by Alison Weir
See Thurley, Royal Palaces.
History of the King’s Works.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.
John Leland, Itinerary. Greenwich remained a favourite royal residence until the reign of Charles I (1625–1649). Under the Commonwealth, the state apartments were turned into stables and the palace was allowed to fall into decay. In 1662, Charles II demolished most of the remains and began building a new palace on the site, which later became the Royal Naval College. Charles II also landscaped Greenwich Park. The Tudor great hall survived until 1866, and the chapel, which had been used as a store, until the late nineteenth century. Apart from an undercroft built by James I in 1606 and one of Henry VIII’s reservoir buildings of 1515 (now part of the Chantry in Park Vista), nothing survives of Greenwich Palace today.
Cited by Aslet.
History of the King’s Works; Newcastle MSS., Nottingham University Library.
John Leland, Collectanea.
L&P; Receipt of the Lady Katherine.
Songs, Ballads of Henry VIII.
Cited in Erickson, Great Harry.
CSP: Spanish.
Cited by Erickson, Great Harry.
CSP: Spanish.
George Cavendish.
Edward Hall.
Cited by Bayley.
See Thurley: Royal Palaces.
B. L. Cotton MSS.: Tiberius.
Edward Hall.
For the coronation, see Edward Hall and The Great Chronicle of London.
Edward Hall.
B. L. Cotton MSS.: Titus.
This crown was melted down with most of the royal regalia in the seventeenth century under the Commonwealth. The present St. Edward’s Crown was made in 1661 for Charles II.
Anthony Wood, seventeenth-century antiquarian.
L&P; this crown was also melted down under the Commonwealth.
Great Chronicle of London.
Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court.
Edward Hall.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Cited in Plowden, House of Tudor.
Edward Hall.
L&P.
3 “A Prince of Splendour and Generosity”
CSP: Venetian.
Cited by Kelso.
Stephen Gardiner, De Vera Obedientia.
Cited by Scarisbrick.
Stephen Gardiner, De Vera Obedientia.
William Tyndale, Obedience of a Christian Man.
Acts of the Privy Council.
Ibid.
Letters of King Henry VIII.
L&P.
Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum (ed. L. Alston, Cambridge, 1906).
Elton.
Gabriel Tetzel, Travels of Leo of Rozmital (tr. and ed. M. Letts, Hakluyt Society, 108, 1965).
The last Valois Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, had been defeated and killed in 1477 at the Battle of Nancy, when the region that is today known as Burgundy was annexed by France. When Charles’s sole heiress, Mary of Burgundy, married the Emperor Maximilian, the more important county of Burgundy, which was part of the Low Countries, was absorbed into the Holy Roman Empire.
Cited in M. L. Bruce, The Making of Henry VIII.
Cited by Morris.
CSP: Milanese.
L&P.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (ed. W. K. Marriott, London, 1940).
CSP: Venetian.
Ibid.
Ibid.
CSP: Milanese.
L&P; Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII, cited herafter as PPE.
Ibid.
4 “This Magnificent, Excellent and Triumphant Court”
Sir John Fortescue, The Governance of England (ed. C. Plummer, Oxford, 1885).
Louis le Brun, Ung Petit Traicte de Francoys (B.L. Royal MSS.).
L&P.
Collection of Ordinances.
Tudor Royal Proclamations.
L&P.
Loades, Tudor Court.
Letters of Henry VIII.
English Historical Documents.
Sir Thomas Wyatt’s satire “How to use the Court and Himself therein,” dedicated to Sir Francis Bryan; cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court.
Cited in Starkey, Reign of Henry VIII.
Correspondance, ed. Kaulek.
L&P; Lisle Letters.
L&P.
CSP: Spanish.
Ibid.
CSP: Venetian.
L&P.
Ibid.
CSP: Spanish.
Ibid.
Ibid.
George Cavendish.
Collection of Ordinances.
Rutland Papers.
George Cavendish.
Collection of Ordinances.
L&P.
Rutland Papers.
Thurley, Royal Palaces.
L&P; Nottingham University Library MSS.
History of the King’s Works.
Cited in Loades, Tudor Court.
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.
L&P.
John Skelton, Complete Poems.
Cited by MacDonagh.
Incontri, Il Piccolo Levriero Italiano; Jesse, History of the British Dog.
Cited by MacDonagh.
Inventory. One of Henry’s dog collars was exhibited in the seventeenth century in the Tradescant Museum at Oxford, but has since been lost (Tradescant’s Rareties).
L&P.
CSP: Venetian.
Collection of Ordinances.
CSP: Spanish.
L&P.
Cited in Richardson, Mary Tudor.
William Forrest.
5 “A Perfect Builder of Pleasant Palaces”
Among the many sources used for this chapter, and the next, I am especially indebted to the researches of Simon Thurley (The Royal Palaces of Tudor England), David Loades (The Tudor Court), Maurice Howard (The Early Tudor Country House) and Peter Brears (All the King’s Cooks).
