Under the restored Stuarts the Palace became once more the scene of brilliant Court doings. Here King Charles brought his bride, Catherine of Braganza, and here took place the contest which preceded that Queen's acceptance of Charles's mistress, Lady Castlemaine, as one of her attendant ladies. An important development of the surroundings of the Palace was made by Charles the Second in slightly shortening the Long Canal and bordering it with avenues of limes, thus providing for later generations a lovely vista from the east front of the buildings.
Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, the diverse diarists to whom we owe so much of our intimate knowledge of their time, were both frequently here, and both have left us characteristic passages about it; Evelyn enlarging upon the art treasures and the gardens, Pepys noting that "it was pretty to see the young, pretty ladies".
[1] In the preface to his reprint of Daniel's Masque, Mr. Ernest Law has pieced together, from contemporary letters and other documents, a very full account of a scene the splendour of which can be but hinted at here.
It is with the coming of William the Third and Mary to rule the kingdom, a work for which James the Second had proved himself unfit, that Hampton Court came to be formed as we know it now. King James seems never to have stayed in the Palace after his accession, but his daughter and her husband soon made of it a favourite and favoured residence. It is to William and Mary that the Palace owes its beautiful galleries and many of the art treasures in them. Calling to his aid Sir Christopher Wren, King William resolved to rebuild a large part of the great Tudor palace, and mould it nearer to his heart's desire. A considerable part of the place was entirely demolished, comprising the whole series of buildings around the Cloister Green Court, and forming the south-eastern portion in which were the royal rooms that formed the residential centre of the extensive palace. Where this large part of the old edifice had been razed Wren erected, in striking contrast to the Tudor portions left standing north and west of it, the Renaissance building, which is probably remembered by many visitors as the chief feature of Hampton Court. Contrasting strongly with the earlier portions of the Palace the new fronts and the beautiful Fountain Court yet do not clash with them, thanks to the way in which the architect carried out his work.