The Palace - From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 Years of British History at Hampton Court

Having fond memories of visiting Hampton Court Palace back in the 1970s, I was interested to see The Palace - From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 Years of British History at Hampton Court (#1,258) appear on my monthly library Recommended Reads list.  Naturally, I checked it out and spent some entertaining hours perusing its pages.

Gareth Russell's book skips through the different monarchs, condensing factual events and emphasizing the juicier bits of gossip about the people (of all different social classes) who lived at Hampton Court at some time, or participated in events there which reverberate to the present day.  Despite having read a fair amount of British history, I still learned a surprising amount of information which was quite new to me.  Probably anyone who has even a passing interest in Henry VIII and his messy marriages knows about Katherine Howard's desperate bid to reach him at Hampton before her execution - hence one of the "ghostly" legends.  But more importantly, it was at Hampton Court that the King James version of the Bible was put into motion through meetings held in chambers which no longer exist, thanks to renovations.  From the trivial to the profound, you will find it here in Mr. Russell's book.

I did read this book with two bookmarks: one to mark my place in the chapters, and one to mark the chapter's corresponding footnotes as I read.  There's enough information in the footnotes to make it worthwhile to review them.

It's an interesting concept to present history through the building where it took place (although it did wander quite far from Hampton Court at times!).  If you're an Anglophile, you'll probably love it, even though it does lean more towards the Tudors & Stuarts than the Bridgerton era Hanoverians.