Meanwhile the Dutch House had become even more closely associated with the royal family than its opposite neighbour. It was occupied for some time by Queen Caroline, consort of George II., and in 1781 was bought by George III. for Queen Charlotte, who brought up her large family in it, for which reason it became known, first, as the Royal {224} Nursery, and later as the Princes' House. It was in it that the unfortunate king was shut up when he lost his reason, whilst his wife and children resided in Kew House, and when the latter was pulled down the Dutch House became the chief suburban residence of the royal family. In its drawing-room, fitted up for the occasion as a chapel, were married, on July 11, 1818, the royal brothers, the Dukes of Clarence and Kent, the latter the future father of Queen Victoria, who was born in 1819 in Kensington Palace. In it, too, on November 1818, Queen Charlotte died, and from that time the house was comparatively neglected. It is still the property of the Crown, is kept in good repair, and remains a noteworthy example of sixteenth-century domestic architecture, but it is never likely to be again used as a royal residence. On the other hand the gardens connected with it have become even more beautiful than they were in the time of the Georges. They were given to the nation by Queen Victoria in 1841, and since then, under the able direction of the distinguished botanists Sir William Hooker, his son Sir Joseph Hooker, Sir W. Thisselton Dyer, and their successors, they have become not only an endless source of delight to thousands of sightseers, but also a centre of scientific research. In the museums are preserved examples of a vast number of vegetable products, so that they form, with the infinite variety of growing plants in the grounds and houses, an all but perfect epitome of botany. Moreover, until quite recently, the Observatory, situated on the land filched for a time by George III. from the Richmond {225} Deer Park, was for many years noted for the good astronomical work done in it, but unfortunately, though the building is still standing, the savants, who for so long studied the heavenly bodies from it, have been driven away by the electric trams running between Brentford and Twickenham, that caused such an oscillation of the delicate instruments in use that the accuracy of the observations taken was destroyed. Kew now knows the astronomers no more; they have taken refuge in a remote district in Dumfriesshire, where as yet no tramways disturb their peace, their departure marking the beginning of a new era for the neighbourhood in which they worked so long, and where commercial enterprise has won a complete, though somewhat inglorious, victory over science.