The Princess of Denmark, afterwards Queen Anne, in this palace gave birth on July 24, 1689, to the Duke of Gloucester, who died at eleven years of age, and thus made room for the House of Brunswick. Anne occasionally resided here after her accession to the throne. The Great Hall had in Queen Elizabeth’s time been used as a theatre; it was fitted up for a similar purpose by George I. in 1718. It was intended that plays should have been acted there twice a week during the summer season by the King’s company of comedians, but the theatre was not ready till nearly the end of September, and only seven plays were performed in it in that season. The first play, acted on September 23, was ’Hamlet.’ On October 1, curiously enough, ’Henry VIII., or the Fall of Wolsey,’ was represented on the very spot which had been the scene of his greatest splendour, recalling the events of the life of the founder of the princely pile. The King paid the charges of the representation and the travelling expenses of the actors, amounting to £50 a night, besides which he made a present of £200 to the managers for their trouble. It was never afterwards used but once for a play, performed on October 16, 1731, for the entertainment of the Duke of Lorraine, afterwards Emperor of Germany; but the fittings were not removed till the year 1798. In 1829 the parish of Hampton obtained permission of George IV. to fit up the hall for divine service during the rebuilding of Hampton Church, and it was so used for about two years. George II. but seldom visited Hampton Court, and George III. preferred Kew Palace. From his time no Sovereign has occupied Hampton Court as a royal residence. On November 4, 1793, Richard Tickell, a political writer, who had apartments in Hampton Court Palace, had been accustomed to sit and read on a parapet wall or kind of platform in one of the upper rooms. The spot was filled with flower-pots. On the day in question, while his carriage was waiting to take him and his family to town, his wife having left him for a moment, on her return missed him, and going to the open window, saw her husband lying in the garden below on the ground. Before she could reach him, he had expired. How the accident happened can never be known. He was said to have committed suicide, but there was no assignable reason for such an act. The famous vine at Hampton Court, the largest in Europe, was planted from a slip in the year 1768. Its fruit, the black Hamburg kind, is reserved exclusively for the Queen’s table. The writer of a ’Tour of England,’ in 1798, says: ’In these gardens is a most remarkably large vine.... The gardener told me 1,550 bunches of grapes are now hanging upon it, the whole weight of which is estimated at 972 cwt.’ It bears the same number of bunches, that is, from 1,500 to 2,000, now.