‘The Palace’ Review: Where Royals Once Roosted
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Today most of the world associates the home of the British royal family with the imposing facade of London’s Buckingham Palace, or the 11th-century Norman fortress of Windsor Castle in Berkshire, where Elizabeth II spent her last years. But, over two eventful centuries, some of the greatest achievements and worst excesses of British history unfolded at the sprawling royal estate of Hampton Court. A redbrick colossus, with high Tudor chimneys on one side and a baroque facade on the other, the palace overlooks the River Thames, 12 miles from central London. It has been the setting for decades of political turmoil, religious dispute, scandal and intrigue.
In “The Palace,” the historian Gareth Russell traces Hampton Court’s evolution through Tudor, Stuart, Hanover and Windsor reigns. Readers who aren’t already steeped in the lore of the British aristocracy may find it a challenge to sort through the dizzying number of dukes, duchesses, ambassadors, princes, kings, mistresses, stable boys, lamplighters and chocolatiers who flit in and out of these pages. Moreover Mr. Russell, a meticulous researcher, sometimes takes off on a tangent with extraneous detail. But it’s worth staying the course.
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