Today's Flickr photo with the most hits: the roof trusses and bosses of the barrel-vault in the Great Hall of Henry VIII, Hampton Court.

Today’s Flickr photo with the most hits: the Tudor kitchen at Hampton Court. Pity the poor kitchen boys who had to turn those roasting spits. 

A Spellbound Palace (Hampton Court)

Thomas Hardy

On this kindly yellow day of mild low-travelling winter sun The stirless depths of the yews Are vague with misty blues: Across the spacious pathways stretching spires of shadow run, And the wind-gnawed walls of ancient brick are fired vermilion.

Two or three early sanguine finches tune Some tentative strains, to be enlarged by May or June: From a thrush or blackbird Comes now and then a word, While an enfeebled fountain somewhere within is heard.

Our footsteps wait awhile, Then draw beneath the pile, When an inner court outspreads As ’twere History’s own aisle, Where the now-visioned fountain its attenuate crystal sheds In passive lapse that seems to ignore the yon world’s clamorous clutch, And lays an insistent numbness on the place, like a cold hand’s touch.

And there swaggers the Shade of a straddling King, plumed, sworded, with sensual face, And lo, too, that of his Minister, at a bold self-centred pace: Sheer in the sun they pass; and thereupon all is still, Save the mindless fountain tinkling on with thin enfeebled will.

Satirical Poem about Cardinal Wolsey

Sir John Skelton

“In the Chancery, where he sits,

But such as he admits,

None so hardy to speek!

He saith, “Thou hoddipeke,

They learning is too lewd,

Thy tongue is not well-thewd

To seek before our Grace!’

And openly, in that place,

He rages and he raves,

And calls them ‘cankered knaves’!

Thus royally he doth deal

Under the King’s broad seal;

And in the Chequer he them checks

And in the Star Chamber he nods and he becks,

And beareth him there so stout

That no man dare rowt!

Duke, earl, baron nor lord,

But to his sentence must accord;

Whether he be knight or squire,

All men must follow his desire.

Why come ye not to court?

To which court?

To the King’s court,

Or to Hampton Court?

Nay, to the king’s court!

The King’s court

Should have excellence

But Hampton Court

Hath the pre-eminence,

And York’s Place,

With my Lord’s Grace!

To whose magnificence

Is all the confluence,

Suits and supplications,

Embassades of all nations.”

Today’s Flickr photo with the most hits - this detail from a tapestry in William III’s apartments in Hampton Court Palace. 

Upon My Lady Carlisle’s Walking in Hampton Court Garden

Sir John Suckling

DIALOGUE

T.C. J.S.

Thom.

Didst thou not find the place inspired, And flowers, as if they had desired No other sun, start from their beds, And for a sight steal out their heads? Heardst thou not music when she talked? And didst not find that as she walked She threw rare perfumes all about, Such as bean-blossoms newly out, Or chafèd spices give?—

J.S.

I must confess those perfumes, Tom, I did not smell; nor found that from Her passing by ought sprung up new. The flowers had all their birth from you; For I passed o’er the self-same walk And did not find one single stalk Of anything that was to bring This unknown after-after-spring.

Thom.

Dull and insensible, couldst see A thing so near a deity Move up and down, and feel no change?

J.S.

None, and so great, were alike strange; I had my thoughts, but not your way. All are not born, sir, to the bay. Alas! Tom, I am flesh and blood, And was consulting how I could In spite of masks and hoods descry The parts denied unto the eye. I was undoing all she wore, And had she walked but one turn more, Eve in her first state had not been More naked or more plainly seen.

Thom.

’Twas well for thee she left the place; There is great danger in that face. But hadst thou viewed her leg and thigh, And upon that discovery Searched after parts that are more dear (As fancy seldom stops so near), No time or age had ever seen So lost a thing as thou hadst been.

Today’s photo with the most hits - a spot of Real Tennis @ Hampton Court Palace

This image is from Hampton Court - the King’s Stairs, in the Palace of William and Mary. Might possibly be a bit of a propaganda piece :-)