Weir A. Henry VIII: The King and His Court

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

aristocratic mode of transport since the twelfth century, particularly for ladies, it was convenient for use

on roads that could not take wheeled vehicles. Litters normally had hooped roofs, or bails, with

horizontal pommels, or rods; they were hung with rich curtains or blinds. Litters were frequently used

in ceremonial processions. In 1514, Henry’s sister Mary owned “a beautiful litter covered with cloth of

gold embroidered with fleurs de lys, and carried by two large horses equipped with both saddles and

harness, all covered with similar cloth. Inside the litter there [were] four large cushions covered with

cloth of gold, and on the outside this litter [was] covered with scarlet English cloth.”

Because of the problems encountered in travelling by road—especially through London, where the

streets were narrow and congested—the King preferred to travel by barge along the Thames, the

capital’s principal highway, beside which many of his palaces were located. Henry owned several state

barges, which were looked after by the Master of the King’s Barge, the King’s Barge being a

department staffed by a team of Royal Watermen. Henry’s barges were magnificent, lavishly

embellished vessels: in 1530, the court painter Vincenzo Volpe was paid £15 (£4,500 now) for

decorating the King’s new barge. Royal barges were large: Katherine of Aragon’s had twenty-four oars.

Henry’s chief barge was called The Lyon. Docks and boathouses were reserved for the King’s use at

most riverside palaces; one was built at Whitehall in 1540.

Henry enjoyed pleasure rides along the river, which was then the habitat of thousands of swans; one

such trip took place in 1539, when he took his barge to Whitehall and Lambeth, with his drums and

fifes playing, and sailed up and down the Thames for an hour after Evensong.

Members of the nobility with town houses would also maintain barges and watermen; others had to hire

barges or pay the London boatmen to row them across or along the busy river.

Fares started at 1d

(£1.25 now), but it cost 12d (£15.20) to get from Greenwich to the City.

Because he hated unnecessary disruption, Henry VIII would often secretly remove to another house for

a short time, taking only a few friends and servants. This small retinue was known as his “riding

household,” as opposed to his “abiding household.”

One such visit took place in 1518, when he

arranged to meet Cardinal Wolsey privately at Greenwich. Richard Pace, the King’s Secretary,

informed Wolsey that the King “desireth Your grace to command provision to be made there for his

supper and yours, for he will depart hence secretly with a small number of his Chamber, without any

such persons as should make provision for him.”

Henry VIII was a fastidious man, and obsessed with cleanliness. He waged a constant battle against the

dirt, dust, and smells that were unavoidable when so many people lived in one establishment. Erasmus

was shocked by the filthy conditions in English houses, and there is evidence that many of those who

came to court had disgusting habits. Men commonly relieved themselves against walls and in

fireplaces; there were frequent official strictures about dirty dishes, tankards, and leftover food lying

around the palaces and courtyards; and visitors to the royal apartments had to be constantly reminded

not to “wipe or rub their hands upon none arras of the King’s whereby they might be hurted” or place

dirty dishes “upon the King’s bed, for fear of hurting the King’s rich counterpoints.”

Henry and his contemporaries knew of and feared the connection between dirt and disease, although no

one was aware of the existence of germs. Infection was thought to be transmitted through bad air or

foul smells. Cleanliness was seen as a virtue, but it was very difficult to achieve or impose. Henry VIII

issued numerous ordinances enforcing the observance of strict hygiene in the royal residences, but they

were not always obeyed, probably because his courtiers and servants did not share his sensibilities.

The Grooms of the Chamber were commanded to keep the royal apartments free “of all manner of

filthiness” and were not allowed to delegate their duties to “mean persons,”

they had to rise at six in

order to clean and tidy the King’s rooms before he got up at eight. The pages who slept in the guard

chamber were expected to rise at seven to help with the finishing touches.

Houses were cleaned properly only when empty; once the court had left, the remaining servants, under

the supervision of the Keeper and the Office of Works, would sweep out the rooms, carry away the

dirty rushes, and “dust out all the lodgings within the manor.”

They also dusted and washed the

panelling and even the ceilings.

In the 1540s, Henry employed three permanent staff to keep the vast

palace of Whitehall clean during his absence.

