When Kensington Palace became a Royal Residence

by Andrea Zuvich

There’s something about Kensington Palace that immediately conjures up the word glamorous. Perhaps it is because in recent memory, it has been the home of notable, glamorous royals such as the late Princess Margaret, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, and also because of its current inhabitant, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. But what we now know of Kensington Palace is very different from what it once was. As I had the great honour to have been on the original team that developed the Garden History Tours at Kensington Palace, I learned first-hand about the history and rather more humble origins of the great royal palace – and I hope to share some of that here with you all today. 

Before modern Kensington became the playground of the world’s richest people, it was a sleepy verdant little village renowned for its purity of air. Royals have only inhabited the house since the late 17^th-century, when William III and Mary II moved in. But the history of the land goes back farther than that. According to Kensington Palace by W.J. Loftie, a late Victorian historian, the land upon which Kensington Palace now lies was (in the 14^th century) on an area called Neyt Manor, one of three manorial estates owned by the Abbey of Westminster. Indeed, archival documents and archaeological assessments from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea state there was a Neyt Manor in 1386. Whatever building was left standing is believed to have been demolished in 1602.

A Jacobean house was built in 1605 for Sir George Coppin three years after the Neyt Manor structure was razed. Following Coppin’s death in 1619, it was purchased by the Finch family. Much later on, the house was named “Nottingham House” because Sir Heneage Finch was the Earl of Nottingham (since 1681).

In 1688, what is known as the “Glorious Revolution” occurred in which James II was ousted from power by his nephew/son-in-law William of Orange and James’s daughter/William’s wife and cousin, Mary. In 1689, William and Mary were crowned King and Queen, and they soon set out to find where to live. Why? You may well wonder, considering that they already had St. James’s Palace and Whitehall Palace. But Whitehall rested in an area by the River Thames that was full of fog, smoke, and generally unpleasant air. This wreaked havoc with King William’s chronic asthma and so more verdant climes were sought. They soon purchased Nottingham House from Daniel Finch, the 2^nd Earl of Nottingham (who happened to be his Secretary of State), for a whopping £14,000-18,000.

After this, they hired Sir Christopher Wren to expand and modernise the Jacobean building into something bigger and more fashionable. Construction work went on between 1689-1690. Unfortunately, Mary was a bit impatient with what she perceived to be the slow progress of the building. This can probably be attributed to her desire to make a comfortable home for William. She wrote to her beloved:

“the schafolds are up, the windows must be boarded up, but as soon as it is done, your own apartment may be furnished.”

Her over-eagerness to get the building works completed meant that the workman built too quickly, and so the quality of their work became a secondary consideration. Mary wrote (original spelling maintained): “This made me go often to Kinsington to hasten the worckmen, and I was so impatient to beat that place, imagining to find more ease there.”

As a result of this, sadly, November 1689 saw part of the newly-built building fall down ‘killing seven or eight workman’ – and this tragedy also occurred during renovation work to Hampton Court Palace. Mary characteristically blamed herself for these deaths.

Her diary continues: “This I often reproved my self for and at last it pleased God to shew me the uncertainty of all things…All this much as it was the fault of the worckmen, humanly speacking, yet shewed me the hand of God plainly in it, and I was truly humbled.”

The gardens were redone at this time as well, with heavily manicured box hedging – elaborately formed in the formal Baroque (modern) style which was then so popular. William and Mary spent nearly the same amount on these magnificent gardens as they did on the house! They both loved gardening and their previous homes in the Dutch Republic (The Netherlands), especially Paleis Het Loo, also had wonderfully symmetrical parterres in this elegant style. Sadly, none of their Kensington gardens exist to this day!

In 1690, the interior of the house began to be decorated with glorious woodcarvings from Baroque carver Grinling Gibbons. Visitors to Kensington Palace’s State Apartments can see these for themselves, in the King’s Presence Chamber and in Queen Mary’s Gallery. Outside the Queen’s Entrance, the monogram (entwined initials) of William and Mary is clearly visible above the doorway.

Mary died from haemorrhagic smallpox in 1694, plunging her husband into a deep grief. John Evelyn, the diarist and courtier, visited the now-sole-monarch William in 1696 at Kensington House and said of it:

“I went to the King’s house at Kensington with some Ladys: The House is very noble, tho not greate; the Gallerys furnished with all the best Pictures of all the Houses, of Titian, Raphael, Correggio, Holbein, Julio Romano, Bassan, V. Dyke: Tintoret, & others, with a world of Porcelain; a pretty private Library; the Garden about it very delicious.”

King William III died in 1702, leaving the throne to his sister-in-law, Anne, who became the last of the Stuarts. The famous statue of William III that faces High Street Kensington is a 20^th-century addition – a gift from Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany in 1907. I hope that those who are able to visit Kensington Palace in the future will take a moment and think about this – about the time when Kensington Palace first became a royal residence.

All photos © Andrea Zuvich.

           

Sources:

·         Ashworth, Helen. York Place Kensington. The Heritage Network, via Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Access date: 27/02/2015.

