ing, it is scarcely too much to say, has an interest of its own. Historically, or because of the men who designed it, or from important events which are associated with it, each part has its special worth.
The history of the building, as we now see it, is in itself a great part of the history of English architecture, as it is a memorial of a great part of the history of the nation and its crown.
II
The Palace of Hampton Court was begun at a time when English domestic architecture was at its best. The new era which had replaced the "over-mighty subject" by the mighty monarch was out of harmony with the castles of elaborate defence and corresponding inconvenience which feudalism and medieval life had made necessary. The fortress gave place to the house. The beginning of the sixteenth century was a time of comfort, of luxury, and of enterprise; and all these were represented in the last triumphs of Gothic architecture—the great houses that were built before English architects, as well as English men of fashion, became Italianate.
Hampton Court, as Wolsey began and Henry finished it, is one of the last, as it is the greatest of the examples of that national style which was developed when the Tudor rule had settled down on the land after the tumults of the French wars and the