It is clear that some courtiers had little respect for the King’s houses and property, since the Office of

Works was constantly repairing or renewing windows, hearths, roofs, floorings, paintwork, and locks.

Hygiene in the royal kitchens was the subject of many regulations. After Cardinal Wolsey discovered

that scullions were going about their duties “naked, or in garments of such vileness as they now do,”

the Clerk of the Kitchen was provided with money to buy “honest and whole garments” for his staff

“for the better avoiding of corruption and all uncleanness out of the King’s house, which doth engender

danger of infection and is very noisome and displeasant.”

Pissing in the cooking hearths was expressly

forbidden at the same time.

Each morning and afternoon, the scullions had to “sweep and make clean the courts, outward galleries

and other places of the court, so there remain no filth or uncleanness in the same,” and the Serjeant of

the Hall would check that this was done properly.

Used washing-up water was to be poured down the

drains that led directly into the sewers. Dumping rubbish in the moat was prohibited, as was the feeding

of waste food to dogs, for fear of encouraging them; such leftovers were to be set aside for beggars.

The kitchens and dining areas were continually infested with dogs, cats, and rats, which resisted all

attempts to scare them away with whips and bells.

If the rules were not obeyed, the transgressor would receive an oral warning; upon a second offence,

his perquisites would be withdrawn, and on a third he would lose for good his lodgings, entitlement to

bouche of court, and even his job.

Conditions in the kitchens were not conducive to hygiene. The overpowering heat from the great ovens

and fires and the press of people resulted in sweaty scullions turning the spits, “interlarding their own

grease to help the drippings.”

Cleanliness was dependent on an efficient water supply, and that was not always available in Tudor

palaces. In the Middle Ages, monastic builders had pioneered the supply of running water to buildings.

Water had first been piped into a royal palace in 1234, when conduits were built at Westminster. In the

late fourteenth century, Richard II had had running water in his bathroom at Sheen Palace, Richmond,

but this was rare, and even in Henry VIII’s reign, some royal houses, including Ashridge and

Rochester,

were served only by wells.

In the greater houses, changes had to be made to accommodate a larger court and meet the King’s

desire for longer sojourns. Cardinal Wolsey, and later Henry VIII, built such an efficient system of

pipes and drains at Hampton Court that it remained in use until 1871.

By means of a stunning feat of

engineering, the water was piped from natural springs three miles away at Coombe Hill; the pipes were

embedded in the riverbed under the Thames. The three Tudor conduit houses at Coombe Hill may still

be seen. The supply served the whole palace, and many household offices and even courtier lodgings

were supplied with a tap, while the King and Queen had water piped into their bathrooms. The

overflow from the cisterns was used to supply fountains, moats, and fishponds. Efficient conduit

systems were also installed or in place at Eltham, Woodstock, Beaulieu, Greenwich, Whitehall, St.

James’s Palace, Nonsuch Palace, Hatfield Palace, Enfield Palace, and Otford Palace.

Some of these

systems were not very efficient, and were constantly being serviced or upgraded.

In 1533, the King took on a man whose job it was to clean out all the sinks and drains in the royal

palaces. Other men were employed to regularly cleanse the moats, which were usually supplied with

fresh water and might contain fish for household consumption.

Given the frequent purchases of scents and herbs to sweeten the air that appear in the royal accounts,

personal hygiene seems to have been found generally wanting. There were no deodorants, and only the

rich could afford perfumes, which came mainly from Italy and consisted chiefly of little balls of

ambergris, musk, and civet. These were known as pomanders, the name also given to the gold-filigreed

balls in which they were carried; these hung from a lady’s girdle and could be held to the nose to ward

off bad smells.

Soap was expensive, even though it was manufactured in London and Bristol; it was made from wood-

ash, tallow, or olive oil. Many large households made their own. The best, and dearest, soaps were

imported from Venice and Spain. The wealthy classes also used aromatic oils and scented salts in their

baths. But most fine garments were made from unwashable fabrics, and must have smelt very stale

after several wearings, particularly if the weather was hot. Body linen, however, was regularly

laundered, along with chapel and table linen and towels. This was done by the Laundry, a department

of the Wardrobe, which was staffed by the Yeoman Launderer and his team of five men.

