Buckingham Palace [antikvár]

BUCKINGHAM PALACE Olwen Hedley SINCE the Norman Conquest four great London palaces, each in turn, have served as the seat of majesty. Westminster, founded by the last Saxon king, Edward the Confessor, yielded its authority to Whitehall in King Henry VIIFs reign, and Whitehall to St. James's a century and a half later. In 1762 King George III's consort, Charlotte of MecklenburgStrelitz, was granted Buckingham House as her priváté home, and on this mansion, the choice of a young and perceptive queen, the full sovereign power of the Crown ultimately devolved. Buckingham Palace today offers no obvious clues to its ancestry. Such as remain are embodied in the State Apartments on the West Front, which, like the gardens beyond, do not ordinarily come within public surveillance. It is the East Front with which the eyes of the world are familiar, and this is a later addition, masking the Quadrangle and Grand Entrance, but presenting a fa?ade of august dignity to the approach along the Mail and St. James's Park. The north and south wings which it facing page: The Grand Staircase. Nash's marble staircase, ascending from the south end of the Grand Hall to the State Apartments, has gilt bronzé balustrading by Sámuel Parker, who alsó made the Corinthian capitals of the columns in the Grand Hall. On either side of the doorway to the Guard Chamber are portraits of William IV and Queen Adelaide. right: The central window of the Balcony Room. On occasions of national rejoicing, the royal family step through this window on to the balcony of the East Front to acknowledge the acclamations of crowds gathered before the palace. The newly completed balcony was first used by Queen Victoria in 1854 when she watched the last Guards battalion march out of the courtyard before leaving for the Crimea. unites represent the originál plan of the palace, which was built around three sides of a courtyard. Tradition maintains a tenuous but pleasing domestic trend on the north side, where the Priváté Apartments occupy the first floor, with windows overlooking Green Park. It was in the north wing of old Buckingham House that Queen Charlotte's children grew up, and here she had somé of her priváté rooms and her flower garden. The earlier historical background of the palace places its site on the Continued on page 4