Page:Hutton, William Holden - Hampton Court (1897).djvu/45

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THE CONFESSIONARY
9

quatrefoils of the centre are the badges of Anne, and her initial joined in a true love-knot with that of Henry VIII. At the left goes up the staircase to the great hall. The exterior of the hall takes up the whole of the north side of the court. Low down are small windows, which light the cellars, then a great expanse of wall below the great windows. Between each window rise strong buttresses, which pass above the battlements and terminate in small pinnacles. At the east end of the north side are the two large windows of three lights which go from floor to ceiling of the dais. The hall is Henry VIII.'s work, not Wolsey's.

The Clock-tower behind has Wolsey's arms, and the rooms of the Cardinal himself stretched along from the Clock-tower to the southern extremity of the building. These are all now in private occupation. They preserve not a little of their ancient features of interest. The fine mullioned windows, the rich panelled ceilings, often gilded and highly coloured, the decorations recalling the Cardinal's own living in them—the hat, crosses, and poleaxes, the motto "Dominus Michi Adivtor"—the charming panelling of different forms of the linenfold pattern, preserve the appearance of the rooms when their great builder still lived in them. There is one delightful room, rich with no inconsiderable remnants of beautiful decoration,—it has been identified with the "Confessary,"—which is especially interesting for its preservation of the ancient features.

The "Confessionary," as Horace Walpole calls it in