Weir A. Henry VIII: The King and His Court

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and finished dishes were brought to the “bars,” or stone hatches, at the other, where they were checked

by the Clerk of the Kitchen and garnished for the table, then passed to the servitors queuing in the

“Great Space” beyond.

Dirty dishes were washed in the scullery in great pans set on iron trivets or brick boilers; lye made from

wood-ash was added to the water, and every item was supposed to be scoured with a cloth,

but Andrew

Barclay believed that the cups for the hall were scrubbed clean only once a year, for they were “old,

black and rusty,” with such foul slime coating the bottom that it was conceivable they had been used as

pisspots. It is worth mentioning, however, that there is no evidence of any large-scale outbreaks of food

poisoning at the Tudor court.

The Scullery also supplied and maintained all kitchen utensils and equipment; replacing or repairing

broken items could cost over £66 (nearly £20,000) a year.

The Clerk of the Kitchen, who was in charge of all the kitchens, had to be an expert manager of staff

and resources, and capable of working under tremendous pressure. He held the keys to the stores,

distributed food as it was needed, and made out accounts for the Board of the Greencloth. He also had

to ensure that “the King’s dish be of the best and sweetest stuff that can be got, and in like wise for

every estate, according to their degrees.”

In return, he was permitted to eat the same food as was

served to senior courtiers.

The Clerk was assisted in his duties by three Master Cooks, who were important personages in the

Household hierarchy and lorded it over the Great Kitchen and the King’s and Queen’s privy kitchens.

They planned menus, giving due regard to the different diets for each rank and the requirements of

feast and fast days, and each had a staff of perhaps twelve assistant cooks and twelve galapines, or

scullions, to help prepare the food; the Master Cooks only did the more fancy cooking. Henry VIII also

had a French cook, Pero Doux, working in his privy kitchen as “the Yeoman Cook for the King’s

Mouth” and earning £23.16s.8d (£7150) a year. He worked alongside the King’s Master Cook, John

Bricket, who was responsible for all the royal kitchens and received several valuable grants from his

master.

All the King’s cooks wore white linen aprons, and were respected professionals capable of

serving excellent cuisine of the highest order.

There were three teams of kitchen staff: one for the Great Kitchen and its subsidiaries, and one each for

the privy kitchens. There could be between 180

and 350

people working in the kitchen complex at

any one time, including 33 young boys

and various specialist craftsmen. Fifty people worked in the

Great Kitchen, the largest service department. Most of them took their meals there, and slept there at

night, on straw pallets.

The service complex was built around a number of courts, off which were found the various Household

departments. There were sixteen subsidiary kitchen offices, each under a Serjeant, who might supervise

up to twenty-one members of staff, including a clerk and purveyor. These offices comprised the

Bakehouse, Cellar, Acatery, Pastry, Scullery,

Larder, Pantry, Spicery, Saucery, Buttery, Wafery,

Confectionary, Boiling House, Scalding House, Poultry, Ewery or Napery, and Pitcher House.

The Bakehouse provided bread for the whole court. In an age before potatoes, rice, and vegetables were

served as accompaniments to meat, bread was a staple of every meal. High-quality wheat came from

the royal estates, or by purchase, and was cleaned and sieved in the King’s granaries. The wheatmeal

was delivered to the Bakehouse for making two hundred “cheat” loaves, each weighing 725 kilograms

each day; this was the bread most commonly used by the court. Some of the wheatmeal was finely

sieved for making seven hundred white “manchet” loaves daily for the upper courtiers; these loaves

resembled small rolls. John Wynkell, the Yeoman Baker for the King’s Mouth, who worked in the privy

bakehouse, made the finest manchet loaves of all for his royal master.

