page_title: St James's Palace
section_title: Stuarts
hierarchical_section_title: St James's Palace / History / Stuarts
caption_attribution_description: Gravure du mall et du palais st. james
context_page_description: St James's Palace is the most senior royal palace in the United Kingdom. It gives the name, Court of St James's, to the monarch's royal court and is located in the City of Westminster in London. Although no longer the principal residence of the monarch, it is the ceremonial meeting place of the Accession Council, the office of the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps, and the London residence of several minor members of the royal family.
  Built by order of Henry VIII in the 1530s on the site of a leper hospital dedicated to Saint James the Less, the palace was secondary in importance to the Palace of Whitehall for most Tudor and Stuart monarchs. The palace increased in importance during the reigns of the early Georgian monarchy, but was displaced by Buckingham Palace in the late-18th and early-19th centuries. After decades of being used increasingly for only formal occasions, the move was formalised by Queen Victoria in 1837. Today the palace houses a number of official offices, societies and collections, and all ambassadors and high commissioners to the United Kingdom are still accredited to the Court of St James's.
context_section_description: In 1638, Charles I gave the palace to Marie de Medici, the mother of his wife Henrietta Maria. Marie remained in the palace for three years, but the residence of a Catholic former queen of France proved unpopular with parliament and she was soon asked to leave for Cologne. Charles spent his final night at St James's before his execution. Oliver Cromwell then took it over, and turned it into barracks during the English Commonwealth period. Charles II, James II, Mary II, and Anne, Queen of Great Britain, were all born at the palace.
  The palace was restored by Charles II following the demise of the Commonwealth, laying out St James's Park at the same time. It became the principal residence of the monarch in London in 1698, during the reign of William III and Mary II after Whitehall Palace was destroyed by fire, and became the administrative centre of the monarchy, a role it retains.
caption: St James's Palace, left, and The Mall, 1715.
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