ambassadors, counting his angels, making presents to his bride, Elizabeth
of York. Among other gifts to that lady on her nuptial day was a Royal
Book of verse, composed by a prisoner in the keep.



ST. JAMES'S PALACE [Footnote: From "Walks in London."]

BY AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE


The picturesque old brick gateway of St. James's Palace still looks up St.
James's Street, one of the most precious relics of the past in London, and
enshrining the memory of a greater succession of historical events than
any other domestic building in England, Windsor Castle not excepted. The
site of the palace was occupied, even before the Conquest, by a hospital
dedicated to St. James, for "fourteen maidens that were leprous." Henry
VIII. obtained it by exchange, pensioned off the sisters, and converted
the hospital into "a fair mansion and park," in the same year in which he
was married to Anne Boleyn, who was commemorated here with him in
love-knots, now almost obliterated, upon the side doors of the gateway,
and in the letters "H.A." on the chimney-piece of the presence-chamber or
tapestry room. Holbein is sometimes said to have been the king's architect
here, as he was at Whitehall. Henry can seldom have lived here, but hither
his daughter, Mary I., retired, after her husband Philip left England for
Spain, and here she died, November 17, 1558.

James I., in 1610, settled St. James's on his eldest son, Prince Henry,
who kept his court here for two years with great magnificence, having a
salaried household of no less than two hundred and ninety-seven persons.