Even though fresh springwater was piped into the palaces, it was not thought safe for human

consumption,

so most people drank ale, beer, or wine; the Cellar outlaid a massive £3,000 (£900,000)

each year on alcoholic beverages. The Serjeant of the Cellar, William Abbott,

was in charge of three

departments: the Cellar, the Buttery, and the Pitcher House. At Hampton Court, the great cellar, which

supplied the court, was underneath the great watching chamber; next door was the vaulted privy cellar,

built in 1536 and used for storing the King’s own wine.

Ale was the staple drink, and the six hundred thousand gallons drunk each year by the court came from

the royal breweries, but during Henry’s reign, beer, initially imported from Flanders, gained in

popularity, despite the King’s efforts to ban it. But the hops his brewer was forbidden to use preserved

beer for longer, whereas ale deteriorated rapidly. Neither drink was very potent. At court, ale was were

served in leather jugs at the Buttery hatches.

Wines were imported from all over Europe, especially Anjou, Gas-cony, and Burgundy; over 120

varieties were known. Wine was a gentleman’s drink, bought by the barrel, not bottled; a barrel might

contain 105 or 205 gallons. The King spent a fortune on wines: £700 on claret alone in 1526, and £844

on Bordeaux wines in 1528,

while the court consumed three hundred barrels of wine a year. Many

sixteenth-century wines did not keep well; those that did often had a higher alcohol content than today

(up to 17 percent). Wine was very much a status symbol, an essential adjunct to polite society. Sweet,

strong wines, such as Osney from Alsace, were very popular, as was hippocras, a warm, richly spiced,

sugared red wine which was served at the end of banquets.

Under strict security, wine was drawn off from the barrels, then taken in leather jugs up from the Cellar

to the Buttery (French, boutellerie ), which was usually at the lower end of the hall.

Here, the Butler

and his staff would decant it into pitchers supplied by the Pitcher House. The Pitcher House also

distributed silver plate, goblets, and other vessels.

Each day, the Yeomen of the Pitcher House had to

collect the jugs and goblets left in the chambers of those who had taken drinks to bed.

Next to the

Buttery was the Pantry (panus being Latin for bread), where bread from the Bakehouse was stored in

wooden chests called arks, along with table linen and candles. The Pantler’s duty was to lay the tables

in the hall and slice the loaves.

All food eaten in Tudor times was organic, but much of it was available only on a seasonal basis.

Refrigeration was unknown, so perishable stuffs had to be supplied daily. Food was stored in the

Larders, mainly in barrels. The greater houses had wet larders, dry larders, and flesh larders; at

Hampton Court, they all led off Fish Court. It was understood that raw and cooked foods should be

kept separate. The wet larders were used for storing the numerous varieties of fish, and had their own

cisterns. The court’s chief contractor for fresh sea fish was Thomas Hewyt of Hythe, Kent,

while there

were moats and fishponds containing freshwater fish, such as carp and bream, at several palaces; the

three fishponds at Hampton Court occupied the site of the present Pond Gardens, whose walls date

from 1536.

A wide range of raw game was hung in the well-ventilated flesh larders, and the amount required for

the next day was cut every evening for issue to the kitchens after 5 A.M. Venison, which came from the

royal deer parks, was hung for up to six weeks before it was eaten;

it was a high-status meat, reserved

for royalty and their guests. General provisions were kept in the dry larders. The Serjeant of the Larder

would inspect all food as it arrived.

The purchase and storage of perishable goods such as meat, cheese, vegetables, and eggs, which were

known as achates, was the responsibility of the Acatery (from which derives the word “cater”).

Vegetables were mostly imported from Flanders, and the King employed a Flemish gardener to grow

his salad vegetables, which were often eaten cooked, with sugar, oil, and vinegar. During Henry’s reign,

vegetables gained in popularity, after having been regarded for a century as a poor man’s food.

The

King was especially fond of artichokes, which were grown in his gardens.

The Poultry, which was usually some distance from the palace, supplied poultry, lamb, and mutton. At

Hampton Court, there was also a pheasant yard. The birds were slaughtered by the staff of the nearby

Scalding House, who then plunged the carcasses into huge vats of boiling water preparatory to plucking

them.

