"No novelists anywhere any good except me. P.G. Wodehouse and Tolstoy not bad. Not good, but not bad"

Some days are just bad days. There's not enough hot water for your shower, the milk that you have to use is on the wrong side of the use by date, its raining and your shoes get wet, there are no seats on the Tube, you're late, you have to have a ham sandwich for lunch AGAIN, you don't have change for chocolate, you stare at and re-write the same five sentences for eight hours, one of your limbs gets caught in the closing Tube door, that amazing thing you were going to have for dinner has mysteriously disappeared, and then you can't sleep. We all have days like this. What matters is that you know what to do when one springs upon you.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT do any of the following: listen to Neil Young's Oh Lonesome Me or Cat Power's Hate; watch romantic comedies (you think its going to make you better but then you're watching a ridiculous story about an beautiful girl who still can't get a boyfriend and then she gets one and amazingly all her life problems are solved! - Katherine Heigl, I'm looking at you) or any movie where an lovable animal dies; drink gin; or eat too much chocolate (you WILL get the chocolate guilts).

My infallible list of bad day busters includes: Supernatural bloopers (I love those boys! So hot, so funny!); Fly My Pretties (at the moment, its the Live at Bats album but anything by these guys is pure gold); car dancing; or, listening to awesome songs like this or this (I love the live versions of these - yes, that is Bjork and Bowie.). But my top-notch, never fail bad day cure is P. G. Wodehouse. Whenever I travel, I always take a copy of one of his books with me to combat any airport stress. I even have his books on tape to listen to when I can't sleep, and I'm not ashamed to admit it!

If you have never heard of P. G. Wodehouse, never fear! I have especially gone on the P. G. Wodehouse walk in order to gather information to educate you!

OMG his actual house!!!

Probably the first thing you need to know about P. G. (as we shall now call him), is that his last name is pronounced 'Wood-house', even though its spelt 'Wode-house'. He was born out in Hong Kong, where his father worked as a judge, but was educated in England. He wanted to go to university, but his older brother had already gone and there wasn't enough money for P. G. to go as well. So, he got a job at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Savings Bank, with the hope of getting a post overseas. However, while he was working there, he had a couple of stories published in a newspaper and he decided to become a writer. He did some more short stories, then a novel and he was away!

This is the block of flats where Bertie Wooster lived!!!

P. G. was a pretty prolific writer with almost 100 novels and short stories. His stories generally fall into a couple of groups:

 - Jeeves and Wooster

 - Blandings Castle

 - Psmith (the P is silent "as in pshrimp")

 - Mr Mulliner

 - Urkridge

All the stories follow a similar pattern - the hero is in some kind of trouble, usually either romantic or financial, and he gets deeper and deeper into that trouble until a he is rescued by a wise elder. All the worthy heroes are not too bright, reasonably good looking, upper class and bad with money. The heroines are usually the jolly good sort, with names like Jane, Angela or Nobby (short for Zenobia). The other female characters are usually aggravating girls to steer clear of (Florence, Madeline and Honoria), or the aunts (Julia, Constance, Hermione or Agatha). And then there are the wise elders: Jeeves, Lord Ickenham and Galahad Threepwood.

Aunt Dahlia's town house!!!

What develops is a beautifully constructed farce, punctuated by some of the funniest phrases that you will ever read. Some of my favourites include:

 "My Aunt Agatha, for instance, is tall and thin and looks rather like a vulture in the Gobi desert, while Aunt Dahila is short and solid, like a scrum half in the game of Rugby football".

"'He is ambitious. It won't be long,' said  the girl, 'before Wilberforce suddenly rises in the world'.
She never spoke a trurer word. At this moment, up he came from behind the settee like a leaping salmon".

 "I remember walking one day in Grosvenor Square with my aunt Brenda and her pug dog Jabberwocky, and a policeman came up and said the latter ought to be wearing a muzzle. My aunt made no verbal reply. She merely whipped a lorgnette from its holster and looked at the man, who gave one choking gasp and fell back against the railings, without a mark on him but with an awful look of horror in his staring eyes, as if he'd seen some dreadful sight. A doctor was sent for, and they managed to bring him around, but he was never the same again. He had to leave the force, and eventually drifted into the grocery business".

Grosvenor Square - the site of the above quoted event!

