Life of Elizabeth I

by Alison Weir

  These palaces, no less than her clothing and the ceremonial that marked every aspect of her life, were the outward symbols of personal monarchy. In these palaces were displayed more than two thousand tapestries acquired by Henry VIII, of which only twenty-eight remain today at Hampton Court, and more acquired by his children, as well as a substantial collection of portraits and works of art.

  The Tudor court was nomadic: around fifteen hundred persons might be in attendance at any one time, and sanitation facilities were primitive. Sir John Harington complained that 'Even in the goodliest and stateliest palaces of our realm, notwithstanding all our provisions of vaults, or sluices, or gates, or pains of poor folks in sweeping and scouring, yet still this same whoreson saucy stink!' The Queen herself used close stools with lids, which were emptied and cleaned by her maids, but a single large house of easement had to serve the needs of the rest of the court; it was hardly surprising that many people took to relieving themselves in the courtyard, or against the walls. Not until 1596 did Sir John Harington invent the water closet or 'Jakes'; within a year Elizabeth had had one installed at Richmond.

  Another problem was that local provisions were limited, and the presence of the court imposed a severe strain on local food resources. After a time, each palace had to be vacated so that it could be cleaned and sweetened, and its supplies replenished. Thus Elizabeth was constantly on the move between residences. While she and her heavier baggage travelled by barge wherever possible, her household and lighter effects went by road.

  Splendid and luxurious though they were, the Queen's palaces were run, at her order, with rigorous economy, and woe betide her Clerk Comptroller if he did not keep within the annual budget of , 40,000 for the maintenance of the royal household. The maintenance of all the Queen's houses came from the income generated from Crown rents. With the exception of Windsor, the Queen spent little on rebuilding or extending any of her houses - unlike her father. What funds were available went towards maintaining the outward trappings of her royal estate; the salaries of her household officials had not changed since Henry VIII's day.

  As well as the royal palaces, the Queen had inherited sixty castles and fifty houses, many of which she sold or leased to her courtiers, such as the London Charterhouse, Durham House and Baynards Castle. Some she let fall into ruin, while others were maintained for use on progress. Somerset House on the Strand was regularly placed at the disposal of foreign visitors, although the Queen did stay there fourteen times during her reign. What was left ofjohn of Gaunt's Savoy Palace was turned into a hospital, and the Priory of St John at Clerkenwell was converted into the office of the Master of the Revels. The Queen's wardrobe was kept in the Royal Wardrobe on St Andrew's Hill. Her chief residences, however, were her 'houses of access', the great palaces of the Thames valley.

  Westminster Palace, the London residence of English sovereigns and the principal seat of government since the eleventh century, had burned down in 1512, and only ruined towers and vaults remained. Whitehall Palace opposite was therefore Elizabeth's chief residence, and the place she stayed in more than any other. It was a vast, sprawling range of buildings that occupied a site of twenty-three acres, and with two thousand rooms, most of them small and poky, was probably the largest palace in Europe. Originally known as York Place, the palace was once the London residence of the Archbishops of York, and had been given by Cardinal Wolsey to Henry VIII in the 1520s. Henry had enlarged and beautified it, and by Elizabeth's time it was renowned for its superb decorations, which were in the medieval rather than the Renaissance style. In the older parts, vivid murals survived from the thirteenth century, whilst in the more recent Privy Chamber, visitors were overawed by Holbein's huge masterpiece of the Tudor monarchs, Henry VII and Henry VIII, with their queens: as one observer put it, 'The King, as he stood there, majestic in his splendour, was so lifelike that the spectator felt abashed, annihilated in his presence.' Elizabeth I was fond of standing in front of this painting to receive visitors, in order to emphasise whose daughter she was.

  'Glorious' Whitehall's spacious state rooms followed a typical pattern: the Great Hall gave on to the Guard Chamber, which led to the Presence Chamber, beyond which was the Privy Chamber, guarded by an usher of Black Rod, who would permit only the favoured few to enter. Here the Queen spent most of her working day; in the evenings she would relax by playing cards or chatting to her intimates. The Privy Chamber gave on to the Queen's private apartments, the 'sanctum sanctorum', to which only the most privileged had access: these comprised her withdrawing chamber and bedchamber and numerous small closets.