Meat made up the bulk of the daily diet. Most meat for the court was boiled, or roasted on spits. Seven

boys were employed to turn the spits, and were given extra rations of ale to help keep them cool. Each

kitchen had an adjacent Boiling House with a huge copper cauldron set over a furnace, for cooking

beef,

for pies or stews, and for making stock for pottage; the cauldron at Hampton Court held eighty

gallons, enough for eight hundred meals.

Sometimes meat or fish was fried in skillets or broiled on

gridirons.

Several kitchen offices were staffed by specialists. The Pastry, which had four great ovens—at

Hampton Court, the largest was 12 feet in diameter—made hundreds of raised piecrusts, or “coffins,”

and tart cases. Most were of wholemeal or wheatmeal flour, but the King’s pastry was concocted from

the best unbleached white flour. The Pastry also made him enormous pasties containing whole sides of

venison.

The Serjeant of the Pastry was also in charge of the Saucery, which made mustard and a variety of

garnishes and sauces. Many sauces were flavoured with herbs, vinegar (made by the Cellar from

“feeble or dull wines”),

and verjuice, the juice from sour crab apples,

which was the main product of

the few English vineyards remaining in the sixteenth century.

Spices were used in both cookery and medicines, but since most came from the Mediterranean and

were very expensive, their use was restricted to the upper ranks. They would be ground by the Yeoman

of the Spicery using a pestle and mortar, and distributed where needed in the kitchens. The Spicery also

bought and stored loaves and cones of sugar—another costly commodity—and fruit from the royal

orchards.

There is plenty of evidence that Henry VIII loved fruit. His orchards supplied a rich yield of pears,

apples, plums, damsons, cherries, and strawberries—the last two were particular favourites of the King

and Anne Boleyn

—and in 1533 the royal gardener, Richard Harris, established a market garden at

Tenham Manor, Kent, which supplied fruit to the court. Citrus fruits were costly and rare, as they had to

be imported from Spain; Katherine of Aragon was instrumental in popularising oranges in England.

Henry loved them, especially in pies and preserves. Peaches were grown at Richmond, and it was

Henry who, late in his reign, introduced apricots into England, in the gardens at Nonsuch. People often

brought him gifts of fruit—pomegranates, apples, pears, grapes, dates, even an orange pie and a

melon.

Raw fruit was believed to cause fevers, so fruit was usually served cooked in tarts, or dried, or made

into preserves. Fruit might be served to important courtiers only at the beginning and end of meals, or

as a dressing for meat or fish; or it might simply be eaten as a snack.

The Chief Clerk of the Spicery also supervised the Confectionary, Wafery, Ewery, Chandlery, and

Laundry.

Sweet dishes and comfits such as marchpane,

gingerbread, and Henry’s favourite quince marmalade—

a preserve so thick it could be sliced—were prepared in the Confectionary,

where the cooks had to

have artistic as well as culinary skills. In 1517, when the Papal Nuncio was entertained by the King, he

was impressed by the “jellies of some twenty sorts made in the shape of castles and animals” by the

Confectionary.

The King was particularly fond of jelly made with hippocras. Sugar could cost up to

10d (£12.50) per pound; therefore, most confections were luxury items produced for the King’s table or

for banquets. Sweet wafer biscuits stamped with the royal arms were made exclusively for the King

and senior courtiers by the Wafery.

These wafers were usually served with hippocras at the end of a

banquet.

Tablecloths, napkins, fingerbowls, and ewers were bought, stored, and issued daily by the Ewery, a

department sometimes referred to as the Napery. The basins and ewers were normally of silver gilt. The

royal napery would be of the finest linen damask, often embroidered with silver or gold thread.

Tablecloths were changed at least twice a week, or sooner if they became grubby.