There was just one black spot in P.G.’s life. Before the Second World War, P.G. had been living in Northern France, and when the Nazis invaded, he was placed in an internment camp, along with other resident aliens under the age of 65. During his time at the internment camp, he was asked to broadcast some humorous show on Radio Berlin, which he did. His intention was to provide some comedic relief for those living in internment camps at the time. Also, he had no knowledge about Nazi atrocities or the bombing of London at the time. But obviously, his good intentions backfired. He was investigated by British Intelligence and he was openly accused in the British press of having right-wing sympathies. It is highly doubtful that this was the case; his character Roderick Spode, leader of the Black Shorts (modelled on Oswald Mosley, leader of the Fascist group the Black Shirts) would convince most people of this. After the war, P.G. lived in America and never returned to England. But much later his contribution to British literature was recognised, and he was knighted at the age of 92.

The only pub in the Park Lane area, and the inspiration for the Junior Ganymede, the club that Jeeves belongs to!!

All in all, I pretty much love P.G. He's funny and entertaining, with a great way with words. If you haven't read him, you should go out and do so. Or, at the very least, watch some of the Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie version of Jeeves and Wooster - guaranteed to make your day better!

Born 2 Rule

We have arrived at the third and final post on Hampton Court - the Georgian part. Everywhere you go, the Georgians are there, with Christopher Wren and neo-Classical Architecture. In fact, Christopher Wren actually designed the Georgian Wing of the palace, which pretty much shows that you can't throw a brick in London without hitting a Christopher Wren building. The best thing about the Georgian wing is that it looks out over the gardens and grounds that surround the palace. The gardens are beautiful, but in that really formal, structured kind of way that I don't really understand - what's the point of nature if its not natural?

Look at those perfectly conical trees.

 

Interestingly enough, when the South Wing was added, some of the Tudor parts were left and incorporated into the new addition.  The best bit is this amazing room known as the Wolsey Closet, it has these beautiful patterned ceilings, which have Wolsey's iconography like the ornate 'W', and scenes from the Passion of  Christ are painted around the walls. A lot of people have laboured under the misapprehension that this room was Wolsey's private chapel, because of the religious nature of the scenes on the wall, but it is more likely that it was just a fancy meeting room, designed to impress the foreign visitors that Wolsey entertained.

The room in the photo above is another interesting one - its the bedroom of the king and queen, and, through a system of ropes and pulleys, the door can be locked by someone sitting in the bed. How cool is that - don't want to get your feet cold walking across the room to unlock the door, no problem! Interesting side-note: royal bedrooms are easily identifiable because they all lock from the inside. This is for obvious reasons - the king and queen needed a place to sleep that was both private and safe.

The dome of the chapel in the Georgian wing.

But lets not beat about the bush anymore, we all know what this post is really about - the Georgian kings and how awful they were. From George I and his embarrassingly bad grasp on the English language, to George IV and the terrible relationship he had with his wife Caroline, the first four Georges were not the most pleasant of people. In particular, there were continuous tensions between father and son, with the next generation never learning from the mistakes of the previous. And of course, poor old George the third, who was a few sandwiches short of a picnic, as well as being the king who lost the American colonies. This situation has been no better summarised that in this video, which is probably the best thing I have ever seen! If you don't love it, I'm not sure we can be friends any more...

I think that is a high point on which to end, sorry about the shortness of this post - the Georgian part was last on my list to see and I had to almost run through to see it all before they locked the gates for the night!

"William and Mary, by the Grace of God, King and Queen of England, France and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, etc."

Ok, so here I am, being assaulted by ladybugs, but still powering through to bring you another post! I'm serious about the ladybugs - they are way bigger than the ones at home, and are trying to hibernate in my room, but every so often, they just leapt out at you from nowhere, scaring the proverbial out of me. And they get everywhere - I found one in my bag on the Tube yesterday.

But enough about my ladybug issue, and on with more exciting stories of Hampton Court (and show you more photos)! This part is about William III and Mary II. I first heard about them when I was a Kensington Palace and thought they were pretty interesting - they were the only diarchy in British history. Usually there is a monarchy (one ruler, either a King with a queen, or a Queen with a Prince Regent), but William was a Prince of Orange in his own right, while Mary was Queen of England, so they ruled jointly.

