The Palace of St. James, a range of brick and dinginess, stretched before us as we returned to the starting-point of the walk around the park, taking in the Bird-cage Walk, where Charles II. built his aviaries and lounged, Nelly Gwynne, or the Duchess of Portsmouth, at his side, a basket of puppies hung over his lace collar and ruffled cravat. It is not a palatial pile—even to eyes undried from the juice of Puck’s “little western flower.”
“It would still be a very decent abode for the horses of royalty—hardly for their grooms,” said Caput, critically. “And it is worth looking at when one remembers how long bloody Mary lay there, hideous, forsaken, half dead, the cancerous memories of Calais and Philip’s desertion consuming her vitals. There lived and died the gallant boy who was the eldest son of James I. If he had succeeded to the throne his brother Charles would have worn his head more comfortably and longer upon his shoulders. That is, unless, as in the case of Henry VIII., the manhood of the Prince of Wales had belied the promise of early youth.”
“It was in St. James’s Palace that Charles spent his last night,” I interrupted. It takes a long time for the novice to become accustomed to the strange thrill that vibrates through soul and nerves when such reminiscences overtake him, converting the place whereon he stands into holy ground. I was a novice, and rushed on impetuously. “The rooms in which he slept and made his toilet for the scaffold were in the old Manor-house, a wing of the palace since torn down. Why can’t they let things alone? But the park is here, and—” glancing dubiously along the avenues—“it is just possible—altogether possible—that some of these oldest trees may be the same that stood here then. On that morning, when—you remember?—the ground being covered lightly with snow, the king walked with a quick step across the park to Whitehall, calling to the guard, ‘Step on apace, my good fellows!’”
Measuring with careful eye an air line between the palace and a building with a cupola, on the St. James Street side of the park, we turned our steps along this. The dying leaves rustled under our feet, settling sighingly into the path behind us. The “light snow” had muffled the ring of the “quick step” more like the impatient tread of a bridegroom than that of a doomed man shortening the already brief space betwixt him and fate. Within the shadow of Whitehall, we paused.
