Peeps at Royal Palaces of Great Britain

wich

passing down to the sea, laden with wool and other merchandise, to return filled with silks, and spices, and precious metals; and looked with proud satisfaction at their ships of war lying anchored close at hand at Deptford. Warships had appeared at Greenwich very early in its history, when it was a mere fishing villa

brave commander on board, who was destined never to return, being found frozen to death in his cabin in the Arctic ice. Crowds gathered along the shore, the nobles and courtiers thronged the palace windows as the ships sailed by, discharging their guns in a final salute, so that the surrounding hills echoed. Twenty-seven years later, a small weather-beaten vessel, The Golden Hind, cam

rom his nephew, Henry VI., for whom he had acted as regent during his minority, he erected a stone manor-house, calling it Placentia. Disasters fell thick upon "good Duke Humphrey," as he has been called. His wife Eleanor was accused of witchcraft, and after penance in the streets of London, was imprisoned for the remainder of her life, while he h

e non-arrival of a Prince, ordering all reverence to be paid to the infant Princesses. Queen Katharine of Aragon spent some happy years at Greenwich [pg 30] before Henry was led away by the charms of Anne Boleyn. Henry at that time seems to have been full of buoyant life and good-humour, enjoying the rough and tumble of tournaments in the park, riding out in the early morning of the First o

nother purpose. The gentle, kindly heart of Queen Mary, the beloved wife of William III., was so moved by the suffering of the wounded sailors after the Battle of La Hogue, that she determined that the neglected palace should be furnished as a hospital for those seamen "who had protected the public safety." Sir Christopher Wren furnished the design, and Ki

little tugs, still sparkles, while "the noblest of European hospitals" remains as "a memorial of the virtues o