The ancient royal right of purveyance, or “prise,” meant that the King was allowed to buy food on

demand at prices fixed at a lower rate than normal. His purveyors not only seized upon the choicest

goods at markets, farms, and ports, but also commandeered horses and wagons to transport the goods.

They did not pay in cash, but issued receipts, which could only be redeemed by the hapless vendor in

person at the Board of the Greencloth—a requirement that often put him to considerable inconvenience

and expense. The royal purveyors were consequently very unpopular, especially in the southeast, where

the court was usually based, and the system was open to abuses and corruption. Thomas Cromwell tried

to improve it in 1539, insisting that vendors be paid in cash, and making each county responsible for

supplying its quota of goods at the “King’s price,” or paying taxes to make up for any shortfall. But it

was a long time before the new arrangements came fully into force, and there were still many

complaints.

In the greater houses, about 600 lesser members of the household ate in the great hall, which at

Hampton Court could accommodate as many as three hundred at a sitting; in the lesser houses, there

were outer guard chambers which served as dining rooms. About 230 officers and servants took meals

in their own departments.

The senior officers of the household, the nobility, and the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber ate in some

style off silver dishes at tables set up in the great watching chamber. Privy councillors had the right to

dine in the council chamber. All were served by Gentlemen Ushers, Sewers, Grooms, and Pages of the

Chamber, who ate what was left after their betters had departed.

By the sixteenth century, people of high rank preferred to dine in privacy and comfort, rather than

preside over their household. The King normally took his meals in the privy chamber, or, if he was

entertaining guests, in greater state in the presence chamber.

There were frequent, obviously unsuccessful injunctions against courtiers eating their meals in their

lodgings or “in corners and secret places,”

or entertaining guests at the King’s expense, which caused

endless problems for the kitchens. The Clerk of the Kitchen kept detailed records of where and what

each person should be eating, and made regular checks that everyone was where he was supposed to

be. Only the Lord Chamberlain, the Vice Chamberlain, the Captain of the Guard, and the Lord Steward

were allowed to take meals in their own lodgings.

Breakfast—comprising bread, meat, and ale—was served around 7 A.M.; dinner, the main meal of the

day, was between 10 A.M. and 1 P.M., and supper between 4 and 7 P.M. An evening snack, called “all

night,” was distributed around 8 to 9 P.M.

Dinner and supper consisted of two courses with a

prescribed number of dishes at each.

What a man ate was an outward manifestation of his rank. The number of dishes and type of food

served to each person differed according to degree, being determined by sumptuary laws and the

dietaries laid down in the Household Ordinances: the Lord Chamberlain got sixteen dishes at dinner

and eleven at supper, while Household servants received four at each.

The Gentlemen of the Privy

Chamber enjoyed a rich daily diet consisting of beef, mutton, veal, capons, conies, pheasants, and

either lamb, pigeon, or chicken, followed by tart, butter, and fruit.

Smaller, cheaper portions of meat

were served to servants, as well as bowls of that Tudor staple, pottage, which was meat stock thickened

with oatmeal or barley and seasoned with salt, vegetables, and herbs.

Andrew Barclay complained bitterly about the food served to the lower ranks; while he and his

companions “gnawed” on brown bread and cheese, “as hounds ravenous,” they had to watch “dainteous

dishes” destined for their superiors’ tables being carried past them:

To see such dishes and smell the sweet odour,

And nothing to taste, is utter displeasure.

Occasionally, as a sign of favour, lords would send down choice morsels to their servants—a practice

that Barclay says caused “great anguish and torment” to those not so favoured. Even if one was lucky,

such “scraps” did not

. . . allay thy hunger and desire,

But, by their sweetness, set thee more on fire.

Rank and precedence also dictated where a person sat at meals. Tables were usually arranged in a U

shape, with the top table being set on the dais. This was where the most important people sat, “above

the salt,” with the persons of highest estate occupying chairs; the ceremonial saltcellar, or nef, was

always placed to the right of the most important person present. Those on the lower tables were seated

according to their degree, with the lowliest at the far end.

