When James VI of Scotland was invited to become James I of England, he came south with his young family.  Their first Christmas of 1603 was marked by masques and plays at Hampton Court Palace, and shortly afterwards James I hosted there the great religious conference that led to the writing of the new, enduringly-popular, ‘King James’ translation of the bible into English.  

James I and his son Charles I used Hampton Court for hunting and entertainment, but made little alteration to it.  Not everyone approved of the Stuarts’ beloved habit of taking part in masques.  William Prynne, the provocative Stuart pamphleteer, became a prisoner of the Tower of London.  Published at a time when the queen Henrietta Maria was about to take part in a play, his pamphlet Histriomastrix contained in its index the item ‘women actors notorious whores’.   Prynne’s ears were cut off, but he survived the Commonwealth and in fact became Keeper of Tower Records to Charles II.  He found the records, kept at the Tower since at least the 13th century in ‘a deplorable pickle’.   These records eventually ended up in the National Archives at Kew.

In December 1694, William III held a great ball at Kensington Palace: there was ‘dancing and gaming, and a great supper; and banquets of sweetmeats’.  There were in the region of a thousand people present, and ‘it was five of the clock in the morning before some of them could get home’.