  Persons who were suitably attired could gain admittance to the Great Hall, Guard Chamber and Presence Chamber, and might therefore see the Queen at official functions or as she processed to and from the Chapel Royal. When she was not in residence, parties of visitors were taken on guided tours of all the rooms, even her bedchamber, although some grumbled that 'all the fine tapestries are removed, so that nothing but the bare walls are to be seen'. When the Queen was in residence, the Great Hall was used for banquets, pageants and plays, although it was too small, and in 1581, the Queen had a new banqueting hall built next to Sermon Court, where sermons were preached to throngs of courtiers in the open air.

  Elizabeth's bedroom overlooked the river. A German visitor, Paul Hentzner, noted in 1598 that her bed was 'ingeniously composed of woods of different colours, with quilts of silk, velvet, gold, silver and embroidery', its draperies being of Indian painted silk. There was a silver-topped table, a chair padded with cushions, and 'two little silver cabinets of exquisite work' in which the Queen kept writing materials. A jewellery chest 'ornamented all over with pearls' housed some of her bracelets and earrings. There was a gilded ceiling and 'a fine bathroom' next door. Hentzner noted that the bedroom was stuffy and dark, having only one small window. A private way led from the royal bedroom to the river gatehouse, where Elizabeth would board her barge sometimes in the evening to be rowed along the Thames, playing her lute as she went.

  Outside the palace there was an orchard and 'a most large and princely garden', which featured a series of thirty-four painted columns topped with heraldic beasts, all gilded, encircling a sundial capable of telling the time in thirty different ways. The Queen always took a keen interest in her gardens, and liked them to be in bloom throughout the year: some were a riot of colour even in winter. The great tiltyard at Whitehall occupied the site of the present Horse Guards and was connected to the palace by a gallery which passed through the Holbein Gate (which spanned the main road into London) and joined the long Privy Gallery, which led to the rabbit warren of state apartments, which were all well- guarded. There was also a tennis court and a cockpit.

  Windsor was another favoured residence, although Elizabeth tended to stay there only in the summer months, as the old castle was difficult to heat in winter. Here she built a stone terrace that ran beneath the windows of her apartments on the northern side of the Upper Ward, and it was on this terrace that the Queen enjoyed taking the air in the evenings, or would stride along briskly each morning 'to get up a heat'. Below it nestled a pretty garden, 'full of meanders and labyrinths'. In 1583, Elizabeth also built an indoor gallery, more than ninety feet long, where she could exercise in wet weather; this now houses the Royal Library, and the original Elizabethan fireplace survives largely intact, although the low Tudor ceiling was replaced in 1832. There are tales that Elizabeth's ghost has been seen here. Her other building works - a private chapel, a bridge and an outdoor banqueting pavilion - have long since disappeared. In 1567, she was planning to erect a worthy tomb over her father's vault in St George's Chapel, but the plan came to nothing.

  In the Great Park, the Queen could indulge her passion for hunting, dressed in all her finery and outdistancing most of her courtiers. Never a squeamish woman, she did not shrink from killing stags 'with her own hand', using a crossbow, and she would watch unflinching whilst the greyhounds savaged their prey. The suffering of animals did not concern
her: she once spared the life of a stag, but ordered that its ears be cut off as trophies. In later life, she and her ladies would sometimes shoot game from specially built stands north-east of the castle, although the Queen preferred to ride with the men whenever possible.

  Her apartments at Windsor were luxurious. She slept in a huge, ornate bed 'covered with curious hangings of tapestry work' and rested her head on a cushion 'most curiously wrought by Her Majesty's own hands'. Bathrooms with running water had been installed, with walls and ceilings comprised entirely of mirrors. The Great Hall was a favoured setting for plays, banquets and recitals by the Children of the Chapel Royal. Paul Hentzner, touring Windsor Castle in 1598, was shown rooms containing the gold- and silver-bedecked state beds of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, French tapestries, and curiosities such as a unicorn's horn - possibly a narwhal's tusk.

