Otford Palace Otford Palace Otford Palace, also known as the Archbishop's Palace, is in Otford, an English village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent. The village is located on the River Darent, flowing north down its valley from its source on the North Downs. The King of Mercia, "Offa", fought the Kentish Saxons in 776 at the Battle of Otford. From those times until 1537, the palace was one of the chain of houses belonging to the archbishops of Canterbury. It was rebuilt around 1515 by Archbishop Warham to rival that of Cardinal Wolsey at Hampton Court. Henry VIII
Henry VIII (opera) Henry VIII (opera) Henry VIII is an opera in four acts by Camille Saint-Saëns, from a libretto by Léonce Détroyat and Armand Silvestre, based on "El cisma en Inglaterra" "(The schism in England)" by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. The action covers the period in Henry VIII's life when the king was attempting to divorce Queen Catherine of Aragon in favour of marrying Anne Boleyn, a move rejected by the Church. In an effort to evoke the historical context, Saint-Saëns researched English music from the period and incorporated several English, Scottish, and Irish folk melodies into his score, as well