In 1550, Langley Manor was granted to John Dudley, Earl of Warwick; in the seventeenth century it decayed, and was largely rebuilt in the nineteenth as a farmhouse. The north walls are part of the original manor house, and feature carvings of a Tudor rose and the initials of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.
In 1603, Minster Lovell Hall was sold to Sir Edward Coke. It is now a ruin.
By 1660, Wimbledon had been alienated from the Crown.
By the reign of Elizabeth, Windsor Manor was no longer a royal residence, but was used as a keeper’s lodge.
Easthampstead Park was alienated from the Crown in 1628. It was rebuilt in the 19th century and is now a college.
Wanstead was granted to Lord Rich in 1549. During Elizabeth’s reign it was a favoured residence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. It was rebuilt in the seventeenth century.
Elizabeth I leased the ruins of Berkhamsted Castle to Sir Edward Carey, who used its stones to build a new house nearby. Very little remains of the castle today.
Hertford Castle was ruinous by 1609. The walls and towers that survive today have been incorporated into a building housing the local council offices.
Externally, Warwick Castle remains very much as it was in Henry’s day, but the interior was restored in 1871 after a fire.
Cited by Steane.
Kenilworth Castle was alienated from the Crown in 1553 and was later the chief residence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who lavishly entertained Elizabeth I here in 1575. Although the castle was wrecked and dismantled during the Civil War, extensive ruins remain today.
The ruins of Sheriff Hutton Castle survive today in private farmland.
Pontefract Castle was dismantled during the Civil War and is now a ruin.
Only ruins remain from Henry’s time. Much of Sudeley Castle was reconstructed in 1858 by Sir Gilbert Scott.
William Thomas.
William Harrison.
Ibid.
Cited by Sturgis.
History of the King’s Works; Accounts of the Chamber and the Great Wardrobe, cited
herafter as PRO.
Inventory.
Ibid.; B.L. Additional MSS.
PRO.
Ibid.
Henry VII had spent only £29,000 (£7,800,000) on his greater houses. A number of Henry VIII’s houses and estates are still in the hands of the Crown, although many were alienated after his death by his heirs and, later, the Commonwealth. By 1649, only twenty-three of his houses remained, and by the eighteenth century many of those had been either demolished or largely remodelled to conform to Georgian tastes.
L&P.
Collection of Ordinances; L&P.
Collection of Ordinances.
I.e., a picture.
A type of musical instrument.
I.e., a backgammon board.
Inventory.
Under succeeding monarchs, the largely unchanging pattern of court life, as it had been established by Henry VIII, ensured that the design and layout of his houses remained a blueprint for English royal palaces until the nineteenth century.
PRO.
Inventory.
Inventory; B.L. Egerton MSS.
L&P.
Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589; 12 vols., ed. W. Raleigh, Glasgow, 1903–1905).
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.
Inventory.
Antiquarian Repertory.
See Rivals in Power, ed. Starkey.
6 “The King’s House”
L&P.
History of the King’s Works.
Maurice Howard, The Early Tudor Country House.
See Thurley, Royal Palaces, for a fuller discussion of the development of grotesque decoration.
Thurley.
See the Whitehall family group painting, and Hans Holbein’s miniature Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, which almost certainly portrays Henry VIII enthroned in a typical presence chamber.
Thurley.
Inventory.
Ibid.
Ibid.
This set was sold off by the Commonwealth, and is now in Spain.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.
Ibid.
Nottingham University Library MSS.
Inventory.
PRO.
B. L. Royal MSS.
Cited in Bruce, The Making of Henry VIII.
CSP: Venetian.
L&P.
Ibid.; Collection of Ordinances.
Thurley.
Inventory.
Ibid.
PRO.
Inventory.
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.
PPE.
Ibid.
B.L. Additional MSS.
Mary I’s X-frame chair, made for her marriage to Philip of Spain in 1554, is still to be seen in Winchester Cathedral.
Inventory.
Ibid.
B.L. Additional MSS.
Both seals are in the Public Record Office.
Collection of Ordinances.
History of the King’s Works.
Inventory.
PRO.
This bed was sold off by the Commonwealth and is last recorded in 1674 (Longleat MSS., Bath; Historical Manuscripts Commission).
PRO.
Inventory.
Ibid.
It was sold in 1649 by the Commonwealth, and is now in the possession of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, London.
It was given away by James I in 1604, and is now in the British Museum.
Now in the Schatzkammer of the Residenz, Munich.
Cited in Henry VIII: A European Court in England.
L&P.
Now in the Church of St. John the Baptist, Cirencester.
L&P.
Inventory.
Nottingham University Library MSS.
PRO.
Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
PRO.
Inventory.
PPE.
Inventory.
Letter from Henry Huttoft, Surveyor of Customs at Southampton, to Thomas Cromwell, cited by Glasheen.
Inventory.
Collection of Ordinances.
B.L. Harleian MSS.
Bodleian Library MSS.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.
Now in the British Library.