  Greenwich Palace, where Elizabeth had been born, was built around three courtyards but was smaller than most of the Queen's other palaces, although it was just as sumptuous, and was used for state occasions and ambassadorial receptions; foreign envoys, arriving by barge, were welcomed at the imposing riverside gatehouse, from which the Queen would also watch naval exercises and displays on the Thames and military reviews in the park, as in July 1559, on her first visit as Queen. From here she would wave farewell as her ships set off on their voyages of exploration. Benches painted with the royal arms were set up 'for Her Majesty to sit on in the garden'. Most rooms in the palace overlooked the river, and there were eighty feet of glass in the Presence Chamber windows. The hangings in the chapel were of gold damask, and there was a gilded alcove in which the Queen received Holy Communion.

  After nearly dying of smallpox there in 1562, Elizabeth avoided her father's vast red-brick palace of Hampton Court in Surrey for a time, but she came to use it 'with great and plentiful cheer' for the great feasts of Easter or Whitsun, and sometimes Christmas, and as a setting in which to receive ambassadors and foreign princes, who were lavishly entertained and in whose honour plays were performed in Henry VIII's Great Hall with its splendid hammerbeam roof. Equally famous in its day was the throne room off Cloister Green Court known as the Paradise Chamber (demolished in the late seventeenth century with most of the Tudor royal apartments), which was shown to 'the well-dressed public' for a fee when the Queen was not in residence. Hentzner recorded that the Persian 'tapestries are garnished with gold, pearls and precious stones, not to mention the royal throne', which was upholstered in brown velvet and studded with three great diamonds, rubies and sapphires. One table twenty-eight feet long was covered with a pearl- edged surnap of velvet, while another table, made from Brazilian wood, was inlaid with silver. On this was displayed a gilt mirror, a draughts- board of ebony, a chessboard of ivory, and seven ivory and gold flutes which, when blown, reproduced various animal sounds. Also on display was a backgammon board with dice of solid silver and an impressive collection of musical instruments. Visitors were shown the Horn Room, north of the Great Hall, where the antlers of deer killed in the royal hunts were displayed.

  Hampton Court was perhaps the most elaborately decorated of the Queen's palaces: 'All the walls shine with gold and silver,' reported Hentzner. 'Many of the splendid large rooms are embellished with masterly paintings, writing tables of mother-of-pearl, and musical instruments, of which Her Majesty is very fond.' There were fretwork ceilings with intersecting ribs and pendants picked out in gold, and all the palace woodwork was either gilded or brightly painted in red, yellow, blue or green. Trompe I'oeil decorations abounded. Despite such splendours, the Queen always maintained that Hampton Court was an uncomfortable and unhealthy place, and its chief use therefore was as a display piece.

  The Queen took a personal interest in the gardens at Hampton Court, and gave orders for tobacco and potatoes, imported from the New World, to be planted there. In 1570, Henry VIII's stables were extended for her, with the addition of two barns and a coach house.

  A little way up the river from Hampton Court, near Weybridge, was the miniature palace of Oatlands, 'a cheerful hunting box', where Henry VIII had married Katherine Howard in 1540. Elizabeth visited it on at least twenty occasions for the excellent hunting, and was fascinated by the huge colonies of rooks in the park. Nothing remains of Oatlands today, and a council housing estate occupies the site.

  Richmond Palace had been the favourite residence of Elizabeth's grandfather, Henry VII, who had built it in the perpendicular style, but it was not until later in her reign that she came to appreciate its charm, spending time there each summer when the gardens and orchards were at their best. This was a fairytale palace, with numerous turrets and pinnacles crowned with bulbous domes surmounted by gold and silver weather vanes; it boasted fan-vaulted ceilings, vast oriel windows, a huge hall measuring a hundred by forty feet, which had murals of heroic English kings, and a network of galleries and loggias bisecting the beautiful gardens. These were a wonder in themselves, being filled with numerous flowers, herbs and over two hundred trees, whilst the orchards yielded peaches, apples, pears and damsons.

  Eighteen kitchens kept the court supplied with food. Another attraction for the Queen was her grandfather's plumbing system, which piped pure spring water into the palace. She was also impressed by the absence of draughts, referring to Richmond as 'a warm nest for my old age'.