It worked out pretty well for them, 'cause Mary, despite being smart, beautiful and friendly, wasn't really the powerful, dynamic type of ruler. However, she did have to take the reins when William was away at war, which was A LOT. If there was one thing William loved above anything else, it was doing to war, and he did it for up to 6 to 9 months of the year, usually against the French. Even when he got home, he slept on a camp bed in one of the private rooms. He wasn't actually that good at it, and he made very little progress against the French. He also wasted a fair amount of money at the same time.

Here is William, bravely riding out to war - sorry about the bad photo quality!

Apart from this inclination towards warfare, William had one or two other faults. Mainly he disliked appearing in public - at the time, it was expected that the king and queen would go about their daily business in the public eye: the public could come and watch the king receive guest, eat and even get ready for bed. A little strange, but its actually a cunning public relations scheme. However, William didn't do this very often, and this made him unpopular with the public. In fact, William and Mary's reign was the beginning of the end for public court rituals.

ONE of the public throne rooms.

There were also rumours floating around that William liked the camaraderie of war a little more than anyone with a wife should, if you get my drift. William had a very close friend, Hans, who had nursed William through scarlet fever when he was young. William had never forgotten this, and Hans was given appropriate honours at court. But later on, William found another favourite, an exceptionally beautiful and slightly effeminate young man called Arnold. William consequently forgot his best friend Hans, and focus on Arnold, which is when things took a turn for the scandalous! Hans took offence at this, as you would after you saved someones life and then they ditched you for someone prettier, and so he left court and never spoke to William again.

William's private rooms, where the men would hang out.

These rumours only served to further decrease William's popularity, and after Mary died of smallpox, it only dropped more and more. William had truly loved his wife, and when she died, he took to eating and drinking a little more than was good for him. He died of pneumonia, caused by a broken collarbone after his horse threw him after it tripped on a molehill.

However, in my opinion, William's greatest mistake was wanting to completely demolish Hampton Court, and replace it with a whole new palace. I mean, SERIOUSLY?! Hampton Court is so beautiful, I don't know how anyone could want to get rid of it. Thankfully, there wasn't enough money to raze the palace and build a new one, so they just added Baroque addition. Just on the side, casual-like:

Baroque columns in front of the famous Hampton Court red brick chimneys. Just slapped on to the front there.

Anyway, I think that's enough royal scandal for now. Tune in same time next week for the final instalment in our Hampton Court series! Now just let me find that stupid ladybug...

I'm Henry the 8th, I am, I am!

Ok, so apparently, people have actually noticed that I have been totally slack with these posts. Admittedly, when I say people, I mean my Mum, but hell, an audience is an audience! Its just that time seems to fly by when your stressing about how much work you have to do in such a short period of time! But a little bit of stress is a great motivator, and now I have a clear idea of topics for my dissertation, which is awesome!

Enough about work! More about London adventures! The other weekend, I went to Hampton Court for the day, it was AMAZING. So much stuff to see and so little time! There are three main parts to the palace: the Tudor part, the part for William and Mary, and the Georgian part. So, because there is so much to say and I took so many photos, I am going to break down the Hampton Court excitement into three posts.

First, and probably most importantly, the Tudors.

Check out the fountain - apparently on special occasions, it would run with wine instead of water!

The palace was actually built (in this amazing red brick) in 1514 by Cardinal Wolsey, Henry the eight's closest advisor and the most powerful man in England. The whole place was designed to impress the numerous foreign dignitaries that Cardinal Wolsey entertained - in the main courtyard (in the photo above), all the upper rooms were specially designed as guest accommodation and all the rooms had their own toilets which drained out under the courtyard and into the Thames nearby. Not having to share a toilet was beyond impressive at the time.

However Wolsey made a fatal error in making the palace so amazing, Henry fell in love with it, and Wolsey had to give the palace to Henry as a "gift". Poor old Wolsey. Especially as he later fell out of favour with Henry because he couldn't organise Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and died in the Tower of London. There are rumours he committed suicide, but he was probably just sick.

There's ole Wolsey right at the top, above Henry. Interesting!