French inventory of Mary Tudor’s trousseau, cited by Norris, Tudor Costume and Fashion (hereafter cited as Norris).
Bodleian Library MSS.
Thomas Platter, Travels of England (London, 1599); PRO.
Accounts of Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon and Marquess of Exeter, in the Public Record Office.
Cited by Thurley.
Original Letters, ed. Ellis.
Collection of Ordinances.
Cited in L. B. Smith, Henry VIII: The Mask of Royalty.
Collection of Ordinances.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.
Ibid.
Bodleian Library MSS.
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
L&P; Longleat MSS., Bath, Historical Manuscripts Commission.
PRO.
Ibid.; B.L. Additional MSS.; Thurley.
Andrew Boorde; Bodleian Library MSS.
Collection of Ordinances; Early English Meals and Manners.
Collection of Ordinances; Thurley.
Erickson, Great Harry.
Ibid.; The Babees’ Book.
Thurley.
Steane; Thurley.
Sturgis.
Andrew Boorde.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.
Ibid.
Tudor Royal Proclamations.
7 “The Worship and Welfare of the Whole Household”
Collection of Ordinances; Myers; Loades, Tudor Court; Thurley, Royal Palaces. Much of the material for this chapter is drawn from A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household; among the many other sources consulted, David Loades’s The Tudor Court proved an indispensable mine of information.
Collection of Ordinances.
Cited in Loades, Tudor Court.
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.
Cited in Loades, Tudor Court.
Collection of Ordinances. Prior to Henry VIII’s reign, the monarch’s washing had been done by the Yeomen of the Laundry.
Collection of Ordinances.
James Howell, Londinopolis (London, 1657).
Cited in Erickson, Great Harry.
PPE.
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.
Cited by Bowle.
B.L. Arundel MSS.
State Papers; B.L. Harleian MSS.
Sim.
L&P.
Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; a similar miniature is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Cited in Erickson, Great Harry.
Collection of Ordinances; B.L. Cotton MSS.: Vespasian.
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.
L&P.
Ibid.
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.
The Board of the Greencloth survives today as a department of the Royal Household; it meets at Buckingham Palace, and its members still sit at a table covered with a green cloth.
Collection of Ordinances.
B.L. Additional MSS.; PRO.
Loades.
L&P; Collection of Ordinances.
Brears.
Cited by Mackie.
Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII; CSP: Venetian.
Jacobus Francisca.
Collection of Ordinances; B.L. Royal MSS.
Public Record Office.
Marino Sanuto.
Cited by Norris.
Norris.
L&P.
John Stow, Annals.
State Papers.
B.L. Additional MSS.
PRO.
Bodleian Lib
rary MSS.
Cited in Erickson, Great Harry.
Ibid.
Charles Wriothesley.
L&P.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; PRO.
PPE.
L&P; Brears; Thurley.
8 “Such Plenty of Costly Provision”
Seymour Papers.
Collection of Ordinances.
Rivals in Power.
Cardinal Wolsey built the original kitchens at Hampton Court, but much of what remains today is Henry VIII’s work. His kitchens were partitioned in the seventeenth century, and last used in the eighteenth. They were altered in the nineteenth century, and imaginatively restored between 1978 and 1991. They are now the best surviving example of sixteenth-century service quarters. Only a small part of the complex, centred on Fish Court, is open to the public. The rest is used as offices, apartments and self-catering accommodation. The Boiling House is the only one of Henry’s subsidiary kitchens to survive at Hampton Court.
CSP: Spanish.
For this chapter and the next, I have relied heavily on the Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household . I am also deeply indebted to the researches of Peter Brears (All the King’s Cooks), Alison Sim (Food and Feast in Tudor England), Sarah Paston-Williams (The Art of Dining), Matthew Sturgis (Hampton Court Palace), Elizabeth Burton (The Early Tudors at Home) and Simon Thurley (Royal Palaces).
Brears; Thurley, Royal Palaces; Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; B.L. Additional MSS.
Collection of Ordinances; L&P.
Collection of Ordinances.
Sim.
L&P; Pero Doux’s name is also given as Perot le Doulce.
L&P.
Seymour Papers.
L&P.
Collection of Ordinances.
These five departments had the largest staffs after the Great Kitchen.
Brears; L&P.
Andrew Boorde; Thomas Elyot.
L&P.
Thurley.
Bowle.
It was called hippocras because it was strained through a bag known as a Hippocrates Sleeve.
B.L. Additional MSS.
Collection of Ordinances.
Andrew Barclay.
Collection of Ordinances.
PRO; B.L. Royal MSS.
L&P.
William Harrison.
L&P.
Collection of Ordinances.
Thurley.
Brears.
Collection of Ordinances.
Brears
Collection of Ordinances.
PPE.
Ibid.
Collection of Ordinances.
Marzipan made with rose water.
Collection of Ordinances.
CSP: Venetian.
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.
Ibid.; Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court; Loades, Tudor Court.
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.
Ibid.; Glasheen, Secret People of the Palaces; Richardson, Mary Tudor.