If important guests were present at meals, the menu would be more lavish in their honour, and

appropriate to their rank, not that of the host. The Dukes of Burgundy had elevated the art of dining

into a powerful status symbol, and much of what was produced by the royal kitchens was beautifully

presented and designed to impress visitors. Food might be gilded with gold or silver leaf, or painted

with edible natural dyes; taste was not a priority. Some food was even scented with musk or ambergris,

and rose water was a common ingredient.

At every mealtime, trestle tables were set up and spread with cloths, which were strewn with herbs and

flowers to purify the air. In the privy chamber, each diner’s place was set with a silver or perhaps

pewter

trencher, spoon, goblet, and sauce bowl; manchet loaves wrapped in a napkin; and a flagon of

wine. Every person brought his own eating knife, which he kept in a sheath attached to his belt, but the

King owned sets of eating knives—one set was garnished with “emeralds, pearls, rubies and amethysts,

with knives having diamonds at the end of them”

—which were placed at the convenience of guests.

Some had matching forks, but forks (an Italian invention) were used only to serve meat or sticky foods,

not for eating. It was customary to eat with a knife and one’s fingers, having due regard for the

sensibilities of others: one used the left hand to take food from communal dishes, and the thumb and

first two fingers of the right hand to eat with. The knife was for serving and cutting meat, and helping

oneself from the salt bowls. Spoons were used to eat liquid food, and were rubbed clean with bread

several times during a meal.

Henry VIII owned sixty-nine gold spoons and twelve silver spoons “with

columns at the ends.”

Place settings similar to those in the privy chamber were laid in the great hall, but the utensils were of

wood, the bread was cheat, and ale, not wine, was served in a leather jug. In both chamber and hall,

food was served in “messes” in large dishes, each mess being sufficient for four persons. A cooked

mess of beef weighed seven hundred grams, so each person received about 175 grams of meat.

Meals were served with great ceremony. The company was summoned by minstrels blowing trumpets,

shawms, or pipes.

A fanfare sounded as the high table was seated, then a Latin grace was said by the

chaplain. The company stood—the men bareheaded—as dishes were carried in procession into the

dining chamber, where diners were served in order of rank and numerous servants stood by to attend to

their needs. Good table manners, a sign of good breeding, were expected of everyone. People washed

their hands before dinner and between courses. Napkins were not spread on laps but laid across the left

shoulder. Elbows or fists were not to rest on the table, and picking one’s nose or scratching one’s head

was unthinkable, although diners might spit discreetly and wipe runny noses on their sleeves.

It was

the mark of a gentlemen to be familiar with the intricate rules for carving the many cuts of meat that

were served.

In the hall, the courtesies were not always strictly observed. It was so crowded and chaotic that there

were frequent spillages and breakages. And the company, as Andrew Barclay observed, was far too

hungry to observe niceties:

If the dish is pleasant, either flesh or fish,

Ten hands at once swarm in the dish;

And if it be flesh, ten knives shalt thou see

Mangling the flesh, and in the platter flee.

To put there thy hands is peril without fail

Without a gauntlet, or else a glove of mail. . . .

Slow be the servers in serving alway,

But swift be they after taking meat away.

This was because those serving would eat whatever was left after the sitting had ended.

It was considered uncharitable to finish all one’s food. Leftover food, known as manners, was placed

on a dish called a voider and passed down to those of lesser rank, or collected by the Almoner and

given to the beggars who crowded outside the palace gates.

“Elegant Manners, Extreme Decorum, and Very Great Politeness”

The King’s magnificence was expressed through elaborate rituals and spectacular ceremonial. The

propaganda value of colourful and sumptuous display, in which Henry delighted, was well understood,

and the pageantry of his court incorporated dynastic, heraldic, and allegorical themes. John Skelton had

told his pupil, “Be bountiful, liberal and lavish.”