·         Beard, Geoffrey. The Works of Grinling Gibbons. John Murray Publishers Ltd, London, 1989.

·         Evelyn, John. Diary.

·         Faulkner, Patrick A. Nottingham House: John Thorpe and his Relation to Kensington Palace.  Archaeology Data Service. Access date: 27/02/2015.

·         Howard, Philip. The Royal Palaces. Hamish Hamilton, London, 1970.

·         Loftie, W.J. Kensington Palace. 1898.

·         Mary II, Queen. Letters & Memoirs, 1689.

·         Tinniswood, Adrian. His Invention So Fertile: A Life of Christopher Wren. Pimlico, London, 2002.

·         Williams, Neville. Royal Homes of Great Britain from Medieval to Modern Times. Lutterworth Press, London, 1971.

·        WORK 38/428. Sir George Coppin’s House, Kensington. National Archives, Kew, UK.


This is an Editor’s Choice from the #EHFA archives, originally published February 28, 2015.

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Andrea Zuvich is an independent seventeenth-century historian and anthropologist specialising in the House of Stuart (1603-1714). Zuvich obtained degrees in History and Anthropology at the University of Central Florida and is the host of the popular ‘The Seventeenth Century Lady’ blog. Zuvich is also a historical consultant for TV, film, and radio. She most recently appeared in BBC Four’s ‘Charles I: Downfall of a King’. She was one of the original developers of and leaders on the award-winning Garden History Tours at Kensington Palace and has written six books about the Stuart period. Zuvich is also a trained actress and professional voice-over artist, narrating audiobooks and providing voice work for several mobile apps.

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Bedchamber Ladies and Maids of Honour at the Late Stuart Court

by Margaret Porter

Readers of historical novels set in a royal court will be familiar with the terms “lady of the bedchamber” and “maid of honour.” But what were the responsibilities required of these positions, their advantages and disadvantages?

Fans of Tudor history and fiction know that several ladies-in-waiting became Queen of England. Anne Boleyn served Queen Katherine of Aragon, as did Jane Seymour—who was also Anne's lady-in-waiting when King Henry began to fancy her. And her successor, Anne of Cleves, had flighty Catherine Howard as a maid of honour. 

The Stuarts preferred marrying royalty, but their princes and kings routinely slept with female members of the royal household. Stuart queens had their favourites as well. But royalty were nothing if not fickle, and deep affection could sometimes transform into enmity.

A bedchamber lady who rose high & fell far

Aristocratic ladies and gentry women of the late 17^th century coveted a position at court for many reasons. Proximity to eligible gentlemen—the rich, the powerful, the landed—meant they might marry well, gaining wealth or a title or both. It was a means of promoting family interests, and quite a few courtiers inherited positions held by their parents or grandparents. Often a member of a queen’s retinue became the king’s pampered mistress. By giving birth to a royal bastard, she ensured financial support for her lifetime. Another reason court service was a desirable career for a well-born woman—it ensured an annual salary, room and board, and sometimes even a generous dowry. She wore pretty clothes and received ample attention from male courtiers. She also gained material goods—gifts from the sovereign might include jewellery, lace, clothing, and valuable mementos. On the death of a queen, her clothing and possessions were distributed to those who had served her.

The disadvantages were just as numerous. Salaries and stipends came irregularly and were often in arrears. Providing the monarch with aristocratic companionship was an arduous duty. One had to stand for hours on end, attain perfection in dancing and manners, assist at the royal toilette and robing, determine which visitors were welcome and properly introduce them. Those who had no taste for dalliance fended off libertines intent on seduction. Those who dallied with courtiers ran the risk of an unwanted pregnancy—an ordinary bastard hadn’t the cachet of a royal one. Miss Trevor, said to be the prettiest of the Duchess of York’s maids of honour, abruptly left the court before delivering her bastard child. According to one intimately familiar with Charles II’s household, “the Queen’s and Duchess’s maids of honour…bestow their favours to the right and left, and not the least notice is taken of their conduct.”

Ladies-in-waiting and maids of honour served on a rotating basis, one week at a time. They had lodgings in each royal residence. At the top of the hierarchy was the Groom of the Stole, responsible for all the bedchamber staff, and was sometimes also styled First Lady of the Bedchamber. In addition to the ladies and the maids, there were bedchamber women or dressers, of lowlier status, who performed more menial bedchamber tasks.

Charles II

His was the golden age of the bedchamber lady as royal mistress—or vice versa. Upon his marriage, the King foisted his mistress Barbara Palmer, neé Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, upon his Portuguese bride, sparking a domestic crisis. Later he chased after the beautiful and elusive Frances Stewart, who returned to the Queen's service after marrying the Duke of Richmond. Even the actress Nell Gwyn, “the indiscreetest and wildest creature that was ever in a court” was given a nominal position in the Queen’s service as a Lady of the Privy Chamber. Her French rival Louise de Kerouaille began as a maid of honour to Charles’s sister, Henriette, Duchess of Orleans, at the French court. Later, as the English king’s mistress, she was assured of a place as a Lady of the Bedchamber, although the Queen would not let her enter it. Her apartments at Whitehall were grander than Her Majesty’s.

