caroline one day by chance discovered the celebrated collection of drawings of heads by Holbein which are now at Windsor. How or when they came to be concealed there has never been ascertained. She took much pleasure in enriching the Palace with objects of art, and succeeded in buying back many pictures from the collection of Charles the First, which Parliament had dispersed during the Commonwealth. VOL, V.-NO, 29, N.S. 28 The Palace historian of this period is Lord Hervey, of whom Pope wrote his bitterest lines: Amphibious thing! that, acting either part, Beauty that shocks you, parts that none can trust, Lord Hervey has a long story of these pictures. The Quee had taken several very bad pictures out of the great drawing-room at Kensington, and put very good ones in their places; the Kin told Lord Hervey, as Vice-Chamberlain, that he would have every new picture taken away, and every old one replaced, even s gigantic fat Venus to which he was particularly attached. The pictures at Kensington Palace, which Mr. Pyne describes i detail as he saw them at the beginning of this century, were soo after removed, for the most part to Hampton Court, and the walls of the galleries at Kensington are now bare. 13 Caroline of Anspach had already been at Kensington Princess of Wales' cette diablesse, Madame la Princesse,' her father-in-law, George the First, used habitually to call her-and with her came a bevy of maidens who added much to the gaiety of the Court: Here England's daughter, darling of the land, Gleams through the shades. She, towering o'er the rest, Formed to gain hearts that Brunswick's cause denied, Among the virgin band' of maids of honour might have been seen Anne Pitt, sister of the future Lord Chatham; the beautiful Mary Bellenden, with whom Frederic Prince of Wale was much in love, and who became Duchess of Argyle; Margare Bellenden, her sister; Mary Lepell, the lovely friend of Voltaire who became Lady Hervey; the giddy Miss Howe; and Mis Hobart, who married Lord Suffolk. All these and many mor appear before us in the memoirs of the period, and as we wa through the deserted rooms we can imagine the King, dapper dignified, strutting about the gallery. We can picture the scene, which Lord Hervey describes, of his coming into that very room. snubbing the Queen, who was drinking chocolate, for being |