The King never forgot his advice, and his extravagant

lifestyle, set against the splendid backdrop of his residences, was designed to emphasise to others the

dignity of his elevated calling and place England firmly in the eye of Europe.

A rigid code of etiquette was observed at court, especially in the King’s presence. Entertainments and

festivals were organised with the maximum ceremony, and during the reign there were six great

occasions of state: two coronations, one near-legendary summit meeting, two royal visits, and a

reception for a future queen.

Then there were public processions and the solemnities attendant upon

royal births, betrothals, marriages, and deaths; receptions of ambassadors; and the solemnities attendant

upon the creation of peers. Court ceremonies and functions were usually organised by Garter King of

Arms, assisted by the Vice Chamberlain.

The court was at its most splendid on the feast days that marked the major religious and other festivals:

Christmas, New Year, the Feast of the Epiphany (or Twelfth Night), Easter, Ascension Day, the Feast of

the Assumption, and the Feast of St. John the Baptist on Midsummer Day. These days were marked by

pious observances as well as feasting and merrymaking. At Candlemas, the Feast of the Purification of

the Virgin Mary on 2 February, the King walked in a candlelit procession to chapel, his candle borne by

a nobleman on his right.

On festival days, the court ate exceptionally well, and the King would feast in

public; his subjects— provided they were respectably dressed—could come to watch.

There were times when food was not so plentiful. The court fasted on fish and dairy foods—“white

meats”—on Fridays and Saturdays, and observed an even stricter regimen during Lent, when dairy

foods were not allowed.

The King relaxed this rule in 1541.

Tudor feasts were an extravaganza of excess. The King’s hospitality was boundless, and cost the

equivalent of around £4 million a year. Up to seven hundred guests might be invited, and 240 different

dishes served on gold or silver-gilt plates. When the King entertained thirty people at Windsor, there

were fourteen varieties of meat, eight hundred eggs, ninety dishes of butter, eighty loaves of chestnut

bread, three hundred wafers, gingerbread coated in gold leaf, and sufficient fruit and drink for each

diner to have ten oranges and twenty alcoholic beverages.

All guests were seated in order of rank, and

served with impressive ceremony. The cupbearers and food tasters attending royalty would remain

kneeling throughout the proceedings. The choicest food was reserved for the top table, but might be

passed down to lesser mortals as a mark of favour. Along the walls stood buffets groaning with plate;

candles were often placed in front of this plate, to reflect more light.

The centrepiece of a feast would be a prodigy dish, such as a roasted peacock re-dressed in its plumage

or pies baked in the shape of St. Paul’s Cathedral. But the pièce de résistance was the subtlety, an

artistic confection brought in at the end of every course and offered to the high table. Subtleties, which

originated in Burgundy, were the opus magnus of the Confectioner’s artistry, and were made entirely of

sugar and almond paste, moulded into fantastic sculptures up to two or three feet high, then painted and

gilded. Subtleties, which were unsurprisingly “an assault for valiant teeth,”

might be in the form of

scenes from romances, myths, battles, or religious works; some represented coats of arms, others ships,

castles, churches—Wolsey served a subtlety of St. Paul’s Cathedral

—or even representations of the

guest of honour. Many had some political significance, and most bore mottoes. At Garter feasts, “a

George on horseback” had been customary since 1440.

Feasts could last for several hours. Once, when the King got bored, he amused himself by throwing

sugarplums at his guests.

On a few other occasions, he himself served them.

Such feasting could stretch the resources of the kitchens beyond their limits, and sometimes temporary

kitchens had to be erected in the palace gardens, as at Greenwich on Twelfth Night, 1533.

After a court entertainment or feast, the King might hold a banquet for the most honoured guests. A

banquet might be a grand meal, but it was usually a dessert of sweet dishes and confectionary, known

as the void, and it was usually held in the intimacy of King or Queen’s privy chamber or in one of the

banqueting houses in the palace gardens. A banquet was a gourmet’s delight, with only the best and

rarest foods and wines being served in the richest of settings.