All whites

were boiled, then hung by braziers to dry. The laundry at Eltham with its enormous fireplaces survives.

The provision of a water supply proves that people did wash, but how often and how extensively is not

known. Thorough washing was recommended by many authorities, but taking a bath could be a

complicated business, since wooden bathtubs had to be filled with water, lined with sheets, and emptied

afterwards.

Fleas, bedbugs, and head lice were certainly a problem. To ward off fleas, people put bunches of

mulberry twigs beneath their beds at night. Henry VIII always wore a small piece of fur next to his skin

to attract all the parasites that pestered him.

Toothpicks were used for cleaning teeth, which were then polished with a linen cloth. A person

suffering from bad breath was advised to sleep with his mouth open and wear a nightcap with a hole in

it, “through which the vapour will go out.”

Sanitary facilities at Henry VIII’s court of necessity had to be efficient, given the large numbers of

people present. Garderobes were provided next to all the major rooms and in larger courtier lodgings;

they were always well ventilated, and some could be flushed with water from a cistern,

but they

invariably began to stink after regular use, and it was at this stage that a house was usually vacated, so

that they could be scoured. Garderobes, which had wooden seats, usually emptied into stone cess-pits,

which had to be feyed, or cleaned out, every so often; the poor unfortunate who had to do this was

called a gong fermour, “gong” meaning latrine.

In the 1530s, in the wing to the right of the gatehouse at Hampton Court, Henry VIII built his Great

House of Easement, a two-storey communal public lavatory with fourteen seats. The waste emptied

into the palace’s main drain, bypassing the moat over which the building projected, and was flushed

away by tidal water from the river.

Similar facilities were provided at all the greater houses and some

lesser houses.

The physician Andrew Boorde urged that “piss pots” be avoided because they were malodorous,

but

stone or lead urinals were installed around the palace courtyards for the convenience of those who

might otherwise have used the walls.

The painting of red crosses on those same walls was also meant

to act as a deterrent, in the hopes that no man would desecrate such a holy symbol.

The fact that eight months after Henry’s death it was felt necessary to issue a proclamation forbidding

any person to “make water or cast any nuisance within the precinct of the court”

suggests that

standards had rapidly slipped, and that the old King had succeeded only to a degree in enforcing certain

standards of hygiene.

“The Worship and Welfare of the Whole Household”

Since the reign of Edward IV, the royal household had been divided into two separate departments, the

Chamber, or the domus regis magnificencie (the King’s House of Magnificence), which comprised the

“above-stairs” apartments where the King lived; and the Household (which was different from the

“household,” which meant the whole court), formerly the Hall; this was the domus providencie (the

House of Providence), the “downstairs” kitchens and offices that serviced the Chamber and facilitated

the display of royal magnificence.

The nominal head of the entire royal household was the Lord Great

Chamberlain; the office was held by successive earls of Oxford until 1540.

At the head of the Chamber was the Lord Chamberlain. From 1526, his department was officially in

two sections:

the Privy Chamber, with a staff of gentlemen, grooms, esquires, ushers, and pages, who

all looked after the King’s personal needs; and the Great Chamber, with a similar staff, which

comprised the outward chambers and the Privy Wardrobes.

The Lord Chamberlain was also responsible for all those who worked in the Chamber, such as the royal

chaplains, physicians, cupbearers, sewers (who waited at table), carvers, craftsmen, musicians,

entertainers, watermen, and guards. The Lord Chamberlain could have as many as four hundred people

under his jurisdiction; by 1547, about half of them were in posts “worth a gentleman’s having.”

Henry

VIII’s first Lord Chamberlain was his cousin Charles Somerset, Earl of Worcester, an illegitimate scion

of the Beaufort family.

The Lord Chamberlain was always an experienced nobleman and councillor; his role was both

administrative and political, for he often advised the King or spoke for him in the Council or

Parliament. He was also responsible for arranging court ceremonies. He was assisted in his duties by

his deputy, the Vice Chamberlain; this was Sir Henry Marney, a privy councillor who in 1497 had

helped suppress the Cornish rebellion against Henry VII, and had been rewarded with the Order of the

Bath at Henry VIII’s coronation.

