Page:Hutton, William Holden - Hampton Court (1897).djvu/66

22 VIII When we turn back to look at the great Palace as a whole, we are met at once by the fact that we cannot adequately consider Wolsey's buildings to-day in the light in which he intended them to be viewed. Time and change have altered their whole setting. Not only is the Cloister Green Court, and not a little beside it, pulled down, but the outer buildings and the surroundings generally are entirely altered. The tilt-yard, for instance, is barely recognisable. The charming tower that stands in the midst of the east side is but a reminiscence.

And if we do not see Wolsey's buildings and Henry VIII.'s as they left them, neither do we know what they were designed to be. We have no full plans; and more than that, the name of Wolsey's architect has yet to be discovered, though perhaps it is not undiscoverable. Masters of the works and clerk comptrollers are mentioned in the accounts; but of the man who made the designs for the splendid building there is no trace. It is by no means improbable that Wolsey himself made the plans, and left the carrying out of details to the skilled workmen of that age of artistic excellence. Eustace Mascall was in 1534 "clerk of the cheque in the King's works at Hampton Court;" but there is nothing to show that he was architect.

When we come to the reconstruction the contrast is great. We know the architect—perhaps the greatest