Summer visitors to the Park watch a band of young actors perform the Shakespeare play Midsummer Night's Dream , a comedy telling how the Queen of the Fairies fell in love with a donkey.  Humphrey, the Lord of the Hampton deer and Head of the Herd, finds the play absolutely ridiculous.  He stamps his hoof during the performance and bellows loudly, "The Queen of the fairies would never fall in love with an old donkey, not when the park is full of such handsome deer with such magnificent crowns of horns."

They do say that Shakespeare came to Hampton Court on Miidsummer's Eve to see the magical statues come to life, but because the event is a very private affair, he missed the magic, and so instead wrote Midsummer Night's Dream.

Hector's midsummer madness

The King's Beasts

The King’s Beasts are the ten statues guarding the gateway bridge at the Palace.  They are the family emblems of the King, Henry VIII, and of the family of his new wife, Jane Seymour.  The Beasts are the King’s crowned Lion, the Royal dragon, the Tudor dragon, the Richmond greyhound, the Mortimer lion, the Beaufort yale, the Clarence black bull, the Mortimer panther, the Seymour panther, and the Seymour unicorn.

A little of the history influencing the warren at Hampton Court

Hampton Court Palace has developed since the 11th Century from a medieval manor with farm into a magical Tudor palace.  From 1236 the farm was occupied by the Hospitallers of St John, and became a Priory, caring for travellers and growing food and medicinal supplies for St John headquarters in Clerkenwell, London.


http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.php?aid=80&ctid=3&cid=49

You can visit the St John Museum in Clerkenwell, to learn about the history of hospitals and the St John Ambulance Brigade
http://museumstjohn.org.uk/

In 1250 Henry III gave the prior the right to hunt (known as free warren which was for more than rabbits). In 1338 the Priory had 840 acres of land , a war and various buildings.  Cardinal Wolsey took the property and demolished most of it, to create Hampton Court Palace.  The only remaining relic of the order in the palace, still rings for service in the chapel, and has the following inscription on it:-
STELLA , MARIA, MARIS, SUCCVRRE, PIISIMA, NOBIS,
(Mary most gracious, Star of the Sea, come to our assistance)
The date of the bell is fixed by the letters 'T. H.' stamped on it, which are the initials of a famous bellfounder, Thomas Harrys, who lived about 1479.

In 1528, Henry VIII took the palace and spent more than £62,000 on extensions.
In the Middle Ages, the park reared rabbits for food in artificial warrens. You can still see signs of the warrens. The best examples are at Warren Plantation and north of the junction between Lime Avenue and Chestnut Avenue.