The Queen’s Side had a similar organisation, under the authority of her Chamberlain, although it was

smaller than the King’s, and many of its members were women.

The Household was headed by the Lord Steward, who was always a senior nobleman and whose office

dated from Saxon times. His legal jurisdiction extended throughout the Verge of the Court, the area, or

liberty, within a ten- or twelve-mile radius of wherever the King was staying. Much of his work was

delegated to his subordinates—the Treasurer, Vice Treasurer, and Comptroller—on the Board of the

Greencloth, the controlling body of the Household, although his post was no sinecure, and he took an

active role and interest in the running of his department. George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, whose

motto was “Ready to accomplish” and whose family had a long tradition of service to the Crown, had

been Lord Steward since 1502, and would remain in post until his death in 1538.

The Lord Steward was in charge of twenty-five service departments, five hundred staff, and vast

financial expenditure. He was responsible for the provision of food, heating, lighting, and cleaning

services for the whole court.

Outside the jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Steward were other household departments,

including the Office of the Revels, the Jewel House, the Office of the Tents, the Office of Works, the

King’s Barge, the Royal Mews and Kennels, the Royal Ordnance, the Stables, and the Chapel Royal.

Given the numbers at court, the prevalent chaos, and the need to reconcile strict expenditure with the

outward show of royal magnificence, the household administration was generally managed skilfully

and efficiently. It was given two major overhauls in Henry’s reign—by Cardinal Wolsey in 1526 and by

Thomas Cromwell in 1539—and frequent ordinances had to be issued against waste, disorder, and

infringements of the rules; but it remained a stable, strongly bureaucratic institution.

The Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Steward, and the Master of the Horse were the three “Great Officers

of the Household”; next in importance came the Vice Chamberlain, the Treasurer, and the Comptroller.

These six officers all carried white wands of office signifying that they held their authority direct from

the King; they were therefore known as the White Sticks. The Treasurer and Comptroller were

subordinates of the Lord Steward and ranked immediately below him. The Lord Steward and his

officers occupied good lodgings in the service quarters, where it was customary for servants to sleep

and eat communally in or above their various departments.

The office of Treasurer, held from 1502 to 1522 by Sir Thomas Lovell, was first instituted in the reign

of Edward III. The Treasurer was responsible for the purchasing of provisions for the household and for

the efficiency of his staff, “cherishing the good officer and punishing the evil-doer.”

The office of

Comptroller dated from the time of Edward IV. The Comptroller kept detailed accounts, sanctioned

payments, audited returns, and managed the Treasurer’s finances. Sir Edward Poynings, who had

served the Crown in Calais and Ireland, was Henry VIII’s first Comptroller.

Each Household department had a Serjeant, Keeper, or Master in charge, and under him a staff of

yeomen, grooms, and pages. Much of the administrative work was done by clerks. Nearly all

Household servants were male; the younger ones usually lodged in the palace, the older ones lived

outside with their families whenever possible, since there were few married quarters. The same names

occur frequently in the records (Weldon is one), which suggests that a certain nepotism was at play.

Nevertheless, all servants were expected to be “personages of good honesty, gesture, behaviour and

conversation.”

Only six women were employed in the Household. Five of them worked in the Laundry. One, Anne

Harris (of whom more will be said later), dealt only with the King’s linen, while the rest worked for his

successive queens.

The other female employee, “the wife who makes the King’s puddings,”

worked

in the Confectionary; her name was Mrs. Cornwallis, and the King was so enamoured of her cooking

that he rewarded her with a fine house in Aldgate.

She was lucky, since female servants were paid less

than their male counterparts.

The Household also employed many part-time and casual servants, as well as artists, craftsmen, tailors,

embroiderers, silkwomen, masons, labourers, bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers, and plasterers.

Numbers of gardeners were on the payroll, along with women who worked as “weeders in the King’s

garden.”

Master Walsh, a gardener at Greenwich, earned £3.10s (£750) a year; he probably worked on

a part-time or seasonal basis. Jasper, a gardener at Beaulieu, earned the same amount quarterly, and

supplemented his income with frequent rewards of 6s.8d (£101.50) from the King for bringing fresh

herbs wherever Henry was staying.