So, on to Henry, probably the most famous, and infamous, king in English history. He's pretty much remembered as a fat, gouty old man with a gammy leg. But when he first game to power, he was young, handsome, energetic and charismatic. He hunted and jousted, and was intelligent and funny. He was Johnathan Rhys Meyers. It was during his youth that Henry ruled with the help of Wolsey and his then wife, Catherine of Aragon. Even though Henry got fat and gouty later on, he never lost his charisma - he was the sort of person that people were drawn to and were excited to be in his presence. The fact that he was the King of England probably helped with that, but he was undoubtedly an attractively personality.

Look at him there, luring you in with his eyes.

So Henry got rid of Catherine, and replaced her with Anne Boleyn, then Jane Seymour, the Anne of Cleaves, then Catherine Howard and then Katherine Parr. Throughout this time, Hampton Court was still being added to, and different rooms have little pieces of each queen's iconography hidden everywhere. All trace of Anne Boleyn was supposed to have been removed, but some were missed. You can't really see it in the photo below, but on the far right hand side of the balcony, there is an A and H intertwined. But also, check out the ceiling! This is the banqueting hall, and you really have to see it to get how amazing it really is (especially as my photography skills aren't exactly the greatest).

My friend Samantha taught me a little poem to help remember the fate of all of Henry's wives: "Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived"! Out of all those wives, Henry got only three children: Mary, Elizabeth and Edward.

Here they all are: Edward standing on the left of Henry and Elizabeth on the right, with Mary on the far right. The women on the far left is probably Jane Seymour, Henry's favourite wife, even though she was dead by this time.

Although the youngest, Edward was the first on the throne, being the only, and much desired, son. Although he looked a lot like his father, he didn't have his father's strength, either of personality or physically. Edward was the son of Jane Seymour, who was Henry's most treasured wife because she gave him a son, and probably because she wasn't as aggravating as the previous two. After Jane died giving birth to Edward, Henry kept a lock of her hair in his bible until he died, and was buried next to her in St George's Chapel.

Edward only ruled England very briefly, and even then he ruled under the advice of a council because he was too young to rule alone. He died at the age of 15, probably of tuberculosis or pneumonia. In his will, he gave his throne to his cousin the Lady Jane Grey, ignoring his father's will. However, Mary was quick to depose Jane and take her place.

Mary, the eldest, was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, and like her mother, a devout Catholic. She wasn't a particularly nice person - a lot of people where burned as heretics during her reign as queen. Her hardline approach was probably due to her relationship with her parents. Initially, both her parents were devoted to Mary and took a great interest in her education, particularly her mother. But when Catherine refused to divorce Henry, as punishment, Henry sent Mary away from her mother(using a child to inflict pain on an ex-wife! And they say history never repeats), and consequently, Mary greatly resented her father.

Mary married Philip of Spain, who was a bit of a weedy bloke and not much liked by the English public, but apparently they had quite a happy marriage. Mary became queen in 1553, after a little confusion with the Lady Jane Grey's appointment as a puppet queen. She ruled until 1558, aggressively pushing Catholicism and putting down Protestantism, until she died, probably, of ovarian cancer. Despite her negative legacy (she was commonly known as Bloody Mary, especially in Protestant Circles), she was a trailblazer, being the first woman to successfully claim the throne of England.

This is the clock gateway in Clock Court. The clock is amazing - it tells the time, the month, and the relevant sign of the zodiac. Also, check out the chimneys - Hampton Court is famous for these.

After Mary died, Elizabeth took the throne. Elizabeth was the daughter of the infamous Anne Boleyn and Henry, and seemed to unite some of the best qualities of both her parents - she was intelligent, strong, independent, and charismatic - and was probably the most like her father out of all her siblings. She was one of England's longest rulers (after Queen Victoria) and also one of the best. Under her rule, the British Empire was founded, which would eventually make England the most powerful nation in the world. She never married, believing that she had the ability to run the country alone. Books have been written about her, movies have been made about her (Cate Blanchet is probably my favourite), all in all, she was a pretty amazing woman.

The entrance to Hampton Court.

Ok, enough about people, let's get on to the important stuff - food!

