An Adventure of Love

AUTHOR’S NOTEThe famous Hampton Court Palace, where this story begins, has since Tudor times been the background for some of the most colourful and crucial events in British history. Built by the powerful and brilliant but awe-inspiring Cardinal Wolsey, it incorporated all his dreams of glory. The many walls were emblazoned with cloth of gold, the illuminated carved and painted ceilings and the dazzling tapestries, the gold plates, cruets and salt cellars encrusted with rubies, diamonds and pearls all added to the stature of a man who was the son of a butler from Suffolk. The staff of The Palace contained over five hundred persons, which was not excessive according to the number of guests the Cardinal entertained. The Constable of France arrived with one hundred of his Nobles, their guards and servants, totalling six hundred altogether! But Wolsey lost the King’s favour and his death, when he was fifty-five, saved him from the executioner’s block. Hampton Court has long been renowned for its ghosts. Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII who died in childbirth, can be seen dressed in white. She carries a lit phantom taper and wanders forlornly up and down the stairs. King Henry’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, who was beheaded on Tower Green in February 1542, can be found in the Haunted Gallery. The story goes that she ran along the Gallery to plead with her husband for mercy when he was celebrating Mass in the Chapel. When she was chased and dragged away by the guards, she gave a piercing scream, which can still be heard. In Queen Victoria’s reign, nearly a thousand rooms were converted into forty-five separate apartments granted by the Sovereign’s Grace and Favour to the widows and children of distinguished servants of the Crown.