Despite the strict social hierarchy that existed in the royal household, relationships that would have

been unthinkable in later centuries flourished. The King took an interest in the members of his

Household and was on good terms with many of them. Between 1527 and 1539, Richard Hill, the

Serjeant of the Cellar, often played cards and dice with his sovereign; the Clerks of the Greencloth

repeatedly petitioned the King on behalf of their friends; and when Henry went to war, he took many of

his Household servants with him.

Competition for places in the Chamber and Household was often fierce, not only because it was a high

honour to be employed by royalty, but also because the conditions of service were excellent compared

with elsewhere. Jobs were relatively secure, and a certain status attached to them; there was no official

retirement age, and servants could continue to work as long as they were able. It was rare for anyone to

be dismissed for misconduct, and although the Lord Steward was commanded by the King to lay off

staff who were “impotent, sickly, unable and unmeet” for work,

those affected could make a profit

from the sale of their posts (a practice condoned by the White Sticks, even though it was illegal), and

would usually receive a pension from the monarch. Most redundancies occurred when a queen consort

died; those dismissed would receive a quarter’s pay. When staff were temporarily off sick, they could

receive good “board wages” in lieu of lodgings and allowances.

Salaries, wages, and allowances were determined by the White Sticks, and were listed in a detailed

ledger. The King was a generous employer who paid his Chamber staff twice what a noble such as the

Earl of Northumberland would have done, and they also received tips on a graduated scale for specific

tasks. Household servants’ pay was somewhat lower, but could be supplemented by perquisites.

Salaries varied surprisingly: the Cofferer earned £50 a year, about the same as the Master of the

Minstrels, while a Page of the Chamber got double that “during pleasure.”

There is evidence that

salaries rose gradually during Henry’s reign. Household servants were paid by the Cofferer, Chamber

servants by the Exchequer or the Treasurer of the Chamber. In 1539, the Cofferer was made responsible

for paying everyone; in the first year he outlaid £33,000 (£9,900,000).

Most servants had an established right to certain perquisites, which were basically the unwanted by-

products or rejects of their departments. Perquisites included candle ends, unbroken meats (i.e.,

untouched food left on the table), discarded saddles and bridles, deerskins, wine casks, lambs’ and

calves’ heads, feathers from poultry, and the giblets and dripping from roast meat. These items could be

kept for personal use or sold for high profits. There was usually a ready market for them: for example,

courtiers not entitled to eat at the King’s expense were always eager to buy food.

Servants trained on the job and, provided they proved competent and flexible, had good opportunities

for promotion. Promotion was at the discretion of the Lord Chamberlain or the Lord Steward and the

Board of the Greencloth, and was usually awarded on the recommendation of a Serjeant or Clerk of the

appropriate department. The career prospects were so good that a high-ranking gentlemen such as Sir

John Gage, who served as Vice Chamberlain (1528–1536) and Comptroller (1540–1547), was

delighted to secure for his son James the humble post of Groom. James rose quickly through the ranks,

and later became a Master of the Household.

A scullion might be trained as a cook, and so be set up in

a career for life. There is evidence that servants also transferred from department to department,

often

to their profit. Versatility served one well in the Household.

Servants were required to wear liveries in red or the Tudor colours of green and white, and were

provided with two sets a year, for winter and summer. In 1534, Hans Holbein painted a miniature of an

unknown man in royal livery, with HR embroidered with a flourish on his red doublet.

Privy Chamber

servants were distinguished by a livery embroidered with the King’s arms and Tudor roses.

Good work practices and conduct were constantly reinforced. Both the King and his Household officers

demanded a high standard of service. Servants were to be unobtrusive when in attendance on the

monarch, and under no circumstances were they to scratch themselves, pick their noses, blow those

noses on their sleeves, spit, belch, “claw their cods,” or breathe stinking breath over their master.

Discretion was mandatory: upon taking up a post, every member of the household, of whatever rank,

had to take an oath swearing loyalty to the King and promising not to work for anyone else and to carry

out his or her duties faithfully and diligently.