  Another exquisite summer palace, 'which of all places she likes best', was Nonsuch in Surrey, a fantastic edifice built in the 1530S by Henry VIII in the Italian Renaissance style in emulation of the great French palaces of the Loire. Mary I had leased it to the Earl of Arundel, and although she was a frequent visitor, Elizabeth was not able to repossess it until his death in 1592. During her visits, she would be out riding or hunting every day in the park. When she received ambassadors at Nonsuch, it was in rooms adorned with furnishings and hangings brought over from nearby Hampton Court. There was no great hall, the palace being very small, and when the court was in residence a number of tents had to be set up in the grounds to accommodate all the guests. Nevertheless the state rooms were magnificent, there was a fine library, and in the inner courtyard there was an imposing white marble fountain and a clock tower. Nonsuch was famed for its novel octagonal towers, whilst its walls were of white stucco with a deep relief pattern picked out in gold on plaster, and there was a vast array of classical statuary in the picturesque grounds, where was to be found the famous Grove of Diana.

  In London, St James's Palace, once favoured by Queen Mary, who had died there, was not so popular with Elizabeth, though she used it as her London base whenever Whitehall was being cleaned. Little remains of the Tudor Chapel Royal here, except for Elizabeth's coat of arms above the main door, supported by a carved lion and the red dragon of the Welsh Prince Cadwaladr, an emblem adopted by the Tudors. St James's had its own park and an artificial lake known as Rosamund's Pool.

  Elizabeth hated the Tower of London. Her mother and various others close to her had died violently there, and she herself had terrifying memories of her imprisonment in 1554. She also detested the noises and smells which emanated from the royal menagerie within the Tower walls. It is hardly surprising therefore that she never used the state apartments there after the obligatory visit prior to her coronation. Nevertheless, her rooms in the royal palace were kept in readiness, and in 1598 Hentzner and another visitor, Thomas Platter, reported that the state apartments were hung with tapestries worked in silk, gold and silver thread, and furnished with grand beds and canopies of estate edged with seed pearls. One of the huge chairs made for the ageing Henry VIII, with its footstool, was on show, and several of Elizabeth's gowns were stored there, along with chests full of rich materials. The Queen's Parliament robes were kept at the Tower and aired every month. Her gowns were regularly sprinkled with scented powder to prevent them from becoming musty - twenty-four pounds of the stuff were used in 1584 alone.

  When the court was in residence at Whitehall, the crown jewels were put on display at the Tower, but most of those from Eliz
abeth's time do not survive, having been melted down or dispersed under Oliver Cromwell.

  The old medieval palace of Woodstock was another house avoided by Elizabeth, who had been kept under house arrest there for a year during Mary's reign. Only rarely did she spend a night there whilst on progress.

  Queen Elizabeth's hunting lodge is preserved in Epping Forest; a picturesque legend claims that the Queen raced her palfrey up the stairs here, triumphant after learning of the defeat of the Spanish Armada. This hunting box had actually been built by Henry VIII as a stand from which to view the hunt. Elizabeth also used the decaying nursery palace of Eltham as a hunting lodge.

  After her accession, Elizabeth spent little time at the palaces in which she had lived during her circumscribed youth. The oak tree at Hatfield House, beneath which she had learned of her accession, flourished until the nineteenth century, and its remains may be seen in the palace shop. The Queen sometimes stayed at Hatfield whilst on progress, but after her death most of the 'stately lodgings' of the Old Palace were demolished, leaving only the wing that survives today, much altered. Ashridge, Newhall and Hunsdon were leased, the latter two to the Earl of Sussex. The Queen visited Enfield Palace on her first progress, but returned infrequently thereafter. A fireplace from the palace is preserved in a house in Gentleman's Row, and carries the cipher E.R., with the Latin legend, 'Our only security is to serve God; aught else is vanity.' Elizabeth honoured nearby Elsynge more often, and it was kept in good repair; canvas shutters were attached to her windows, armorial stained glass installed in her bedroom, and fires were kept lit to prevent damp. In 1596 the Queen ordered 'toils set up, to shoot at buck after dinner' in the deer park. Nothing remains above ground of the two palaces at Enfield; the Jacobean Forty Hall occupies the site on which Elsynge once stood.