Henry's court was made up of over 600 people, and they toured around the country, visiting all of Henry's palaces. This was partly for political reasons but also because the court sucked the surrounding countryside dry. Hampton Court has MASSIVE kitchens, designed to store and cook all the food that such a huge court required. The court ate a lot of meat, because meat was expensive and to be able to serve a lot of it showed how wealthy you were. This was also why all of the workers in Henry's kitchens were men - men were more expensive to hire. If you go to Hampton Court on the right days, there are experiemental chefs in the kitchens, cooking exactly the same way as they did in Tudor times.

Here's a wee photo, just to give you an idea about the scale of these kitchens - this is only one of the open fires, and its big enough to stand up in:

On that note, its time for dinner - more on Hampton Court soon!

This Little Piggy Went to Market

Sorry for such a long break between posts, I know that you have all been hanging out for the next installment (humour me). I've had a cold and been trying to write an essay this week, so my time has not really been my own. But here we are now, all listening attentively? Good, then lets begin!

I want to begin by announcing my biases - I freaking love markets. I love eating greasy, yet delicious, food off stands; I love all the amazing crafty stuff that people make; I love the eclectic jewellery and clothes; I love all the fake tattoos and the henna; I love that you can get your future told; I love the lights and the colours and the people. Pretty much there is nothing I dislike about them. Which means London is perfect for me - it has some of the best markets out there, with everything you could ever want or need!

So begins my attempt to systematically see all of London's markets, starting with Borough Market, next to Southwark Cathedral. Southwark Cathedral is one of London's oldest churches, having existed for over 1400 years, and it has stained glass windows depicting scenes from Shakespeare's plays (as Shakespeare lived and had his plays performed not far from the cathedral).

But now on to the main attraction: Borough Market. It is one of the oldest markets in London, having existed since the medieval period. Now it lives under the railway tracks on the South Bank, meaning that every so often trains rattle across above your head, giving it the coolest atmosphere. But the atmosphere isn't the reason that people go to Borough Market - people go to Borough Market for the food. Any possible food that you can imagine, you can find it at Borough Market.

From the standard fruits and veges:

Check out the cute little carved pumpkin - did you guess I went right before Halloween!

to flowers:

The red ones right in the middle are actually chillis! Love it - grow your own chillies!

to seafood so fresh you can almost feel the sea breeze on your face:

and the most amazingly good juices that I have ever tasted - I'm pretty addicted to old fashioned lemonade, and this was like the nectar of the gods:

But the high point is THE CAKES- so many cakes, so much sugary goodness. Words cannot describe how many cakes there were and how good they looked - so here is a picture (worth 1000 words!):

Meringues, cupcakes and macaroons.

And to make you even more jealous, here is a picture of the ones that I got to eat:

That's a Danish, coffee and chocolate cake and chocolate brownie - in hindsight, the hot chocolate may have been foolish addition, but I couldn't resist!

If I could afford to be the size of small house, I would eat nothing else but these cakes. However, seeing as I can't quite cover the cost of the cakes and a whole new wardrobe, so I had to settle with sharing so that I could taste as many cakes as possible (thanks Megan and Liz!)!

Just to conclude, I'm gonna dedicate this post to one of my bestest friends, who fostered my love of markets!!

You're a Wizard, Harry!

The other day I went on the most exciting walk that any person can ever go on - the Harry Potter walk in London! Maybe, possibly, the Harry Potter walk in Edinburgh would be more exciting seeing as JK lived there while she wrote the first book, but she did live in London for two years before she move to Scotland, so undoubtedly some of the London essence will have snuck in there! Anyway, even the tiniest bit of Harry is enough for me!!



HARRY!

Ok, first off was the Bank of London, also known as the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street. If you check out the description of Gringotts Bank in the first book, its pretty clear why this is the beginning of the tour. Big white building, with a large door leading to hundreds of underground vaults - that's right, Bank of London = Gringotts Bank:

Are you convinced? Cause I am! Then we wandered down some of the tiny side streets that London is so famous for. These side streets are so amazing, you never know what you will find when you turn down them. In this one we found some of the pubs where Charles Dickens used to frequent, which may have been the inspiration for the Leaky Cauldron. I'm not sure how much time JK actually spent in the City (I explained the whole concept of the City in the last post) and I'm sure there are heaps of little pubs tucked away in tiny alleyways across the country, but I like the idea of the connection between JK and Charles:



Next, the very knowledgeable and interesting guide lead us to Leadenhall Market, where some of the scenes of Diagon Alley were filmed. However, they decided that the Market was too flash for Diagon Alley and they would have to do too much to make it not look like Leadenhall Market, so they cut the scenes. The most interesting thing about Leadenhall Market, apart from the fact that it looks amazing, is that it is built directly over a Roman building, probably a forum or theatre. When the market was built, people were very much aware of the Roman history in London and the value of it, but they decided to build over it anyway - the Victorians were weird people.