Henry himself, with his eagle eye for detail, was a stickler for punctuality. If he gave a courtier leave of

absence, he expected him back by a set time, and woe betide anyone who was late. The Clerks

Comptroller of the Board of the Greencloth maintained “establishment lists” of servants and their

duties on rolls of parchment, and they would check every day to see that no one was absent and that all

persons were where they should be; a servant could take leave only with the prior permission of one of

the White Sticks. Wages were docked for unauthorised absences. The same lists were used to check

whether unauthorised persons were working in the Household. If any was found, the Serjeant at the

head of that department would be penalised with the loss of two days’ wages if he did not immediately

expel the interloper.

The Board also prepared an “ordinary” listing those persons entitled to bouche of

court.

Early in the reign, the poet Andrew Barclay visited court and came to the conclusion that Henry VIII’s

servants were underoccupied and lazy:

They have no labour, yet are they well beseen,

Bearded and guarded in pleasant white and green.

Some were also careless, quarrelsome, dishonest, dirty, and surly.

Barclay evidently spent a night in one of the common sleeping chambers, and was appalled by the

behaviour of the occupants:

It is great sorrow for to abide their shout,

Some fart, some flingeth, and other snort and rout;

Some buck and some babble, some cometh drunk to bed,

Some brawl and some jangle, when they be beastly fed;

Some laugh and some cry, each man will have his will,

Some spew and some piss, not one of them is still.

Never be they still till middle of the night,

And then some brawleth, and for their beds fight.

The Household Ordinances make it clear that stealing was rife, yet few offenders were ever caught.

Those serving at table were not allowed to wear cloaks in case they were to smuggle out food beneath

them.

The Eltham Ordinances of 1526 forbade courtiers and servants to “despoil commodities in

gentlemen’s houses” when the court was on progress, “because it is often daily seen that, as well in the

King’s own houses, as in the places of other noblemen and gentlemen, locks, tables, forms, cupboards,

trestles and other household implements be purloined and taken away, to the King’s great dishonour.”

Even the nobly born, it appears, were no respecters of property.

The Board of the Greencloth, which was to be found in the Counting House, was the chief governing

body of the Household. It was so called because its officers sat around a table, or board, covered with a

green baize tablecloth. Since the reign of Edward IV, the Board had maintained “the worship and

welfare of the whole household,”

and it had its own coat of arms depicting a key and a white rod on a

green background. At Hampton Court, the Counting House was housed in the room directly above the

entrance to the service complex, which is to the left as one faces the main gatehouse; its windows

afforded a good view of the comings and goings in the court below. Similar arrangements were in place

at other palaces.

The Board of the Greencloth was responsible for administration, finance, personnel, discipline, and

provisioning.

At least one of the White Sticks had to be present at the Board’s daily meetings, with

two or three Clerks of the Greencloth who assisted them.

Much of the work was done by the Cofferer—under Henry VIII, this office was first held by John

Shurley—who received money allocated to the Household, issued advances to purveyors, settled their

accounts, and paid out wages. He had to keep weekly records of expenditure, based on daily figures

supplied by the Serjeants of the various departments, and make quarterly returns. It was the job of the

Clerks to visit the larders and kitchens daily and check the stores.

Henry VIII had to dig deep into the wealth left by his father in order to finance his court and household

and maintain the degree of magnificence appropriate to his position as king. Before long, his

inheritance was spent. The annual revenues of the Crown remained stable, thanks to fixed rents and

dues, at about £100,000 (£30 million) throughout the reign. Consequently, rampant inflation and rising

prices caused by Henry’s wars and the demands of a growing population made inroads into the royal

finances. Out of their income, Tudor monarchs had to fund all the expenses of government and

administration, yet throughout the period the cost of maintaining the court was enormous, amounting to

about one-third of the royal income. That there was no criticism of this underlines the unquestioning

acceptance of the majestas of the sovereign.

The King sought to solve his financial problems by twice devaluing the coinage (in 1526 and 1539), by

borrowing, and by purchasing property in order to increase his income from rents. Both Wolsey and

Cromwell brought in measures to reduce wastefulness in the royal household, but to little avail. Henry

died in debt.

