Savoy Palace - Savoy Palace

Savoy Palace

In the Middle Ages, though there were many other noble palaces within the city walls, the most desirable location for housing the nobility was the Strand, which formed the majority of the principal ceremonial route between the City and the Palace of Westminster, where the business of parliament and the royal court was transacted. There a nobleman could also have water frontage on the Thames, the great ancient water highway, and be free of the stink, smoke and social tumult of the City of London downstream and generally downwind to the east, and its constant threat of fires.

Henry III had granted the land to the queen's uncle, Peter, Count of Savoy, whom he designated Earl of Richmond and gave all the land from the Strand to the Thames, in 1246. The mansion he built there later became the home of Prince Edmund, the Earl of Lancaster; his descendants, the Dukes of Lancaster, lived there throughout the next century. In the 14th century, when the Strand was paved as far as the Savoy, it was the vast riverside London residence of John of Gaunt, a younger son of King Edward III who had inherited by marriage the title and lands of the Dukes of Lancaster. He was the nation's power broker and in his time the richest person in the kingdom. The Savoy was the most magnificent nobleman's mansion in England. It was famous for its owner's magnificent collection of tapestries, jewels and ornaments. Geoffrey Chaucer began writing The Canterbury Tales while working at the Savoy Palace as a clerk.