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

WREN'S PLANS 23
whom England has produced — and we know, with the
minutest detail, the extent of his plans.
In the office of Her Majesty's Board of Works, and
in the Library ofAll Souls' College at Oxford, are preserved
probably the whole of the drawings and memoranda
that Wren made for his work at Hampton Court.
From these,if not from the somewhat precarious evidence
ofDefoe, we learn what was the intention of the
King and his architect. " Ihave been assured,"Defoe
writes in his " Journey from London to the Land's
End" (1724), "that had the peace continued, and the
King lived to enjoy the continuance of it,His Majesty
had resolved to have pulled down all the remains of
the oldbuilding (such as the chapel and the large court
within the first gate), and to have built up the whole
Palace after the manner of those two fronts already
done. In these would have been an entire set of
rooms for the receiving, and, if need had been, lodging
and entertaining any foreign prince, with his retinue;
also offices for all the Secretaries ofState, 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."
Another Versailles it would have been, so far as
William could make it; and the parks and gardens