When the Knights Hospitallers of St. John granted the lease of Hampton Court to Cardinal Wolsey, they were on or before its expiry prepared to renew it; but they never had the chance of doing so, for as in 1540 Henry VIII. suppressed all the monasteries and confiscated their property, the Knights Hospitallers shared that fate, and Hampton Court became royal property. On Henry’s death the palace was chosen by the guardians of Edward VI., then a minor, as his residence; he was placed under the special care of his uncle, the Duke of Somerset, Protector of the Council of Regency. But serious dissensions arose amidst the Council, and it was proposed to deprive the Duke of his royal ward, and an alarm having been given that this was to be done by force, the household and the inhabitants of Hampton armed themselves for the protection of the young King. The Protector, however, removed him to Windsor Castle, lest the Council should obtain possession of his person. In 1550 Edward and his attendants removed from London to Hampton Court, in consequence of an alarm that the ’black death’ had made its appearance there—in fact, two of Edward’s servants were said to have died of it. In 1552 Edward held a chapter of the Order of the Garter at Hampton Court Palace; the knights went to Windsor in the morning, but returned to this palace in the evening, where they were royally feasted, and where Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, was created Duke of Suffolk, and John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, Duke of Northumberland.
In 1553 Mary I. became Queen of England, and in the following year she married Philip, son of the Emperor Charles and heir to the Spanish crown. This alliance with the leading Catholic Power highly displeased the English people, and, in fact, they soon began to feel the effects of Mary’s bigoted adherence to her own, the Roman Catholic, faith. She and her husband passed their honeymoon in gloomy retirement at Hampton Court in 1554, but in 1555 they kept their Christmas there with great solemnity, and the Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, was invited as a guest, though there was little love between the two sisters. At this Christmas festivity the great hall was illuminated with 1,000 lamps. The Princess Elizabeth supped at the same table with their Majesties, next the cloth of state, and after supper was served with a perfumed napkin and plate of comfits by Lord Paget; but she retired with her ladies before the revels, maskings, and disguisings began. On St. Stephen’s Day she was permitted to hear matins, or more likely mass, in the Queen’s closet, where, we are told, she was attired in a robe of white satin, strung all over with large pearls. On December 29 she sat with their Majesties and the nobility at a grand spectacle of jousting, when 200 lances were broken, half the combatants being accoutred as Germans and half as Spaniards.