St James's Palace St James's Palace St James's Palace is the most senior royal palace in the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, although no longer the principal residence of the monarch, it is the ceremonial meeting place of the Accession Council and the London residence of several minor members of the royal family. Built by King Henry VIII on the site of a leper hospital dedicated to Saint James the Less, the palace was secondary in importance to the Palace of Whitehall for most Tudor and Stuart monarchs. The palace increased in importance during the reigns of the early Georgian
Coronation of the British monarch only a short procession on foot from Westminster Hall to the abbey. For the coronation of George IV in 1821, a state procession from St James's Palace to the abbey was instituted, and this pageantry is an important feature of the modern event. In early modern coronations, the events inside the abbey were usually recorded by artists and published in elaborate folio books of engravings, the last of these was published in 1905 depicting the coronation which had taken place three years earlier. Re-enactments of the ceremony were staged at London and provincial theatres; in 1761, a production featuring the