Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

CROMWELL'S TENANCY 79
was his custom to write for some hours in private for
the foreign mail, which gave him the chance to escape
unperceived.
For the rest, Hampton Court saw no more of the
alarums and excursions of the time till 1648, when a
skirmish occurred just outside its bounds, in which
" the beautiful Francis Villiers," second son to my
Lord Duke of Buckingham, King Charles's and King
James's dead friend, met his death. In the months
that followed the execution of Charles, orders were
given for the valuation of all the property at Hampton
Court, surveys were made of the boundaries of the
Honour, inventories taken of the contents of the
Palace. The collection of pictures, which had been
Charles's choicest treasure, was sold. Some of the
pictures, notably the cartoons of Raffaelle and the
" Triumph " of Mantegna, were preserved. The
house itself remained, it would seem, uninhabited, till,
when Cromwell was made Protector, it was given for
his use. He had already refused it when the House of
Commons in September 1653 had instructed Anthony
Ashley Cooper —
" The loudestbagpipe in the squeaking train "—
to offer it him in exchange for New Hall,Essex (the
residence in old days of the Colts, from whom
came Sir Thomas More's first wife), which he had
bought when the Duke of Buckingham's property
wassequestrated. Now, asa State residence,he entered
gladly upon its possession, and between it and White-