Many of these houses were built in the shape of an H or an E, it later being supposed that this was to flatter King Henry or Queen Elizabeth. Others were built round a courtyard on to which the main windows looked. Many faced north-east, since it was widely believed that, as the authority on health Andrew Boorde put it, ‘the south wind doth corrupt and make for evil vapours’, while the east wind was ‘temperate, fryske and fragraunt’.4 Most houses were only one room in thickness, each room intercommunicating with its neighbour. Bur nearly all, of whatever plan, seem to have been closely supervised in their construction by those who were paying for them. At the beginning of the sixteenth century there were no architects as such. The first known use of the word is in a book published in 1563. A master mason would usually draw up a plan based upon his client’s requirements, a master carpenter being responsible for the interior details. Some master masons achieved a national reputation; and when Robert Smythson, the mason, died in 1614, the most skilful of them were known as architects. The word was inscribed on Smythson’s tombstone.
Smythson himself had worked all over the country. He had advised Sir Matthew Arundel at Wardour Old Castle, Wiltshire; he had helped Sir John Thynne with the design of Longleat, the first great country house to be built in the High Elizabethan style; he was employed by Sir Francis Willoughby whose Woolaton Hall in Nottinghamshire was completed in 1585; soon afterwards he had advised the Countess of Shrewsbury in that dramatic combination of the Gothic and classical, Hardwick Hall; and he had then worked for Sir Henry Griffiths at Burton Agnes in Yorkshire.5
By Smythson’s time the interiors of great houses had become far more complex than those of the Middle Ages, and far more care was taken to ensure the privacy of their owners’ families. The great chamber, the principal room in the house, was now often known as the dining chamber; but it was also used for games, dancing, plays, for the lying-in-state of deceased owners and distinguished members of their families, and, where there was no chapel, for household prayers. Plays were also performed and games sometimes played in the hall which, although still a dining-room for servants, was beginning to be designed more as an imposing entrance to a house than as a room for daily use. In some houses upper servants now ate in a downstairs parlour.
Parlours had originally been rooms in monasteries in which visitors could talk to the monks, and this use was the derivation of their name. They had afterwards fulfilled a similar purpose in private houses, before developing into private sitting- or dining-rooms. Some parlours were also used as bedsitting-rooms or as bedrooms for guests, but by the beginning of the sixteenth century there were few parlours in which beds were to be found. They were more intimate and warmer rooms than the great chamber on the floor above them; but in larger houses they were growing in size and in number. At Longleat there were three parlours, a great parlour, a little parlour and a room known as the shovelboard parlour which was set aside for games.6
While a family could enjoy more privacy downstairs, there were more private rooms upstairs, too. It was becoming rare for ladies and gentlemen to sleep in the chamber in which they received their guests. Bedchambers were now becoming common, and withdrawing chambers were created leading off them. In these servants slept within call, still lying on pallets or on those beds known as truckle beds because of the wheels or castors upon which they could be pushed about and concealed in daytime under high-standing beds. Gradually withdrawing chambers began to be used not so much for sleeping in as for sitting in and for receiving visitors and thus eventually developed into the drawing-room. Adjoining the bedroom there might well be a ‘stool-house’ containing a close-stool, also known as a necessary-stool or night-stool until Victorian delicacy required them to be known as night commodes. At Ingatestone Hall, built in the 1540s, there were at least five of these, each with a close-stool covered with leather, velvet or cloth, and a pewter pan. They also contained one or two chamber pots.7
Nearly all large houses now had galleries. At first these were covered walks, often open on one side and used for walking in inclement weather. Some houses had two galleries, one above the other. There were two galleries, for instance, at the Vyne in Hampshire, the upper one of which survives and, dating from about 1520 and extending to seventy-four feet, is the oldest long gallery in England. Originally galleries were sparsely furnished, if furnished at all; but, after a time, when most of them were enclosed, they were provided with chairs and tables and, frequently, with portraits, not only of members of the family but also of great men of the age and of past ages. Sir Henry Wotton, the English connoisseur of Venetian paintings, advised that no room in a house should contain many pictures except the long gallery; and this advice seems to have been generally followed. At Lambeth Palace, in Archbishop Parker’s time, all the pictures were in the gallery; at Leicester House there were twenty-eight pictures in the great gallery when the Earl of Leicester died in 1588 and apparently no more than one or two in any other room; at Hardwick Hall in 1601 almost half the pictures in the house were in the long gallery.8 By the end of the century there were 103 portraits in the long gallery at Woburn Abbey.9
As well as for promenading, galleries were, like the hall and the great chamber, the scene of games, dancing, music and fencing matches. They usually had windows along one wall only and were provided with one or more fireplaces, supplemented by braziers in the coldest weather. Their ceilings were often elaborately plastered and their walls wainscoted and brightly painted.
