Last Day in the UK
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“A traitor is everyone who does not agree with me.”
Wednesday, August 30, 2023, was destined to be an epic day for us on so many levels:
Our last full day in the UK
Last day with a rental car
Repacking to travel to Paris
In early May we visited Powerscourt Gardens in County Wicklow, Ireland. We had certainly never heard of the gardens before our trip, so we clearly had not read National Geographic's Top 10 Gardens list. It was during our visit to Powerscourt that we read it was ranked #3.
With a plan in place to visit Château de Versailles in Versailles, France (#1) on September 1, there really was only one choice for us today—we had to visit Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew near London (#2).
Because we needed somewhere to hold our luggage, we held onto the rental car for a few more hours and drove to Kew Gardens.
Kew Gardens
As you can imagine, we were kind of “palaced out” at this point. So when we saw that Kew Palace was just inside the Elizabeth Gate, we decided to make a quick run through the place and then get on with the gardens.
Above and below is what is known as Dutch House, one of the remaining parts of a once large complex.
Despite how much we’ve learned about England, we continue to display our ignorance in spectacular fashion.
This past May we watched the Netflix series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, a spinoff series which focused on the character Queen Charlotte from Bridgerton.
Little did we realize, in 1804, it was to Kew Palace that the King—accompanied by Queen Charlotte and their daughters—came for the treatment of his mental and physical illnesses.
So, if you watched the series, it was all set at this palace.
Dutch House (right) and the service wing (left) in which George III was housed in 1804. His treatment in the service wing was physically painful and many of the so-called treatments we would now consider inhumane. After the treatments in 1804, George never lived at Kew again.
Showing George III as a farmer was a favorite of the political cartoonists of the time. Just like the TV series showed, George spent much time on his estates looking after his farmland. He took this very seriously and was forever finding new ways to grow crops efficiently or to improve livestock. He even published articles on farming in the journal Annals of Agriculture under the pseudonym “Ralph Robinson of Windsor.”
Whatever was at the root of George’s madness, he was in his lifetime a very popular king. Far from the mad monarch and tyrant of the American imagination, George was a wise, fair, and popular monarch whose support for and promotion of Britain and the arts and sciences during his reign made him amongst the most enlightened and forward-thinking kings in Europe.
That he was stricken with an illness which today could have been treated with medicine and cognitive behavioral therapy is a tragic consequence of his living during a less knowledgeable and less caring age.
In April 1801 Dr Francis Willis tricked George into remaining at Kew for treatment. He brought him into this morning room under the guise of asking him about the self-portrait by Van Dyck, then placed above the fireplace.
The King realized that he was being tricked and shouted, “Sir, I will never forgive you whilst I live.” He jumped from his chair and attempted to flee the room, but the doctor's men blocked the door. In 1804 George eventually agreed to be treated at Kew, but only if his family could remain nearby.
George’s granddaughter Queen Victoria had the service wing torn down years later.
Despite having 15 children, George III had no legitimate grandchildren after his only granddaughter, Princess Charlotte's death during childbirth. His sons and daughters were middle-aged, childless or had only illegitimate children (at least 56 of them).
To ensure a legitimate heir, William, Duke of Clarence and Edward, Duke of Kent, made quick and convenient marriages to suitable German princesses. This would result in the birth of Alexandrina Victoria who was later crowned Queen Victoria in 1837.
On July 11, 1818, a temporary altar was set up and a double wedding took place here in this room. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg (parents to the future Queen Victoria) and Prince William, Duke of Clarence married Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. The wedding was held here rather than in more grand surroundings because Queen Charlotte was too ill to travel.
George III and his eldest son, Prince George, had a difficult relationship. The King disapproved of the Prince's love affairs and spending habits.
The Prince tried to take power during the King's illnesses and in 1804 they disagreed over the education of the Prince’s daughter, Charlotte.
However, that autumn, they met at Kew in the presence of the Prime Minister, the Queen and the Princesses to make a public reconciliation.
The cartoon above was coincidentally drawn by none other than James Gillray, the satirist who was the subject of historian Alice Loxley’s Fringe event we attended in Edinburgh and her book UPROAR.
Although Queen Charlotte spent her final months in this room, her son Prince George had a chair fitted with wheels that allowed her to be pushed into the Boudoir for her meals.
Eventually the Queen could not be moved from the black horsehair armchair and it was here that she died, surrounded by members of her family.
Her body was taken to Windsor on December 2, 1818, and was buried in St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle.
A thick bed of straw was laid down in the castle courtyard so that the King, who by this time was elderly, frail, and of fragile mind, could not hear and discover that his wife was dead.
On the left is a portrait of King George II, grandfather to George III.
George III became heir to the throne when his father Prince Frederick (portrait on the right) died while his grandfather was still king.
Out of an abundance of caution, the mother of the 12 year old future king, ordered the construction of a nine-acre botanic garden at Kew Palace. This allowed her to bring the world to the future king from within the safe confines of an enclosed garden.
Today that garden has grown into a world-leading scientific organization, showcasing the largest living collection of plants and fungi in its 330-acre garden.
In that sense, I think Kew should be the greatest garden in the world—simply because of the sheer vastness of the collection.
By the way, Kew Gardens is plural and not singular because, when King George III inherited the Kew estate in 1772, he joined it with the royal estate in Richmond—two gardens became one.
Queensland Silver Wattle inside the Princess of Wales Conservatory.
Charles Grimaldi (Angel's Trumpet)
Connor Cailean
Aristolochia cauliflora
Stanhopea ruckeri (above and below)
Massive Chestnut-leaved oak
Look at this monster!
Bye-Bye Rentals
After Kew Gardens, we drove to Avis and dropped off our MG HS.
Back in Durham I had an incident with a bollard (ask if you’re interested). I figured I’d be in it for at least $1,000, so when the Avis agent quoted me just under $400, I immediately signed on the dotted line.
After 9 1/2 months, I was chuffed (British for “very pleased”) to turn in our rental car and say goodbye to the predictably unpredictable UK roads.
We schlepped all our luggage onto the Avis shuttle and over to Heathrow where we took the Underground into central London.
We checked into our hotel, dropped off luggage, and hopped on the Underground to complete some last-minute shopping.
I love maps. While in Edinburgh I had purchased a nice map of medieval London for £40. So one stop was to The Map House to see if they had a bigger selection of old London maps. Turned out they did…
Then I realized they only sold original maps and was gobsmacked by the prices! (That’s roughly $1,270 USD!)
While moving around London Amanda found a dime in the Knightsbridge underground station.
Dad is still with us on this crazy journey!
We were leaving on an early train to Paris, so we paid extra to stay at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel (also from the Harry Potter films), because the Eurostar train departs from directly behind the hotel.
