On the afternoon of 10 January 1642, King Charles I left his palace at Whitehall in London without warning, accompanied by his wife, Queen Henrietta Maria, and his eldest son, the twelve year old heir to the throne, Charles, Prince of Wales, and his daughter Princess Mary (who had been married to William, Prince of Orange the previous year, but who, at barely ten, was too young permanently to join the household of her Dutch husband). Their departure from the capital was so sudden that the royal servants at the party’s first stopping place, Hampton Court Palace, two hours or so away by barge down the river Thames, had no time to prepare for their arrival – we are told that it was so cold in the closed up royal apartments that on their first night the King and Queen and their children were obliged to sleep together in one bed for warmth. The Palace at Whitehall, summarily abandoned by its royal owner and left vacant and unsecured, swiftly became a tourist attraction – curious Londoners wandered around its twenty acres of opulent grounds and buildings, staring at the King’s picture collection, and even, trying out the throne for comfort.