Decorations in most rooms, indeed, were, as an Italian visitor to England wrote, ‘marvellously wrought’. Plasterwork on the ceilings was intricately moulded and gaily painted; panelling was carved in the shape of linen folds; arras and coloured cloths hung from the walls; doors were flanked by pilasters or columns or panels of embossed leather; floors were made of highly polished oak or marble slabs strewn with sweet-smelling herbs; chimney pieces were hugely imposing, ablaze with escutcheons and coats of arms, decorated with marble columns and caryatids, sometimes as ostentatious as the tombs by which their families liked to commemorate themselves in parish churches.10
The gardens of such houses were often created with as much care and expense as the house itself. One such was the garden of Beaufort House in Chelsea which had belonged to Sir Thomas More. This was described by John Heywood who married Sir Thomas’s niece, Elizabeth Raskell, as ‘wonderfully charming … both from the advantage of its site and also for its own beauty. It was crowned with almost perpetual verdure; it had flowering shrubs and the branches of fruit trees interwoven in so beautiful a manner that it appeared like a tapestry woven by Nature herself.’11
In his essay, Of Gardens, Francis Bacon advised that gardens were ‘best to be square, encompassed on all four sides by a stately arched hedge’. Within this square hedge – which might itself be enclosed by a brick wall and form part of a shady, arcaded gallery – the beds of flowers and shrubs were arranged in intricate patterns, either level with the straight, neat paths or raised above them. As well as flowers and shrubs, the beds contained plants in pots, coloured sands, miniature mazes, or grass in which grew wild flowers, daisies, cowslips and buttercups. In some gardens the beds were divided by painted wooden rails and many were adorned with figures of heraldic beasts, sundials and fountains.12 At Hampton Court, so a German visitor recorded in the 1590s, there was a ‘splendid, high and massy fountain with an ingenious waterwork whereby you can, if you like, make the water play upon the ladies and others who are standing by and give them a thorough wetting’. This visitor also noted that some beds at Hampton Court were ‘planted with nothing but rosemary, others laid out with various other plants which are trained, intertwined and trimmed in so wonderful a manner and in such extraordinary shapes that the like could not easily be found’.13
The flowers to be seen in the earlier knot gardens had been far less varied than those to be seen by the end of the century. Roses, primroses, violets, gilliflowers, peonies, marigolds and lilies had all long been known. So had pinks which seem
to have been introduced by the Normans, although the variety known as carnation – possibly a corruption of coronation since they were frequently used in making chaplets – was not known by that name until 1538. In later years numerous other plants were introduced into England, many of them by émigrés such as the Huguenots who were renowned as gardeners. The tulip came from Asia Minor by way of the Netherlands, sunflowers from Peru, lilacs from Persia, marigolds from Africa, nasturtiums from America. Thomas Linacre, the physician, is credited with having introduced the damask rose; while Edmund Grindal, Bishop of London 1559–70, brought over from Germany the tamarisk which he planted in the gardens of Fulham Palace whence presents of fruit were regularly sent to Queen Elizabeth I. As with flowers, so it was with trees. Oak, elm, pine, beech, alder, lime, birch, sycamore and larch were all known in the early Tudor period, though planes, silver firs, horsechestnuts and lombardy poplars were not introduced until later. In orchards, however, there were to be found nearly all the fruit trees which grow in England today, although there were far more cherry trees in the sixteenth century than there are now, cherries being a favourite fruit with all classes at that time. Six hundred cherry trees, ‘at 6d the hundred’, were once ordered for the great orchard at Hampton Court.14
A notable feature of the garden at Hampton Court was the ‘mount’ which had been raised for Cardinal Wolsey on a base of 256,000 bricks. Most grand gardens had similar ‘mounts’ from which all their beauties could be enjoyed; and on the summit of many of them were built summer or banqueting houses. Some of these were large buildings. The one at Hampton Court was three storeys high. So was that at Holdenby which, finished in 1585, had six rooms to each floor, being less a banqueting house than a lodge. Other banqueting houses were quite small, like that at Rushton in Northamptonshire which was built for Sir Thomas Tresham in 1595. But nearly all were built to fanciful designs. The one at Rushton, known as the Triangular Lodge, had gables topped by extravagantly tall finials, and was covered with mystical symbols in multiples of three, in honour of the Trinity.