Here's one where its looking distinctly Diagon Alley-ish.



And now the very high point of our tour - the ENTRANCE OF THE LEAKY CAULDRON (from the first movie). Prosaically, its now an optometrists, but it was once painted black and had a curved door! We stood where Daniel Radcliffe and Robbie Coltrane (possibly) stood! The excitement was just so intense, you could almost taste it in the air. Life goal complete.

We continued on, following our dauntless tour guide, crossing the river on London Bridge. Here, I need to clear up a little issue - the bridge with the towers on it is Tower Bridge, not London Bridge. London Bridge is now pretty basic, but when it was first built it was covered with houses and shops. However, it grew too crowded and they had to tear it down and build something more functional. In fact, London Bridge has been replaced several times. For our HP purposes though, its main point of interest is that, from the bridge, you can get a good photo of where Harry and the others flew up along the Thames. Also, the funny curved building on the right is where the Muggle office workers look out and see the huge black cloud as the Death Eaters approach London.

TOWER Bridge crossing the Thames.

Finally, we arrived at our last destination - Borough Market (more on this later) and the site of Harry Potter's stay in the Leaky Cauldron. In the Prisoner of Azkaban, when Harry runs away after blowing up Aunt Marge, he stays in the Leaky Cauldron for a couple of days, in the room in the top left of this building:

Brilliant stuff! Herein ends our Harry Potter walk, may it be the first of many. I can now highly recommend checking out London Walks when you get to London - the guide was awesome, despite the fact that he asked all the small children the Harry Potter questions, not the twenty year olds who clearly had the knowledge! Those kids won so many stickers...

The 311 Steps

A couple of days ago, I climbed the Monument, and I've got the certificate to prove it! Trust me, this is an achievement - there are a lot of stairs. 311 stairs to be precise. See:

The Monument was set up to commemorate the destruction which occured during the Great Fire of London in 1666. Despite the fact that everyone knew it was going to be a bad year (1666, you see), only a couple of people died in the fire. It was the immense property damage that was the real issue, plus the fact that the parts of London which hadn't been razed to the ground were covered in ash for weeks afterward. 

However, on a positive note, Christopher Wren got a free hand in designing many of the new buildings in the City - St Pauls is one of his, as is the Monument. Here is the perfect place for a footnote - when people in London talk about going to the City, they don't just mean the city of London as a whole, but a specific place within London, namely the business district. Historically, the City refers to the part of London that was encircled by the Roman wall, and for some reason, the name has stuck. Crazy I know, but hey, I don't make the rules.

And what really makes me think that Chris W. was an all-round cool guy is that, if the Monument were to fall (eastwards, I think), the golden flames at the top would land in the exact spot that the Great Fire began - a bakery on Pudding Lane.

The other awesome thing about the Monument is that there are amazing views from the top, at a fraction of the price of the London Eye. Granted, you have to climb to the top yourself, but since climbing all those stairs will guarantee you a P. Middy style derriere, its a win-win. Here are some of my photos from the tipidy-top:

Looking up the Thames to the Tower Bridge.

The City.

So high above the ground!

Looking North (roughly)

Apart for the bad camera quality and a little smog, ENJOY!

Walk on the Wild Side

Ok, so one more tale of Kensington Palace, and one that I think is particularly interesting - the story of Peter the Wild Boy.

Peter was a boy who was found wandering alone in a forest near Hanover in 1725 - he couldn't speak, he could climb trees really fast and he survived on nuts and berries. He managed to escape once, but they managed to catch him again and were about to ship him off to an asylum when George I had him brought to London as a gift for his daughter. The court, and indeed, the whole of the country, was fascinated by this feral boy, and he was actually a huge celebrity in his time. Peter was given a tutor, but never learnt to say anything more than his own name, and was, for all intents and purposes, treated as a pet - he even had a collar with his name on it, in case he wandered off. However, he was treated well by the court, and when they eventually grew tired of him, they sent him to live in the country, where he lived very happily until about the age of 70. He even developed a taste for gin, and when drinking, would sing little songs.

