Kew Gardens. A. R. Hope Moncrieff

used as the royal nursery, later on for the education of the older sons: and for a time it came to be known as the Prince of Wales’s House. Even then there was not accommodation for the dozen or so of youngsters who spent much of their childhood at Kew; and we hear of the King leasing or buying houses on Kew Green, where his flock of princes and princesses could be brought up in good air, the old Kew House serving always as the family rendezvous. In the grounds, towards the Richmond Park side, Charlotte built the picturesque “Queen’s Cottage,” where this industrious lady would ply her needle with her children about her, while the King read aloud, often from Shakespeare, for whom he professed a truly British admiration, though, as he told Miss Burney, the great poet’s works contained “much sad stuff—only one must not say so!”

      At the beginning of George III.’s reign, the present Kew Palace is found described as “Princess Amelia’s House,” so George II.’s old-maid daughter, whose proposed marriage with Frederick the Great fell through, as Carlyle has told at length, must have lived here for a time; but she soon moved to Gunnersbury, not far off. This wilful Princess Amelia, who had faults and merits of her own, held the office of Ranger of Richmond Great Park, that brought her into collision with the public. She tried to keep the gates shut against both gentle and simple, but found that she was living in a free country, when one Lewis, a Richmond brewer, took the lead in an action for right-of-way, which would have gone against her, had George II. not anticipated the result by throwing the Park open.

      Having thus marked out all the royal residences in and about Kew, let us next fix our attention on Kew House during the period when it was the favourite residence of George III.