ABSTRACT
Why did Pope set the main action of The Rape of the Lock at Hampton Court, prefaced by a trip up the Thames? The real-life incident lying behind the poem involved two members of ancient Catholic families, and certainly did not take place at the home of a Protestant court. This chapter argues that the Rape helps to reaccommodate Hampton Court to Stuart purposes, after Christopher Wren had made it over for William and Mary. In 1703–5, Antonio Verrio put the finishing touches to his work for Queen Anne with the Drawing Room, the main setting for royal receptions at the palace. Verrio had been brought to England by Charles II and began to work at Windsor and Hampton Court. He was a Roman Catholic, who had celebrated Catherine of Braganza in his work, though he was still employed by William and Mary. On her accession, Anne gave him important new commissions at Hampton Court, as well as new items for the Chapel Royal. The chapter draws on recent work by art historians and literary scholars to show how Stuart ideology and iconography is made to reinhabit the palace in The Rape of the Lock and (by implication, in its absence) Windsor-Forest.