Initally, it was thought that Peter was autistic, but now the theory is that he suffered from Pitt-Hopkins syndrome, a genetic defect, which would explain his mental difficulties, as well as some aspects of his physical appearance, like his cupid's bow mouth. I kind of love Peter, he is a weird little anomaly in the otherwise smooth veneer of palace life.

Knitted throne - awesomeness to the EXTREME!

Just one more Kensington Palace story, its the last one I swear. And if you laugh at this, you will know that you are a true history nerd. When George I came to rule England, after the death of Queen Anne, he planned a beautiful speech, where he intended to introduce himself to the English people by saying: "I have come for the good of you all". What a beautiful sentiment.

However, what he actually said was: "I have come for all your goods". And in a thick German accent (as displayed here by the amazing Sarah Chalke). It went down like a fart in a spacesuit. Can't you just picture it. Ah, history, you gotta love it!

The Guilded Cage

So let me once more distract you from more important matters to regale you with stories of my trip to Kensington Palace.

At the moment, Kensington Palace is being refurbished, so they have set up an awesome exhibition in one of the wings. Its kind of hard to explain - the rooms are decorated thematically to represent seven princesses who were in some way connected to the palace. There are no information signs, with dates and pictures on, instead you have to talk to the people posted in the rooms (called the Explainers) and get information from them. Its all Gothic inspired (with a little bit of steampunk mixed in), and its amazing. Let me take you back to that day....*wavy time travel lines*

The Enchanted Palace

The first of the seven princesses is Mary of Modena, in the Room of Royal Sorrows.

The bottles are supposed to contain the tears she cried after the many miscarriages she experienced trying to produce an heir for her husband, James II. When she finally did fall pregnant, almost everyone thought that she was faking it. One of her ladies in waiting apparently attempted to touch her stomach, and Mary slapped her across the face for even daring to doubt.When the baby was finally born, the palace gossip was that Mary's baby had been born dead, like all the others, and a replacement (a boy, obviously) had been smuggled into the bedchamber in a bed warming pan.  However, James II was deposed not long after and replaced by William of Orange, so the issue of whether the baby was the true heir to the throne was never really an issue after that.  

Then comes Queen Anne, in the Room of the Quarrel.

Anne wasn't very beautiful or very interesting, in fact she was so boring that the photo above isn't from her room because her room was so boring (the photo is actually from the Room of the Children, a really creepy room dedicated to royal children, who were seen and not heard). However, Anne did have an interesting and beautiful best friend, Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Malborough. But Sarah got a bit above herself, thinking that her relationship with Anne would keep her safe. Anne realised she was been taken advantage of, and demanded that Sarah show her the respect that she deserved as a Queen - they had a huge argument and never spoke again. Even queens fall out with their best friends.

Now we get to a much more exciting princess - Caroline of Brunswick in the Room of the World.

George IV, when he married Caroline, was in fact already married, but the marriage hadn't been approved by the King, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and his wife was Catholic, so the marriage was invalid (the whole Catholic thing still exists today - if Kate Middleton had been Catholic, she wouldn't have been able to marry Wills).  With his first marriage invalid, George needed a newer, more repectable, non-Catholic bride, and for some reason, the choice was left up to his first wife, Mrs Fitzherbert. She chose someone she thought George wouldn't like, on the logical assumption that a man who hated his wife would be more faithful to his mistress. And she was right - George's first words on seeing his future wife were: "Jesus Christ, get me a brandy" (I appologise for the language, but in the interests of historical accuracy, I have to leave it in). He then spent the next three days as tight as an owl, had to be propped up at the altar and then spent most of the wedding night asleep next to a fireplace. Apparently, George and Caroline were, how do I put this delicately....more than just friends only three time, and George wrote in his diary that Dutch courage was the only way he could overcome his repulsion to his bride. What a classy guy. However, these three encounters did lead to the birth of Princess Charlotte.

