CHAPTER IV KENNINGTON PALACE

No royal house has more completely vanished from sight, and even from memory, than the royal palace of Kennington. Few know that such a palace ever existed, and certainly those who dwell upon its site would require to be possessed of keen imaginations, to realize that once all the pageantry of a medieval Court took place, where to-day monotonous streets crowd upon one another. Yet Parliaments assembled and all the ceremonies of State were performed on a spot not far from where Kennington Park now stands. The whim of royal fancy was the cause of the complete obliteration of the palace, other royal houses pleasing the later Kings more than the one upon Lambeth Marsh. Low-lying ground, only redeemed from complete marshland by the embankment of the river, lay between it and the City of London on the north. As it was not until quite the end of the eighteenth century that houses began to be built upon this district, the land being up till then used as market-gardens, it is not surprising that when the palace was destroyed it soon passed from men's minds, no one living in the neighbourhood. The exact date of the destruction of the palace is not known, but [pg 23] its oblivion was almost complete when Camden, the great antiquarian, wrote in 1607, for he says: "The Royal seat call'd Kennington, whither the Kings of England us'd to retire, the discovery whereof 'tis vain to endeavour after, there appearing neither name nor rubbish to direct us."

Though no vestige of the palace now remains, it is reasonable to conjecture, from the analogy of contemporary palaces which still exist, that Kennington Palace was a fortified building, with a strongly embattled wall and deep moat. Deserted by Henry VIII., who found Eltham and Greenwich more to his taste, the building materials were all sold and the palace razed to the ground. Some kind of Tudor manor-house was built upon the site, for a survey taken about the middle of the seventeenth century describes a building of some fair size. Close to it stood a low stone structure with a thatched roof, known as the "Long Barn," which was thought to be part of the old palace. It stood until 1795, when it was pulled down, removing the last trace of historic interest.

As one loses oneself among the maze of houses and streets of Kennington, it is difficult to believe that in the lost palace which rose above the marsh of long ago Harold Harefoot, the son of Cnut, was crowned, Harthacnut, his brother, died either by treachery or accident, and Henry III. held two Parliaments. But of all the Kings whose memory should haunt the spot, the most to be remembered is Richard II., the handsome, popular, pleasure-loving and magnificent Prince. After the early death of his father, the Black Prince, young Richard had been brought up in the palace by his widowed mother.

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In later years Richard brought his child-wife, the fair Isabella of France, to Kennington Palace, to rest there for the night before she entered London in state. She was then only eight years old, and was never anything more than Queen in name, for long before she was old enough to be a wife her attractive but unwise husband had been murdered by his enemies.