From London to Lands End | Page 7

an
entire set of rooms of state for the receiving and, if need had been,
lodging and entertaining any foreign prince with his retinue; also
offices for all the Secretaries of State, Lords of the Treasury, and of
Trade, to have repaired to for the despatch of such business as it might
be necessary to have done there upon the king's longer residence there
than ordinary; as also apartments for all the great officers of the
Household; so that had the house had two great squares added, as was
designed, there would have been no room to spare, or that would not
have been very well filled. But the king's death put an end to all these
things.
Since the death of King William, Hampton Court seemed abandoned of
its patron. They have gotten a kind of proverbial saying relating to
Hampton Court, viz., that it has been generally chosen by every other
prince since it became a house of note. King Charles was the first that
delighted in it since Queen Elizabeth's time. As for the reigns before, it
was but newly forfeited to the Crown, and was not made a royal house
till King Charles I., who was not only a prince that delighted in country
retirements, but knew how to make choice of them by the beauty of
their situation, the goodness of the air, &c. He took great delight here,
and, had he lived to enjoy it in peace, had purposed to make it another
thing than it was. But we all know what took him off from that felicity,
and all others; and this house was at last made one of his prisons by his
rebellious subjects.

His son, King Charles II., may well be said to have an aversion to the
place, for the reason just mentioned--namely, the treatment his royal
father met with there--and particularly that the rebel and murderer of
his father, Cromwell, afterwards possessed this palace, and revelled
here in the blood of the royal party, as he had done in that of his
sovereign. King Charles II. therefore chose Windsor, and bestowed a
vast sum in beautifying the castle there, and which brought it to the
perfection we see it in at this day-- some few alterations excepted, done
in the time of King William.
King William (for King James is not to be named as to his choice of
retired palaces, his delight running quite another way)--I say, King
William fixed upon Hampton Court, and it was in his reign that
Hampton Court put on new clothes, and, being dressed gay and
glorious, made the figure we now see it in.
The late queen, taken up for part of her reign in her kind regards to the
prince her spouse, was obliged to reside where her care of his health
confined her, and in this case kept for the most part at Kensington,
where he died; but her Majesty always discovered her delight to be at
Windsor, where she chose the little house, as it was called, opposite to
the Castle, and took the air in her chaise in the parks and forest as she
saw occasion.
Now Hampton Court, by the like alternative, is come into request again;
and we find his present Majesty, who is a good judge too of the
pleasantness and situation of a place of that kind, has taken Hampton
Court into his favour, and has made it much his choice for the summer's
retreat of the Court, and where they may best enjoy the diversions of
the season. When Hampton Court will find such another favourable
juncture as in King William's time, when the remainder of her ashes
shall be swept away, and her complete fabric, as designed by King
William, shall be finished, I cannot tell; but if ever that shall be, I know
no palace in Europe, Versailles excepted, which can come up to her,
either for beauty and magnificence, or for extent of building, and the
ornaments attending it.
From Hampton Court I directed my course for a journey into the
south-west part of England; and to take up my beginning where I
concluded my last, I crossed to Chertsey on the Thames, a town I
mentioned before; from whence, crossing the Black Desert, as I called

it, of Bagshot Heath, I directed my course for Hampshire or Hantshire,
and particularly for Basingstoke--that is to say, that a little before, I
passed into the great Western Road upon the heath, somewhat west of
Bagshot, at a village called Blackwater, and entered Hampshire, near
Hartleroe.
Before we reach Basingstoke, we get rid of that unpleasant country
which I so often call a desert, and enter into a pleasant fertile country,
enclosed and cultivated like the rest of England; and passing a village
or