George and Caroline lived separately for the rest of their lives,and Caroline was only allowed to see her daughter once a week and never alone. George continued his classy ways several years later when he had Caroline investigated for adultery in the Delicate Investigation (no joke, that is actually what it was called). The committee of leading politicians found no evidence of Caroline's infidelity, but settled out of court - Caroline was given a whopping 30,000 pounds per year (later raised to an astronomical 50,000 pounds of tax-payer money) if she left Britain and never returned. Caroline kept to this agreement until George's coronation, when she turned up at Westminster Abbey, with a legitimate request to be crowned queen. Armed guards, with their bayonettes pressed to her throat, prevented her entry, until the doors were locked to keep her out. She died weeks later of a stomach complaint, and there were many who suspected that George had her poisoned to keep her from embrassing him further. There were riots when Caroline's funeral cortage was prevented from travelling through the middle of the city, and three members of the public were killed by armed cavalry. Caroline was immensely popular with the British public, mainly because they hated George so much (and rightly so).

Next, we turn to George and Caroline's daughter, the beautiful, free-spirited and vivacious Charlotte, in the Room of Flight.

Charlotte didn't like her father very much (shocking I know, I mean, he was such a nice guy), and nor did she like the man her father picked as her husband - William of Orange (Charlotte thought he looked like a frog). She ran away to her mother's house (hence the Room of Flight), but was convinced to return to her father. She cunningly managed to put William off by accepting his proposal on the condition that her mother had to come and live with them (the mother in law card, putting men off since time immemorial!). Somehow, Charlotte managed to convince her father to let her marry the man she truly loved, Leopold, who was a titled, but dirt poor, Germanic prince. Apparently, they were perfectly matched - not only was he a bit of a looker, he was the perfect counterbalance to her high-spiritedness. A Jane Austen-esque marriage for a true Jane Austen heroine.

Tragically, their happiness was not to last. Charlotte died giving birth to a stillborn baby boy after 50 hours of labour. Her death was caused by the woefully misguided medical opinion of the day - in order to stop Charlotte's nine pound baby from getting any bigger, they forced her to fast and bled her daily, meaning that she was unbelievably weak by the time it came for her to give birth. Several weeks later, the doctor who had attended Charlotte, had another woman die in exactly the same circumstances, and he went straight downstairs, pulled a gun out of his bag, and shot himself in the head. After Charlotte's death, the whole country went into intense mourning - shops shut for three weeks and London ran out of black cloth.



There was one positive thing to come out of Charlotte's death - the lack of a direct heir eventually resulted in the accession to the throne of Britain's longest serving monarch, Queen Victoria in the Room of the Sleeping Princess.

It was in this very room  that Victoria was awoken by her mother at 2am to learn that her uncle had died and she was now Queen of England. Victoria had quite an unhappy childhood, manipulated by her mother who saw Victoria as a vehicle for her own power. But all that changed when she met her cousin Albert and fell in love. Because of her higher status, it was Victoria who had to propose to Albert, and they then enjoyed 21 years of happy marriage with nine children. However, Albert died at the age of 42, and Victoria never really recovered - she wore black for the rest of her life, isolated herself from the public and for many years, made her servants put hot water and fresh towels in Albert's room each morning. Aside from her rather rigid views on morality, Victoria was one of the greatest monarchs Britain had ever seen, ensuring that the sun never set on the British Empire. She cemented her legacy by marrying her children and grandchildren into almost all of the European monarchies, most famously her granddaughter Alexandra was married to the Tsar of Russia and was killed, along with the rest of her family, during the Russian Revolution.

This brings us to the last two princesses, who share the Room of the Dancing Princesses:

Princess Margaret

Note the Red Shoes reference.

and Princess Diana

Princess Margaret (the sister of the current Queen) was a groundbreaker in the royal family - hers was the first royal wedding broadcast on tv and she also was the first royal divorced since 1901. Both she and Diana essentially lived the same life - both had their lives closely followed by the press, were praised for their dress sense and criticised for their lovers. Diana's story is more well known, but it mirrored Margaret's in many respects.

The common theme that runs through the lives of all of these women is that love was fleeting, something that their status made almost impossible to obtain. They lived beautiful, but ultimately tragic, lives.

This exhibition has brought to life, not only the lives of those who lived there, but of the building itself. The Gothic feel, combined with a history which one couldn't invent if one tried, has resulted in a beautiful and fascinating exhibition which I would recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in history.