name even as long ago as when King Henry I. gave the manor to the family of Belet. He might possibly improve the mansion he found here by some additional buildings; but this I am inclined to think is all he did. Nor do I find that after his decease, which happened at this place, June 21, 1377, his successor Richard II. did more. Nay, the circumstance related of his grief, on the death of his beloved queen, which happened also here June 7, 1394, viz. that he cursed the place on that account, and so hated it ever after, that he would never come there, but commanded the buildings to be demolished,' make it more than probable that they were of no great magnificence."+ During the reign of Henry IV. the mansion lay in the ruined state in which his predecessor had left it; but it was rebuilt by Henry V. and as we collect from one of his biographers in such a manner as to render it" a delightful mansion, of curious and costly workmanship, and befitting the character and condition of a king.". Edward IV. in his sixth year, assigned this palace to his queen for life; and, in 1485, on the death of his princess, her son-in-law, King Henry VII. took possession of it, and frequently made it his residence. In 1492, he held a grand tournament here, when Sir James Parker, in a quarrel with Hugh Vaughan for a right of court armour, was killed in the first course. On the 21st of December 1498, while the king was here, this splendid structure was entirely consumed by fire, with all the apparel, plate, and jewels, that it contained. Henry, who was much attached to the situation, rebuilt the palace in 1501, in a style of much Gothic magnificence and elegance; and on this occasion it was that he changed the name of the place, hitherto called Shene, to that of Richmond, after his own title, previously to his accession to the throne. The picture of Henry V. and family, in the Earl of Orford's collection at Strawberry Hill, was an altar-piece for the chapel here; and his own marriage and the picture of Henry 02 VIII. *Hollinshed. Kennett's Hist. of Engl. I. 271. Manning and Bray's Surrey, I. 409, 410. VIII, in the same collection, are supposed to have been painted for this monarch, and intended for this palace. The building had not long been finished, when, in 1506, a second fire broke out, and did considerable damage; and the same year a new gallery, in which the king and the prince, his son, had been walking a few minutes before, fell down. It was also in 1506, that Philip I. of Spain, being driven by a storm upon the English coast, was entertained at Richmond with great magnificence; and here, in 1509, Henry VII. breathed his last. At this palace his successor kept the following Christmas, and held a tournament; his son of his own name was born and died here, and at this place Charles V. was lodged in 1523. In 1541, the palace and manor were granted among other estates by Henry VIII. to his divorced Queen Ann of Cleves, by whom in 2 Edward VI. they are said to have been surrendered to that prince. Some few of the public instruments of Mary and Elizabeth are dated from Richmond. With the latter, although once imprisoned at this place by her sister, it was a favourite residence, and here she expired, March 24, 1603. In the autumn of the same year, and again in 1625, the Courts of Justice were removed hither on account of the plague. In 1610, this manor, together with the palace and park, then called the New Park, were granted by James I. to Henry, Prince of Wales, and after the death of that hopeful prince to his next son Charles, who, after his accession to the throne, formed here a large collection of pictures. He afterwards settled it on his Queen Henrietta Maria, as a part of her jointure; but, in 1650, this palace was sold by the commissioners of the House of Commons. It was afterwards purchased by Sir Gregory Norton, Bart. the materials being valued at 10,7821. 19s. 2d.; but, by a resolution of the same House in 1660, it was restored to the Queen Dowager. This princess, who had retired to her native country, now returned and resided till 1665, at this place, though it appears that she almost immediately resigned her interest in It to Sir Edward Villiers, father of the first Earl of Jersey, by whom it was afterwards released to King James II. Here the young young Pretender is said to have been nursed, and the initials of his name, with the date of the year 1688, are still to be seen on some leaden pipes. At length, in 1770, this manor, together with the office of steward and keeper of the courts of the same, excepting the site of the old palace of Richmond and Richmond Park, was granted to the present queen for life. In a survey of Richmond Palace, by an order of the House of Commons, in 1649 *, a very minute description is given of it as it then existed. Among other particulars mention is made of a hall one hundred feet long, and forty wide, a chapel ninety-six feet long, and forty wide, with stalls as in a cathedral; an open gallery adjoining to the privy-garden two hundred feet long, having a close one of the same length over it. A French writer † mentious also a library that was established here by King Henry VII. and in an household establishment of Queen Mary still preserved in Dulwich College, the librarian is reckoned