e done by the least thoughtful in any such conflict. We may,
to-day particularly, regret the destruction of the stained glass in
the windows of the Great Hall, but in defence of the iconoclasts it
must be remembered that stained glass was associated by them with
those aspects of religion which they were banded together to
overthrow. Destruction is one of the most persistent of primitive
instincts, and should such an outbreak as that of the sixteenth
century occur again--there would again be wanton destruction.

Under the Commonwealth Hampton Court of course saw none of the
pageantry to which kings and queens had accustomed it, but on 18
November, 1657, it was here that Oliver Cromwell's daughter, Mary, was
married to Lord Falconbridge, and the nuptials were honoured with "Two
Songs" from the pen of Andrew Marvell, in one of which the poet used
the courtly conceit applicable to a November marriage of:

"They have chosen such an hour
When she is the only flower."

In August of the following year the Protector's other daughter, his
favourite one, it is said, Mrs. Elizabeth Claypole, died at Hampton
Court, and the grieved father was taken ill of the malady of which
less than a month later he died at Whitehall. In the _Journal_ of Fox
the Quaker occurs the following striking passage about a meeting with
Cromwell. "I met him riding into Hampton Court Park, and before I came
to him, as he rode at the head of his life guard, I saw and felt a
waft of death go forth against him, and when I came to him he looked
like a dead man."

[Illustration: MASTER CARPENTER'S COURT]

After Oliver Cromwell's death it was proposed that Hampton Court
Palace should be sold, but the supporters of the Commonwealth under
Richard Cromwell were at loggerheads on the subject, one party
thinking that the place should be reserved "for the retirement of
those that were engaged in Public affairs, when they should be
indisposed in the summer season", the other, "that such places might
justly be accounted amongst those things that prove temptations to
ambitious men, and exceedingly tend to sharpen their appetite to
ascend the Throne". To-day we may say that it is fortunate that the
first party won the day, and the Parliament duly ordered "that the
House called Hampton Court, with the outhouses and gardens thereunto
belonging, and the little park where it stands, be stayed from
sale, until the Parliament takes further order". Still the Parliam