The Chamber had two financial departments. The Treasury of the Chamber had originally been a chest

containing money for the King’s private use, but by the time of Henry VIII it had become an important

financial department receiving the bulk of the royal revenues and funding many of the King’s wide-

ranging interests and commitments, such as state affairs, tournaments, wages, tips, gambling debts, and

offerings at shrines. The Treasurer of the Chamber, initially Sir John Heron, was in charge of these

funds.

The King’s Privy Purse, which was equally important, if not more so, was held by the Groom

of the Stool, who was head of the Privy Chamber; its funds were used for royal enterprises such as

maintaining palaces or purchasing plate, jewels, and tapestries.

The third financial department of the court was the Great Wardrobe, which had been its chief treasury

since the fourteenth century. In 1445, it had been established at Baynard’s Castle in London, where

were stored furnishings, fabrics, clothing, liveries, and the finery needed for ceremonial occasions. The

Keeper of the Wardrobe was responsible for purchasing these items, keeping them in repair, and issuing

them to the court when needed. The Offices of the Revels and the Tents came under his jurisdiction.

Security was somewhat lax at court. The King was an exalted being, but he remained very accessible to

his subjects. Renaissance monarchs were supposed to be highly visible, and this often precluded taking

strict security measures. Yet certain precautions were in place.

Entry to the court was controlled by the Serjeant Porter, who kept watch at the service gate for

unauthorised persons or servants attempting to smuggle out stolen goods or provisions. He and his staff

searched the palace three or four times a day to make sure that no “vagabonds, rascals or boys” had

slipped in unnoticed.

The Porter carried a staff of office, signifying his authority, and was provided

with a small pair of stocks in which to restrain offenders.

He himself could lose wages or be fined if

he was lax in his duties.

The Yeomen of the Guard, armed with fearsome gilt halberds, swords, and silver breastplates, were

lined up along the walls of the Great Watching Chamber, guarding the entrance to the royal apartments

around the clock. Founded in 1485 by Henry VII, the Yeomen of the Guard were the sovereign’s

permanent personal bodyguard, under the command of their Captain (who, under Henry VIII, was the

Vice Chamberlain, Sir Henry Marney), and responsible for keeping the King safe at all times. They

were of yeoman birth, and had to be “good archers, hardy, strong and of agility.”

Most were chosen

for their size and strength: “They were all very handsome, and by God, they were like giants!”

exclaimed a Venetian envoy in 1515.

Wherever the King went, they lined the way. During the Field

of Cloth of Gold, when he approached, they cleared the crowds “by force. Drawn up in broad ranks on

this side and that, the glittering guard of King Henry makes a wide path, 200 halberd-bearers in all,

gleaming with gold.”

In time of war, the Yeomen of the Guard were divided into two sections, archers and mounted

halberdiers. Their numbers fluctuated: Henry VIII increased the Guard from 300 to 600 for his French

campaign of 1513; in 1526, their numbers, which had fallen to about 200, were reduced to 100. By

1547, there were 150 of them.

Twelve members of the Yeomen of the Guard were permanently

stationed at the Tower of London, and were called Tower Warders (the name Beefeaters does not occur

until the seventeenth century).

The earliest picture of a Yeoman of the Guard appears on an Anglo-French treaty of 1527:

he wears

the original green-and-white-striped velvet tunic

embroidered back and front with the crowned Tudor

rose “with spangles of silver and gilt” and goldsmiths’ work.

Each guard had three changes of livery:

one for state occasions (as just described), a similar everyday livery made of cheaper cloth, and a

“russet” livery, which may have been worn for the night watches. The famous scarlet livery was first

introduced in 1514, and replaced the green and white tunics around 1530.

In 1509, Henry VIII instituted another troop of royal guards, the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners or

“Gentlemen of the Spears,” a mounted bodyguard, armed with spears and lances, whose duty it was to

look to his safety on the field of battle, at court, and on ceremonial occasions. The King seems to have

copied this idea from Louis XI of France, who in 1474 had founded the “Gentilhommes de l’Hotel du

Roy ou Pensionnaires.”

Unlike the Yeomen of the Guard, who were cheaper to maintain but not so

prestigious, the fifty Gentlemen Pensioners were of aristocratic birth; they were highly paid,

better

armed, with swords, halberds, battle-axes, and poleaxes, and had to provide three servants each. They

wore the fine clothes of gentlemen; the chronicler Edward Hall once saw them dressed in cloth of gold

and mounted on horses caparisoned with the same. Full training was given to recruits as yet

“unexercised in the feat of arms.”

