BUCKINGHAM PALACE

By Hugo Vickers

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Buckingham Palace presents an inscrutable facade. It possesses a composite aura of authority, much as the White House does in America. The edifice has come to embody the voice of royalty; statements issued to the world from behind these walls begin with the words ‘Buckingham Palace announced today. . . .’ In addition to its role as a palace and Queen Elizabeth II’s official London home, it also serves as the Sovereign’s office, where she entertains Heads of State, receives citizens, and holds investitures. During the present reign, Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton have been entertained here, and the Duchess of Windsor stayed for several days following the Duke’s death in 1972.

Henry VIII first chose this part of London as the home of royalty when he settled in Cardinal Wolsey’s Palace, Whitehall. Later, he moved to the present St. James’s Palace and drained the marshy land to the south, creating St. James’s Park. From the River Tyburn that ran through Green Park, he created the lakes that now adorn the grounds of Buckingham Palace and St. James’s Park. It is remarkable, centuries later, to find these 40 acres of still-undeveloped land in the centre of a thriving city.

Lord Goring of Hurstpierpoint built a house, the forerunner to the present palace, in about 1640. It passed through various hands before coming into the possession of the Duke of Buckingham, a suitor of Queen Anne. Here, he built Buckingham House in 1703, generally deemed the finest house in London, with the mall stretching before it through St. James’s Park. After his death in 1731, George II approached the Duke’s widow with an offer to buy it, but it was George III who finally closed the deal in 1762, paying £28,000. The King, one of the greatest book collectors in the history of England, created a fine library in the house.

In 1775, George gave Buckingham House to Queen Charlotte and thereafter it became known as ‘The Queen’s House’. George III spent his twilight years at Windsor Castle, suffering from the well-known effects of his porphyria.

George IV contributed greatly to London’s architectural and cultural glory, and like so many enterprising Kings in whose legacy we now rejoice, his contemporaries deemed him profligate and a worry to the Exchequer. He employed the architect John Nash to repair and improve the house, which became Buckingham Palace in 1825. His additions included the Marble Arch, built as the ceremonial entrance to the Palace, which has since been moved to its present site at the northern end of Park Lane. George IV collected many of the finest treasures in the Palace, notably the fabulous Table of the Grand Commanders, commissioned by Napoleon and made of a single piece of Sèvres porcelain, inlaid with portraits of Alexander the Great and others.

Sir John Soane also submitted plans for remodelling Buckingham House. Sir John would have given Londoners a version of the Palace of Versailles, with great arches, columns, plinths, and inner courtyards. Instead, the Palace evolved gradually, first as an eastern facade with south and north wings, and then later with a westerly facade constructed (not very satisfactorily) in the reign of Queen Victoria. Neither George IV nor William IV ever lived in the new palace; William IV took possession on 5th May 1837, only a few weeks before he died. Queen Victoria was the first monarch actually to live there as Queen.

Queen Victoria revelled in her new home, moving there from Kensington Palace. She hosted balls and receptions and from Buckingham Palace she progressed to Westminster Abbey for her Coronation in 1838. After she married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg in 1840, she lived there with her expanding family until the Prince Consort’s death in 1861. Thereafter the place entered a state of decline and for some years looked increasingly derelict and in need of repair.

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