CHAPTER VII
MEMORIES AND LEGENDS OF TO-DAY
Residents of later days: the families to whom the Crown has given apartments: the Wellesleys: Lady Mornington, the "mother of the Gracchi": the caretaker of the Palace: its condition to-day: its romantic interests: Charles I.: Catherine Howard: the White Lady: Mrs. Penn: ghost stories: the artistic pictures on the verge of the twentieth century: a picture of the future by William Morris.
Hampton Court, the most homely of English palaces, has now become the most interesting of all English dwelling-houses. In no other certainly are to be found members of so many families distinguished in the service of the Crown and the State. Since the accession of George III., the custom of assigning private apartments to persons favoured by the sovereign has been continued without intermission, and the Palace has ceased, apparently for ever, to be a royal residence. Among the personages of royal blood who have since that date resided there was William, Stadtholder of the Netherlands, who fled from Holland in 1795; and in 1880 the Queen gave the beautiful apartments of the Lady-Housekeeper in the south-west wing of the west front (of which Mr. Railton has given a charming
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