THE PALACE

A history of Hampton Court, which has been a site of drama, revelry, and scandals.

Historian, novelist, and playwright Russell offers a lively, populous narrative centered on the British royals who inhabited Hampton Court from 1495, when the Tudors undertook costly renovations, to 2016. As a site of intrigue, pageantry, and diplomacy, the Palace reflects centuries of British monarchy, the “countries that they shaped, the glories they achieved, and the horrors that they inflicted.” Hampton Court was a backwater until Henry VIII’s chief minister, Thomas Wolsey, took it over and transformed it into a sumptuous palace, enough of a showcase that it was chosen to entertain the Hapsburg Emperor, Charles V, when he made a state visit to England in 1522. The unfortunate Anne Boleyn suffered two miscarriages there, and her reputation suffered from rumors of many affairs, which led to her execution. Russell traces the fate of the Palace as “a place to retreat, celebrate, or hunt,” to gamble, hold multi-course feasts, and throw glamorous parties—until the reign of George III, who deigned to use it as a home. Nevertheless, he was committed to preserving its heritage and devoted considerable sums to remodel it into a kind of boardinghouse for dignitaries and royals. With the advent of rail travel, the Palace did not draw royals as a get-away for rest and recreation: They headed, instead, to Balmoral and Sandringham. Queen Victoria opened parts of the Palace to tourists and, inspired by Versailles, initiated renovations to convert the grand house into a museum. Fittingly, in 1953, the Palace hosted a pre-coronation ball in celebration of Elizabeth II. “The magnificent, the absurd, the tragic and the important have interacted there over the course of its existence,” Russell aptly notes, “and their stories—perhaps more so than the architecture—continue to attract thousands of tourists every year.”

An entertaining journey into the past.