Their first captain was Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex, and their

first lieutenant Sir John Pechy.

Every door in the King’s apartments was fitted with a lock made by the royal locksmith, Henry

Romains.

The King himself held one master key, and an appointed officer another. The Groom of the

Stool, as head of the Privy Chamber, held a full set. There were two locks on the door of the wine

cellar, and on the door of the room at Hampton Court where the King stored his paintings.

The Queen

held her own privy keys. Occasionally, Romains was ordered to change all the royal locks.

When

Henry went on progress, he took with him a portable lock for his bedchamber door, and Romains went,

too, to fit it. One such lock survives; originally at Beddington Park, it is now in the Victoria and Albert

Museum, and bears the royal arms and a Tudor rose; a facsimile is at Hever Castle.

Every gentleman considered it his right to carry a sword, and honour demanded that insults or “proud

and opprobrious words”

be met with a challenge. Although there is little evidence of duelling,

violence did break out at court from time to time, and occasionally the King himself intervened,

declaring “he would have no grudge among his gentlemen.”

Below stairs, there were frequent fights.

Because violence occurring in such close proximity to the King constituted a serious threat to his

safety, Parliament imposed ruthless penalties. A man who struck another and drew blood within the

Verge of the Court could be sentenced to a fine, imprisonment, and the loss of his right hand. In 1542,

one Collins, a gentleman, was hanged for committing manslaughter within the Verge of the Court,

and

on another occasion three servants found guilty of murder were hanged in their royal livery, as a

deterrent to others.

Young men indulging in unwise excesses of high spirits might find themselves under house arrest or in

prison for a time. Prostitutes working near the royal palaces did a roaring trade; one courtier, who acted

as a pimp, jokingly suggested that the King reward him for his services with a patent.

It was the duty of the Knight Marshal and his team of Provost Marshals to expel “all such common

women as follow the court” and to patrol the palace and deal with troublemakers. They were dealt with

by the Lord Steward’s court and either fined or sent to prison. Swearing, drunkenness, “haunting bad

houses,” fighting, and drawing graffiti—hugh penises were a favourite—on the palace walls were all

punishable by warnings, loss of wages, one month’s imprisonment, or dismissal.

The King’s valuables—jewellery, plate, and money—were stored either in the palace’s Jewel House or

in the privy coffers in his lodgings.

The Master of the Jewel House was responsible to the King for

the security of the treasures deposited with him, which were locked in strong-boxes called standards

behind barred windows. Yet not all Jewel Houses were very secure: the one at Hampton Court was by

the service gate. The King stored only lesser articles there, and kept his more precious belongings in his

coffers.

“Such Plenty of Costly Provision”

Feeding the court resembled a major military operation. This was catering on a vast scale, for everyone

who lodged at court was entitled not only to bouche of court but also to three cooked meals each day.

The court consequently consumed gargantuan quantities of food. In a single day in 1532, when the

King and just his travelling household were en route to Calais, they polished off 6 oxen, 8 calves, 40

sheep, 12 pigs, 132 capons, 7 swans, 20 storks, 34 pheasants, 192 partridges, 192 cocks, 56 herons, 84

pullets, 720 larks, 240 pigeons, 24 peacocks, and 192 plovers and teals.

Not surprisingly, it cost the

equivalent of over £6 million a year to feed the whole court.

Each of the royal palaces had its kitchen complex; that at Hampton Court, which was typical of the

period, occupied one-third of the palace area,

and much of it survives today.

The policy of

magnificence required bigger and more sophisticated facilities than hitherto. Henry VIII’s great

kitchens had vast ovens, roaring fires, and several charcoal stoves; they were hot, smoky, and noisy,

and when operating at full stretch resembled “veritable hells.”

The Great Kitchen comprised the “hall

place” kitchen, which prepared food for the Household, and the Lord’s Side kitchen, which supplied

finer dishes for Household officers and courtiers; the separate King’s and Queen’s privy kitchens

served the choicest food of all. The larders supplying raw food were at one end of the Great Kitchen,