with the news of Wolsey's death,
and the bluff King paid his old and too loyal servant the tribute of
saying that he would rather have given L20,000 than he had died. The
King did not, however, let any sentiment about the builder of Hampton
Court trouble him long or interfere with his plans.

[Illustration: A CORNER OF WOLSEY'S KITCHEN]

When the monarch came into full possession of Hampton Court he soon
converted the lease into freehold by arrangements with the Knights
Hospitaller, and at once set about having it made yet more magnificent
than before. Among his improvements was the erection of the Great
Hall--one of the finest buildings of the kind belonging to the Tudor
period that remain to us; he rebuilt, or at any rate considerably
altered, the Chapel, and made many other changes in the Palace. His
additions and alterations may sometimes be recognized by the
working of his monogram and those of his wives into the decoration, as
in the roof of Anne Boleyn's Gateway, where that unhappy lady's
initial is to be seen. For though this roof is a modern restoration,
it is a restoration believed to be in accordance with the original
design. Such evidence is not therefore always conclusive, for
sometimes the monograms are not contemporary records--as in the
windows of the Great Hall where the stained glass, full of such
personal allusions, is all modern, having been put in between sixty
and seventy years ago. Those responsible for the replacing, after a
long interval, of the glass that had been destroyed when all
concerning royalty was out of favour, worked in monograms and devices
in a way that misleads many visitors, some of whom seeing "H" and "J"
in the glass, too rashly assume that it dates from the time when Jane
Seymour was the much married monarch's queen.

When Anne Boleyn's ambition was gratified and she was made Henry's
second queen--vice Katherine of Arragon, divorced--Hampton Court
became for a time a scene of royal revelling. It was not so for long,
however, for already the King's passion was cooling. It was at Hampton
Court that King Henry's hopes of a son and heir were disappointed for
the third time, when, early in 1536, Anne there gave birth to a
still-born child. In the following May the unhappy Queen's brief
triumph was brought to a tragic close by the sword of the executioner
on Tower Hill, and on the very next day King Henry was formally
betrothed to Jane Seymour. In October of the following year Q