It has already been noted that Charles II was hospitably entertained in Holland at his sister’s court during part of his exile. We have also seen that James II was a connoisseur in Oriental art products. When the daughter of the latter, Mary, married her cousin William and settled down in Holland, her mind was fully receptive to Dutch tastes and ways of living. When she became Queen of England, on the exile of her father, it was a Dutch palace into which she transformed Hampton Court, that splendid enforced gift of Wolsey’s to Henry VIII. The English student, therefore, need not cross the Channel to study Dutch interior decoration and furniture of the close of the seventeenth century. The majority of the rooms and grounds are still practically in the same condition as they were when inhabited by William and Mary, under whose direct orders the work was designed and supervised by Marot and Sir Christopher Wren. A considerable amount of the Marot furniture still survives there. Defoe tells us in his _Tour_ (1724): [Illustration: PLATE XLIX.—_Mirrors and Sconces, by Marot._ ] “Her Majesty (Mary) had here a fine apartment (Hampton Court), with a set of lodgings for her private retreat only, but most exquisitely furnished, particularly a fine chintz bed, then a great curiosity; another of her own work while in Holland, very magnificent, and several others; and here also was Her Majesty’s fine collection of delft ware, which indeed was very large and fine; and here was also a vast stock of fine china-ware, the like whereof was not then to be seen in England; the long gallery, as above, was filled with this china, and every other place where it could be placed with advantage.” Although an Englishwoman, Mary had all the virtues and tastes of a Dutch _vrouw_. She kept her husband informed of all that happened from day to day, bewailed his absence and neglect, and busied herself and her Maids of Honour with needlework, and, perhaps, with tenderly dusting her cherished porcelain. When in London, she used to spend many an hour and all her pocket money shopping at the India houses and in the New Exchange. She set the fashion for china-mania, and may well have inspired Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s lines: “What shall I do to spend the hateful day ... Strait then I’ll dress and take my wonted range Thro’ India shops, to Motteux’s, or the Change, Where the tall jar erects its stately pride, With antique shapes in China’s azure dyed; There careless lies a rich brocade unrolled, Here shines a cabinet with burnished gold. But then, alas! I must be forced to pay, And bring no penn’orths, not a fan away!”