St. James's Palace, a palace in London, England. Originally a hospital dedicated to St. James, it was reconstructed and made a manor by Henry VIII., who also annexed to it a park, which he enclosed with a brick wall, ton connect St. James's with Whitehall. Here Queen Mary died (1558); Charles I. slept here the night before his execution; and here Charles II., the Old Pretender, and George IV. were born. When Whitehall was burned in 1697, St. James's became the regular London residence of the British sovereigns, and it continued to be so till Queen Victoria's time. The Court of St. James's is a frequent designation of the British court.


Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia, 1912.

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