The huge sums of money spent upon the creation and maintenance of gardens in great houses severely depleted many fortunes. Lord Burghley, who was advised by John Gerard, author of the classic Herball, employed about forty poor people, at a total wage of £10 a week, in the gardens at Theobalds, in addition to his regular gardeners. He complained of the cost but the results were delightful.
Here are a great variety of trees and Labyrinths made with a great deal of labour [reported the foreign traveller, Paul Hentzner]; and a jet de eau with its basin of white marble, and columns and pyramids of wood and materials up and down the gardens [which are] encompassed by water large enough for one to have the pleasure of going in a boat and rowing between the shrubs.15
The Earl of Leicester’s garden at Kenilworth was described by Robert Lancham, a court official who accompanied the queen on one of her frequent progresses:
Close to the wall is a beautiful terrace ten feet high and twelve feet broad, quite level and covered with thick grass which also grows on the slope. There are obelisks on the terrace at even distances, great balls and white heraldic beasts, all made of stone and perched on artistic posts, good to look at. At each end is a bower, smelling of sweet flowers and trees … There are also four parterres cut in regular proportions; in the middle of each is a post shaped like a cube, two feet high; on that a pyramid, accurately made, symmetrically carved, fifteen feet high; on the summit a ball ten inches in diameter.16
There were similar decorations in the garden at Hatfield, Robert Cecil’s house which was built for him by Robert Lyminge. The steps leading from the house into it were decorated with figures of gilded lions; a fountain of exotic design was surmounted by a statue of Neptune towering over the lead fish in the basin. The rose garden was separate from the knot garden; there was a maze and a vineyard, the largest at that time in the country; the plants included several exotic and hitherto unknown varieties brought from the Continent by Cecil’s gardener, John Tradescant the elder.17
Great houses were more fully furnished than they had been in the Middle Ages, yet, by the standards of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they would still have been considered rather bare. The most prized pieces in many houses remained the beds. These now, instead of having canopies hanging from the ceiling on cords, were more often all of a piece, the tester from which the curtains hung being supported by posts at each corner. Headboards were generally larger and were extravagantly carved, sometimes being provided with recesses for candles at the top of which were holes through which the smoke could escape. Mattresses were stuffed with carded wool or feathers and were laid upon rope or canvas meshes rather than upon the boards of earlier times. Bedrooms would also probably contain carved chests and stools and a cupboard for jugs and basins, brushes and combs, pots of cosmetics, a looking-glass and a chamber pot, perhaps of pewter and known as a ‘Jordan’. ‘Jordans’ were sometimes enclosed in close-stools. One of these made for the king in 1547 was covered with black velvet and decorated with ribbons, a fringe and 2000 gilt-headed nails. The water-closet was invented by Sir John Harrington in 1596 and the queen, his godmother, had one installed in Richmond Palace the following year. But it was to be very many years before her example was generally followed; and, in the meantime, as Andrew Boorde complained, there was too much ‘pissing in chimnies’.
