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

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HAMPTON COURT
John Knox and John Howe have preached. Mary
restored allthe splendour ofpre-Reformation ritual,and
Elizabeth diminished little of its gorgeousness. The
pomp with which she set about her devotions is
described in another chapter, from the diary of
Leopold von Wedel, one of those Pomeranian lords
whom Meinhold has immortalised. .
In the chapel few changes were made under James
I. and his son. The unhappy marriage of Buckingham's
idiot brother took place there, and from time
to time many of the great Caroline divines occupied
the pulpit. In 1645, when Parliament took possession
of the Palace, the altar was destroyed, the pictures
taken away, and the beautiful glass of Henry VIII.'s
day broken to pieces. Mr Ernest Law suggests
that some railings of carved oak (now in the " Horn
Room") are remnants from this destruction.1 If this
is not so, they are at least work of Charles II.'s day,
removed to make way for the present rails, which suit
with the pillars and canopy-work over the altar.
The chapel was restored at the Restoration, but the
glass was never replaced. William and Mary attended
service there and took some pains with its redecoration.
William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, the only
one of Queen Anne's children that survived infancy,
was christened there. If we may believe Defoe, it
was intended to pull down the chapel, among the
wholesale alterations that William III. happily did
not complete. Religion in general did not accord
1 " History ofHampton Court," vol.ii. p. 131.