among the officers of this palace with a fee of ten pounds a year; but of this no notice is taken in the Survey. By the time that it was restored to its former possessors this structure was probably in a very ruinous condition. Fuller indeed speaks of it as absolutely pulled down; but this could not be the case, if, as we are informed, it was for some time occupied by King James II. Upon the whole, however, it is natural to suppose that the sale of the materials would soon be followed by the demolition of the building, which was accordingly, by degrees, taken down, till the whole was reduced to those few remains of the offices which still exist. The site of this once splendid palace is now occupied by houses erected on such parts of 03 The original of this Survey is deposited in the Augmentation Office, and printed in the second volume of the Monumenta vetusta of the Society of Autiquaries, with two views, Pl. XXIII. and XXIV. Mons. L. J. Chalonais, a Carmelite, in his Traicté des plus belles Bibliotheques, published in 1644. See Aubrey's Surrey, Vol. V. p. 341. + Worthies, Part III. p. 78. of it as have been granted to different persons on lease from the Crown. Among these are the residences of Whitshed Keene, Esq. and of the late Duke of Queensbury, and that occupied by Major Smith. The latter is called in the lease the Trumpeting House, from the figures of two boys in an ancient porch in the front, in servitors' dresses blowing trumpets. Two houses held by Mrs. Fullarton, and David Dundas, Esq. adjoining to the gateway, formed part of the old palace, and are described in the Survey of 1649, as the " Wardrobe buildings and other offices of two stories high with garrets, lying round a spacious court, having a fair pair of strong gates, arched and battled with stone over head, and leading into the said court from the Green lying before Richmond House." In Mrs. Fullarton's garden is still remaining an old yew-tree mentioned in the Survey, and there valued at ten pounds, which is upwards of ten feet in circumference. The original Park at Richmond, of which we find the first mention in a survey of the manor, taken 21 Edward I. appears to have been situated on the north-west of the present village, between the royal gardens and the river. In the grants of Henry VIII. and James I. mention is made of the new park, which was probably some addition made either by Henry V. when he built the palace, or by Henry VII. when he rebuilt it. In the time of Henry VIII. these parks were also distinguished by the names of the great and little parks, the former being that which was sometimes occupied by Wolsey, who, after he had presented the king with his new palace of Hampton Court, was permitted to use the manor of Richmond, where he afterwards occasionally resided. Stow, speaking of his residence here in 1530, informs us that "he was lodged within the Lodge of the Great Park, which was a very pretty house, where my lord lay attended with a pretty number of servants." These two parks were separate in the reign of James I. but were probably laid together not long afterwards, one only being noticed in the Survey of 1649, which adjoined adjoined to the Green, and is said to have contained 349 acres. This is that which, together with the manor was settled on the queen, in 1627. In 1707, Queen Anne demised the Lodge for 99 years, to James, Duke of Ormond, who rebuilt the house, and resided there till his attainder in 1715. His brother, the Earl of Arran, having been enabled by Act of Parliament to purchase his estates, sold this mansion to George II. then Prince of Wales, who frequently retired hither, even after his accession to the Crown. Caroline, his queen, was very partial to this place, where she had a dairy and menagerie. In the gardens were several ornamental buildings, in one of which, called Merlin's Cave, were various figures of wax, and in another, denominated the Hermitage, the busts of Newton, Locke, and other literary characters. His present Majesty also frequently resided at this place in the beginning of his reign; and, as we have seen, settled it on her Majesty for life. The Lodge was taken down about forty years ago, when it was intended to erect a palace on its site, the foundations being laid, and the arches turned for the purpose. Near this spot stands the Observatory, erected in 1768, and 9, by Sir William Chambers, under the direction of the late Dr. Demainbray for the astronomical part. Here is a mural arch of 140 degrees, and eight feet radius; a zenith sector of eight feet; a transit instrument of eight feet, and a ten feet reflector by Herschel. On the top of the building is a moveable dome, which contains an equatorial instrument. Here is also a collection of subjects in natural history, an excellent apparatus for philosophical experiments, some models, and a collection of ores from the mines in his Majesty's Hanoverian dominions. The present astronomer is the Rev. Stephen Demainbray. About the year 1800, the king began to build a house on another spot, which is not yet finished. The lane which separated the grounds of Richmond from those of Kew has been stopped up, and the whole of them are now laid together. On this occasion his Majesty gave up to the parish all his right in the common called 04 |