.’ A 1765 engraving by
James Basire, "based on an ancient drawing". Essentially as built by
Henry VII in 1501. The outbuilding with a pointed roof at the far left (north) is the Great Kitchen. The chapel-like building adjoining the palace next to the kitchen is the Great Hall.
Norman Henry I divided the manor of Shene from the royal manor of Kingston and granted it to a Norman knight. The manor-house of Sheen was established by at least 1125.
1299 to 1495 In 1299
Edward I took his whole court to the manor-house at
Sheen, close by the river side. In 1305, he received at Sheen the Commissioners from
Scotland to arrange the Scottish civil government. The house returned to royal hands in the reign of
Edward II and after his deposition it was held by his wife, Queen Isabella. When the boy-king
Edward III came to the throne in 1327, he gave the manor to his mother
Isabella. After her death he extended and embellished the manor house and turned it into the first Shene Palace. Edward III died at Shene on 21 June 1377. Much of the tapestry work of earlier ages was burnt to cinders, and losses included crown jewels and much of the royal wardrobe, including a large amount of
cloth of gold, at this time a luxury item only wearable by royalty; and in the case of Sheen Palace it was a feature of the bedding. Accounts refer to
Henry VII, his mother,
Margaret Beaufort, and his wife,
Elizabeth of York, running for their lives, with the King barely making it out in time: one of the corridors nearly collapsed on top of him. As it was the time of the Christmas revels, also present during the disaster were all but one of the royal children, and all under the age of 10:
Margaret,
Mary, and a six-year-old
Henry VIII, each of them described as being hurried out in the arms of their nursemaids. Soncino reports all of the events outlined above, and also states in his accounts that the king "does not attach much importance to this loss. He purposes to build the chapel all in stone, and much finer than before."
The new Richmond Palace Construction of the new palace began in 1498. Henry named his creation Richmond Palace, in honour of the title he had held before acceding to the throne which he had inherited from his father: Earl of Richmond. Though the palace did not survive the
English Civil War, fragments of the edifice still remain along the bank of the Thames, as does
Richmond Park, originally a royal hunting reserve that Henry Tudor and all members of the Tudors and early Stuarts used for their personal entertainment. Henry Tudor built a large and grand palace that became the centre of royal life for many years to come, a very important centre of the court of each Tudor monarch and also James I. Drawings and descriptions of the palace survive, as does the documentation of a 1970s excavation of the grounds; thus posterity has a fairly accurate idea of the contents and features of the building. Richmond Palace was largely a building of brick and white stone in the latest styles of the times, with geometric octagonal towers, pepper-pot chimney caps, and ornate
weather vanes made of brass. Though it retained the layout of Sheen Palace, it had new additions that would mark the
Renaissance: for example, long galleries to display sculpture and portraiture. Henry VII also established a library and a richly appointed chapel. The windows were panelled, built to bring in more light than the tiny slit-like windows of a castle, built for defence. From its earliest it had inner courtyards designed for leisure, with several portions built for the royal family overlooking a large green. Richmond Palace covered of land and was large and well appointed enough to have its own orchards and walled gardens. It is known that Henry Tudor decorated his home with many gifts he accepted from Italian bankers in Venice, and the evidence for this and the other accoutrements survives in a 17th-century inventory taken of the palace that is now held in
The National Archives. The inventory also describes new tapestries he commissioned to replace the ones lost in the fire.
Henry VIII Later the same year, Henry VIII celebrated Christmas to
Twelfth Night at Richmond with the first of his six wives,
Catherine of Aragon. The events were described in
Edward Hall's Chronicle. During those celebrations, says
Mrs. A. T. Thomson, in her
Memoirs of the Court of Henry the Eighth: On the night of the
Epiphany (1510), a pageant was introduced into the hall at Richmond, representing a hill studded with gold and precious stones, and having on its summit a tree of gold, from which hung roses and pomegranates. From the declivity of the hill descended a lady richly attired, who, with the gentlemen, or, as they were then called, children of honour, danced a
morris before the king. On another occasion, in the presence of the court, an artificial forest was drawn in by a lion and an antelope, the hides of which were richly embroidered with golden ornaments; the animals were harnessed with chains of gold, and on each sat a fair damsel in gay apparel. In the midst of the forest, which was thus introduced, appeared a gilded tower, at the end of which stood a youth, holding in his hands a garland of roses, as the prize of valour in a tournament which succeeded the pageant!" Henry's son,
Henry, Duke of Cornwall, was born there on New Year's Day, 1511, but died on 22 February. Some years later, the King received a present of
Hampton Court from Wolsey, and in return the Cardinal received permission to reside at the royal manor of Richmond, where he kept up so much state as to increase the growing ill-feeling against him. When he fell into disfavour he took up his residence at the Lodge in the 'great' park, and subsequently moved to the Priory. Wolsey said a
dun cow (referring to the
Earldom of Richmond) was also found in the heraldry of
Thomas Boleyn and was a portent of the relationship of
Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. In August 1531, Richmond became the principal residence of Henry's daughter
Mary after Henry separated her from her mother, Catherine. Mary stayed at the palace until December 1533, when she was ordered to
Hatfield House to wait on the newly born Princess Elizabeth. In 1540, Henry gave the palace to his fourth wife,
Anne of Cleves, as part of her annulment settlement. In 1546, Anne appointed
David Vincent keeper of "Shene
alias Richemonde" and the New Park of Richmond.
Mary I In 1554,
Mary I married
Philip of Spain. Forty-five years after her mother
Catherine of Aragon had spent Christmas at Richmond Palace, they spent their honeymoon there (and at
Hampton Court). Later that same year, her sister
Elizabeth I was taken to Richmond as a prisoner on her way to
Woodstock Palace.
Elizabeth I Once Elizabeth I became queen she spent much of her time at Richmond, as she enjoyed hunting stags in the "Newe Parke of Richmonde" (now the
Old Deer Park). Elizabeth I died there on 24 March 1603. Her body was taken by barge to lie in state at
Whitehall Palace.
Stuart James I King
James I preferred the
Palace of Whitehall to Richmond, but his eldest son
Prince Henry was able to commission water-works for the garden designed by the French
Huguenot,
Salomon de Caus, and the Florentine
Costantini de' Servi, shortly before his death in 1612. Before he became king,
Charles I owned Richmond Palace and started to build his art collection whilst living there. Like Elizabeth I, Charles I enjoyed hunting stags, and in 1637 created a new area for this now known as
Richmond Park, renaming Elizabeth's "Newe Parke" the "Old Deer Park". There continue to be
red deer in Richmond Park today, possibly descendants of the original herd, free from hunting and relatively tame.
Charles I, the Commonwealth and demolition in 1765. This plan was not taken up by the King. A new palace was started on a different design, but was not completed. Charles I gave the palace with the manor to Queen
Henrietta Maria, probably in 1626, and it became the home of the royal children. Within months of the
execution of the King in 1649, Richmond Palace was surveyed by order of
Parliament to see what it could fetch in terms of raw materials, and was sold for £13,000. Over the next ten years it was largely demolished, the stones being re-used as building materials.
Restoration of the monarchy Following the
Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, the palace and manor were restored to Queen
Henrietta Maria (d.1669), the mother of
Charles II of England and widow of the beheaded King Charles I, who during the Civil War had lived in exile in France. It was then in a dismantled condition, having suffered much dilapidation during the inter-regnum. The ruined palace was never rebuilt. ==Architecture and internal decoration==