This habit was also condemned, together with other bad behaviour on the part of guests, by Thomas Tusser whose Five Hundreth Goode Pointes of Husbandrie was published in 1573:
The sloven and the carles man, the roinish nothing nice,
To lodge in chamber comely deckt, are seldom suffred twice.
With curteine som make scaberd clene, with coverlet their shoo,
All dirt and mire some wallow bed, as spanniels use to doo.
Though bootes and spurs be nere so foule, what passeth some thereon?
What place they foule, what thing they teare, by tumbling thereupon.
Foule male some cast on faire boord, be carpet nere so cleene,
What maners careles maister hath, by knave his man is seene.
Some make the chimnie chamber pot to smell like filthie sink,
Yet who so bold, so soone to say, fough, how these houses stink?
They therefore such as make no force what comly thing they spil,
Must have a cabben like themselves, although against their wil.
But gentlemen will gently doe where gentlenes is sheawd,
Observing this, with love abide, or else hence all beshreawd.18
Chairs were rarely seen in bedrooms and, indeed, were not all that common anywhere. In some houses they were reserved for the owner and favoured guests, hence to take the chair or to become a chairman came to take on its present connotation of precedence. At Hampton Court, where Cardinal Wolsey had no less than 280 beds, there were only five chairs of state, though there were a few other chairs, mostly uncomfortable, for lesser men. Some were box-chairs, others were bobbin chairs. Later in the sixteenth century conversation chairs with arms and low seats, known as caqueteuses from the French caqueter (to chatter), were introduced from the Continent. By the end of the century, indeed, chairs were more commonly found in large houses, and the seats were usually covered in some material, quilted or cushioned. In an inventory taken of the contents of Sir Henry Unton’s house at Wadley in Berkshire in 1596 nearly all the chairs and stools are described as covered. In the great chamber there was a velvet chair and six stools in tuft taffeta; in the parlour there were two chairs in green cloth, one in black wrought velvet laid with silver and gold lace, thirteen stools in green cloth and six leather stools. One of the bedrooms had a chair, two stools and a cushion for the window seat all covered in yellow velvet.19
In halls, chambers and parlours there were coffers and cupboards, dressers and stepped sideboards, aumbries and buffets, chests with a single drawer at the bottom which developed into chests of several drawers, and tables, these no longer trestle tabl
es but more often heavy pieces with the tops fixed to bulbous legs. Most were more or less clumsily carved, although many were made of fine woods, rosewood, walnut and oak inlaid with marquetry, and they were often covered with carpets, which, imported from the Continent and from Turkey and Asia Minor, were also hung on the walls, although not until later placed on the floor. Where rushes were used these were now usually changed every month not laid on top of old layers as had been a common practice in the Middle Ages.
Pewter and silver were much in evidence, both as decorative pieces on cupboards and sideboards and as tableware. Ceremonial salts became increasingly elaborate, the Earl of Leicester’s being made of mother-of-pearl, and shaped like a galleon. It was ‘garnished with silver and divers warlike engines and ornaments; with sixteen pieces of ordnance whereof two [are] on wheels; two anchors in the forepart; and on the stern an image of Dame Fortune standing on a globe with a flag in her hand’.20 Spice-boxes and pepper-casters were almost as ornate; so were pomanders and candlesticks and clocks. Even chandeliers and warming-pans were sometimes of silver; lidded goblets were made in silver and in gold; and horn tankards were ornamented with silver bands. Silver and pewter trenchers were taking the place of wooden ones and the medieval slices of bread. Spoons were also of silver; knives were now laid on the table rather than brought to it in sheaths; though forks, introduced from Italy, were rarely seen. Thomas Coryate, the English traveller, who set out upon the journey which was to provide material for his Crudities in 1608, came across the fork in Italy and, as Fernand Braudel says, ‘made fun of it at first, then adopted it – to the great amusement of his friends who christened him furciferus (fork-handler, or to be more precise pitchfork-handler)’. ‘Was it the fashion for wearing ruffs that led rich diners to use forks?’ Braudel continues. ‘Probably not, since in England, for example, there is no mention of table forks in any inventory before 1660. Their use only became general in about 1750.’21
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