Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Queen's State Apartments:
This highly conceptual exhibit focuses on the palace's
first royal residents, William and Mary. It's 1689, and an optimistic England welcomes
King William, a Protestant from the Netherlands, to take the British throne. The grand en-
trance stairway is decorated to evoke the king's voyage to his new home. Entering the Big
Hall, you get a sense of the grandeur of the palace—the dances and banquets held here,
with expansive views over landscaped gardens. Sir Christopher Wren built the palace in
what was then the peaceful village of Kensington, as an escape from grimy central Lon-
don. The birds overhead evoke a time when Queen Mary kept songbirds in this room.
Find portraits of William and Mary. Parliament had recently overthrown the Catholic King
James II in the “Glorious Revolution,” and William and Mary represented a new, more
democratic start.
But things would not end well. As you head into the “Whispering Room,” the multi-
media exhibits murmur rumors of Mary's impending death from smallpox. (The displays
were conceived by a theatrical-design company; the helpful staff in each room can explain
what's going on.)
When Mary died—childless—she was eventually succeeded by her sister, Anne. In
the next room, you're faced with 18 little, empty chairs, representing the 18 failed preg-
nancies Queen Anne suffered in her desperate attempts to bear an heir. Continuing to the
next room, a dreamlike film (projected overhead) shows how Anne finally had one child
who survived. But on his 11th birthday, he danced so heartily that he came down with a
