The year was 1528 and Cardinal Tomas Wolsey lord chancellor to King Henry VIII, was in trouble. He had failed to obtain a papal annulment of the King’s first marriage, which Henry was desperate to secure so he could marry his new paramour, Anne Boleyn. Wolsey’s vast palace at Hampton Court, which at that time lay around ten miles southwest of London, passed to Henry – hence Hampton Court Palace became the backdrop for successive Tudor dramas.
Wolsey’s Great Gatehouse, originally five storeys, was reduced to three in 1838
GETTY IMAGES X3, HISTORIC ROYAL PALACES X4
GETTING THERE