CANTO 10
HAMPTON COURT
“THE MORNING BEFORE I CROSSED THE THAMES…”
Act Two: the poet reflects on his lost love in Milan…
NOTES:
“AT HAMPTON COURT I SAW ROME IN RUINS”
The building of Hampton Court Palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chief minister of Henry VIII. Originally conceived in the Italian Renaissance style it was gifted to the king in 1529 as Wolsey fell from favour. Henry VIII’s modifications, perhaps symbolic of his ‘divorce’ from Rome, were raised in the English Tudor style. Little of the original building remains today.
BODY 115 