The Children Are Coming! RUN!

It was a dark and stormy night… er– morning… when we arrived at Hampton Court.  As soon as we passed through the tall iron gates it began to pour.  How foreboding. 

We had hardly had time to stand in awe in the courtyard, looking up at the Tudor architecture with its crazy chimneys, before we heard the little monsters.  We turned simultaneously to see them coming in hordes: Hundreds and hundreds of children.

A school day at Hampton Court is a crazy one.  Every primary school in the UK and in France seemed to have sent their little kids to learn about King Henry VIII.  They were seriously at every turn.  We would be walking down an empty stone hallway just do be mowed over by a sudden gushing tidal wave of tiny bodies.  Once you were trapped in the middle of them you were in danger of drowning!  They weren’t afraid to step on you.

“Aaaah!  The children are coming!”  That became our warning cry throughout the day.  If we walked into a room full of children we quickly turned and half sprinted in the other direction.

Hampton Court was home to a few monarchs, but the most famous (or infamous) is King Henry VIII.  The old palace puts on a show, recreating the day that the King married his sixth wife, Kateryn Parr.  So throughout the day we met ladies-in-waiting, servants, and even the King and soon-to-be Queen.  I couldn’t help but notice how differently the English view King Henry.  I grew up thinking he was a villain.  But it seems that the English feel sympathy for him.  I mean, the poor guy really could have used eHarmony, I suppose…

We explored the castle, although there is little left there from the Tudor period.  The kitchens probably had the most artifacts.  But we didn’t stay there long because… well as you can see, the children were coming.

But one part of the castle was still kept as it had been during the reign of King George II in the 1600s and early 1700s.  Rope barriers protected most of the satin chairs, which had been sat upon by royal rears.  

King George kept a few of Henry’s decorations around, such as his tapestries.  The tapestries were the coolest.  Made of silk, they were strong enough to hold up two double-decker buses when they were first crafted.  Now, however, one tug could have them unraveled and bring them crashing down.  They’re hardly able to hold up their own weight and have lost a lot of color, but they’re still awesome.

And for any of you history buffs out there, King George II’s grandson would have been to the palace also, and would have also been the King during the American Revolutionary War: King George III.  He went insane before he died.

In the afternoon Sarah and I grabbed a medieval lunch of lintel soup with a very generous portion of partially stale bread.  We even got to eat it in the same kitchen as the servants would have.  Honored, really.

For dessert we bought some candy canes on the other side of the King's wine cellar.  Have I mentioned Sarah loves Christmas?

Later we saw parts of William III and Mary II’s apartments. What was unusual about William was that he preferred to keep his life out of the public eye.  I wonder what he would say now to know that his private toilet is on display for the world to see. 

Looks comfortable, doesn’t it?  But I would have hated to be the one to empty it.  I prefer modern plumbing, velvet seat or no.

William and Mary of Orange had to have a room of oranges, of course.  And here I am skipping down that room and imagining how good it would have smelled filled with orange trees.  Better than William’s little private room.

Sarah and I had been left as the last ones to leave Hampton Court.  We tend to stay longer at palaces.  Even the herds of children had dispersed.  It was getting dark and the wet had turned into ice.  On our way our of a King Henry VIII exhibit, we were stopped by a blocky older man with a thin cane.  He wore a costume and a nametag, and was obviously bored of his job.  He had noticed our accents and wanted to talk about America.  You know; Obama, Mexican food, Arizona’s sun compared to their “bloody cold weather”, etc.  Slowly, Sarah and I tried to inch our way to the exit.

Nice old man… chatty old man too.  He hobbled after us, determined not to let his company leave him.  I’m thinking he may have been desperately lonely.  So I began asking him deep and complicated questions about King Henry and whether or not what happened to his wives was fair.  Apparently his initial divorce from Catharine of Aragon is generally seen as necessary.  She had given birth to several stillborns and the only son that had made it into the world alive had died shortly thereafter.  Henry needed an heir, so of course it was necessary for Henry to banish Catharine to Scotland and forbid her from ever seeing her daughter Mary ever again.  Right?

After my head had been talked off, we were able to politely slip away from our old friend who told us that he would be happy to escort us to the train station if it weren’t for that old bad leg of his.  

And no, this picture is not suggesting that we were willing to wheel him along for good company.

I got an amazing cup of hot chocolate to keep myself warm as we waited on the platform for our train back to London.  They plopped a stick of Cadbury chocolate right through the thick whipped cream- the same stick that they use for my favorite soft served ice cream.  But the hot chocolate was warm enough that the stick just melted in my mouth.  Oooh… I’m considering going all the way back out there and braving the monstrous kids again just to get some of that hot chocolate.

That night we saw Phantom of the Opera.  AMAZING!  It was cool to see it on the original stage, in Her Majesty’s Theater.  The effects were so cool and the phantom had the best voice I’ve ever heard.  I’d go see it again in a heartbeat.  So would Ci-Cong, who has actually already seen it four times since she has been here.  I will miss the theaters.