The "golden" Jane, Mrs Myddelton, in gold

It was, in a sense, the beginning of the “professional beauty,” whose portrait was painted to hang in royal palaces, and adorned humbler abodes in the form of an engraving. Jane Myddelton, described as “all white and golden,” and “the most beautiful woman in England, and the most amiable,” falls into that category. Frances Jennings, sister of the future Duchess of Marlborough, inspired Anthony Hamilton to write, “Her face reminded me of the dawn, or of some Goddess of the Spring.” On one occasion she and her fellow maid of honour Goditha Price, disguised as orange girls, sold fruit at the theatre. They went unrecognised by the male courtiers who accosted them, or their mistress the Duchess of York.

Diarist Samuel Pepys is a rich source of information on the exploits and amours of ladies of the court, several of whom fired his admiration and his secret passion.

James II

A Catholic convert, James’s devotion to his religion never inhibited him from sleeping with ladies of the court. As Duke of York, he preyed upon the ladies who served his first and second wives, such loose-moralled creatures as Diana Kirke, Lady Denham, and many others. Arabella Churchill, who served his first duchess, bore him four children.

The wild and witty Catherine Sedley

Catherine Sedley, his most famous mistress, resisted all attempts to dislodge her from his court and his bed, much to the consternation of Mary of Modena, his jealous young queen. Despite the fact that Catherine was Protestant and claimed to be far cleverer than he, James would not set her aside, no matter how his wife and priests urged him. Lord Dorset addressed these lines to her: “Dorinda’s sparkling wit, and Eyes/United, cast too fierce a Light.”

Mary II

When Mary and her husband William succeeded her de-throned father, they imposed a new sedateness and propriety upon the court. Her bedchamber ladies and maids of honour were faithful, respectable wives and chaste young maidens. The Countess of Derby, as Groom of the Stole, received £800, with a further £400 as Mistress of the Robes, for a total annual salary of £1200—no mean sum in those days. Her five Ladies of the Bedchamber were paid £500 per year, and usually there were six maids of honour, receiving £200 per year.

Mary, Countess of Dorset

Mary commissioned Godfrey Kneller to paint a series of portraits of the loveliest and most virtuous ladies, known as the Hampton Court Beauties. Among them was the Countess of Dorset, her favourite Lady of the Bedchamber, who died soon after sitting to Kneller. Another attendant, Lady Diana de Vere, whose Hampton Court portrait graces my novel’s cover, bore Mary’s train at her coronation and became the bride of Nell Gwyn’s son Charles, 1st Duke of St Albans. At their marriage, the Queen granted the couple an annuity of £2000.

At the palace, Mary’s ladies joined her in needlework (her favourite occupation), escorted her to chapel prayers, and read aloud to her. In public they accompanied her to the theatre, on walks and promenades, and even to St. James’s Fair, their identities concealed by black vizard masks.

Queen Anne


Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, wearing her
gold key of office

On assuming England’s throne, Anne designated her longtime companion and confidante Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, Groom of the Stole and Keeper of the Privy Purse. It was this all-powerful aristocrat who “prepared a list of ye ladies of ye best quality, ye nearest ye Queen in age and most suited to her temper to be Ladies of the Bedchamber.” In addition to Sarah there were ten—two of them, not surprisingly, were her own daughters. Each received a salary of £1000. The six maids of honour had a stipend of £300 per annum. The Queen was a firm Tory and Sarah strongly Whig, thus the party affiliation of Her Majesty’s attendants was balanced. By the last years of the reign, the number of bedchamber ladies had dropped to eight.

The royal account books reveal that in 1707, the Master of the Great Wardrobe was given £24 10s to purchase “umbrellas for the Maids of Honour.”

Perhaps in no other reign was the relationship of the bedchamber ladies and the monarch so closely scrutinised, or their political powers—real or presumed—so discussed. Sarah, through her firm—some might even say bullying—management of the Queen, soon put herself out of favour. And it was her own cousin Abigail Masham, neé Hill, who supplanted her as Anne’s caretaker and Keeper of the Privy Purse. But because she was a mere “Mrs,” and of a lower class, she couldn’t have Sarah’s position of Groom of the Stole. It was bestowed upon the extremely aristocratic Duchess of Somerset, who had served at court for many a year and whom Anne greatly respected.

Sarah embarked on her long career at court in the 1670s as a maid of honour to Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, and it lasted till her dismissal in the early days of 1711. Her history demonstrates the heights to which a determined female could climb—and also how she could descend, on losing the royal favour.

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Margaret Porter is the award-winning and bestselling author of twelve period novels, nonfiction and poetry. Lady Diana de Vere's association with Queen Mary's court is featured in A Pledge of Better Times, her highly acclaimed novel of 17th century courtiers the 1st Duke and Duchess of St. Albans (available in trade paperback and ebook). Margaret studied British history in the UK and the US. As historian, her areas of speciality are social, theatrical, and garden history of the 17th and 18th centuries, royal courts, and portraiture. A former actress, she gave up the stage and screen to devote herself to fiction writing, travel, and her rose gardens.

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