WAGs Palace - Hampton Court

Actually though, can I live here please.

This touristy business is very exhausting. As much as I love to move about, away from the ordinary everyday, I also would love to sleep in my own bed every night. But moving around is how tourism works I'm pretty sure. But you know who else was notorious for not wanting to sleep in his own bed every night? King Henry VIII. Which, in my opinion, wasn't an accident.

I hit up his mansion yesterday -  Hampton Court Palace  - famous for being home away from his 59 other homes and his six WAGs, before he killed half of them because they refused to watch Coronation Street with him.  

The WAG Palace is located on the outskirts of London town in Richmond upon Thames, just a train hop away from central London. I stormed through the gates of the mansion uninvited, in what can only be described as in an aggressive manner, because that's how HVIII would have rolled. He wasn't the kind of man who would calmly walk through a door no matter what.

The King looked a lot like my Uncle Frank, who would not be seen dead in woolen tights, tunics, or pointy elf shoes I am fairly certain, which sounds jarringly like a detail you didn't need to know.

The type of man who won't
undo his top button 

The WAG palace is pleasant enough I suppose, in an understated, restrained Tudor type of way, although it is replete with great ornate ceilings which is most definitely a recipe for disaster. Let's just pause for the poor damn cleaner who has been dusting them every week for the last 500 years...

But not even the grand old King of England had nice loot in the 16th century; it was all muted reds and browns.  Or maybe he just preferred simplicity in his furnishings, and kept complexity for his privy relations; trying to keep the WAGs away from each other sounds much like a fulltime job.

The WAG palace certainly doesn't have the grandeur of Windsor Palace, Buckingham Palace, or Alnwick Castle (yes, the Harry Potter one), all fancy establishments I have traipsed through in recent weeks, but I can tell it has drama but also secrets.

The gardens of the WAG palace are beautiful and expansive, as you'd expect from a monarch who reigned before the global financial crisis and Instagram, when people who lived off the public purse didn't pretend to care if they looked wealthy or ostentatious.

I love England. Look at it.

Although I suppose the King looking strong and powerful could be crucial in retaining the empire. Plus, you didn't want some French upstart with a trim girth stealing your monarch moment.

King Henry of the WAGs was a cad, but probably only engaged in behaviour that was expected of him throughout that whole unpleasant era.  His whole palace reminds me a bit of Kayne West, which is a regretability.

He went through multiple WAGs in his quest to produce a male heir and had a few of his exes beheaded - more angrily than was necessary - in his special beheading room, which he later turned into a trophy room with a pool table.  I imagine each of them almost immediately regretted their nuptials.

Two of his conquests, Anne Boleyn and Kathryn Howard, were in fact murdered in the Tower of London, which is another delightful yet disturbing place to visit full of death and torture but also secrets.

I love England, but the more time I spend here the more I am thankful that I was born in the 20th century.