Banquets were served buffet style, with the guests helping themselves after the servants had been

dismissed. Among the delicacies were suckets (pieces of fruit in syrup, which were eaten with forklike

sucket spoons),

marchpane, jellies, biscuits, “kissing comfits” of sugar fondant, and mounds of

syllabub called Spanish paps.

Much of this food and wine was intended to act as an aphrodisiac. Later,

comfits such as apples with caraway seeds and sugared spices were passed round on ornate spice

plates: Henry had one of silver gilt set upon four antique heads with an elaborate cover of silver, agate,

porcelain, and emerald chased with roses and fleurs-de-lys.

At the end of the evening, the King and

Queen were ceremonially presented with their gold cups, and hippocras and wafers were served.

Then

the company departed, many, presumably, to amorous adventures.

The King’s daily life was governed by ritual.

Even when he was not on show to the world, he was

rarely alone, even in his privy lodgings or stool chamber. His Gentlemen, Grooms, Ushers, or pages

would usually be in attendance. Four knights acting as Esquires of the Body waited upon the King day

and night, two each to a shift.

At 7 A.M. every day, the morning watch of the Yeomen of the Guard would relieve the night watch in

the presence chamber, and the Ushers would take their places at the door of the privy chamber, ready to

challenge all who wished to enter. The King rose at around 8 A.M. By then, the Grooms and pages had

lit the fire, ensured it was not smoking, cleaned and tidied the royal apartments, and tried—not always

successfully—to awaken the Esquires of the Body, who slept in the “pallet chamber” next door to the

royal bedchamber.

Sometimes the King complained that they were still snoring when he was up and

dressed.

Each morning, a Yeoman of the Wardrobe would bring the freshly brushed clothes chosen by the King

to the door of the privy chamber, and there pass them to a Groom or page, who would hand them to the

King’s Gentlemen who were waiting to attend him. Meanwhile, the Esquires of the Body would have

entered Henry’s bedchamber “to array him and dress him in his [under] clothes.”

Clean body linen,

strewn with fresh herbs provided by Mrs. Harris, the King’s laundress, was kept in one of two chests in

the bedchamber; the other chest held the dirty linen awaiting collection by Mrs. Harris, who, out of her

wages, which gradually rose to £20 (£6,000) a year, had to pay for the two chests and the herbs, as well

as sweet powder and soap, and wood for her fire.

Every week, she washed the King’s clothes and all

his other linen, including fourteen breakfast cloths, eight hand towels, and thirty-six napkins.

Any other garments needed by the Esquires were handed to them at the bedchamber door by a Groom.

Then, “loosely dressed,” Henry would emerge into the privy chamber, where his Gentlemen had the

privilege of completing his robing. No Groom was allowed “to lay hands upon the royal person, or

intermeddle with dressing, except it be to warm clothes and hand these to the Gentlemen; both Grooms

and Ushers must keep a convenient distance from the King’s person, not too homely or bold advancing

themselves.”

When the King was dressed, he seated himself on a chair with a footstool, and a kerchief was laid

around his shoulders. Then Penny, his barber, came to shave him, bringing a basin of water scented

with cloves; cloths; knives; combs of ivory, bone, or horn;

and scissors in case the royal hair or beard

needed trimming. Since Penny came into such close contact with his sovereign, he was required to keep

himself “pure and clean” and avoid “vile persons” and “misguided women.”

Nowhere in the Household Ordinances is there any reference to the King bathing. Although he had

bathrooms at most of his houses, and wooden tubs at others, we do not know how often he used them.

He certainly took herbal baths for medicinal purposes in winter, and, for fear of catching evil humours,

avoided bathing during plague epidemics

— which suggests he was taking baths at other times; he was

a fastidious man, and would surely not have gone to the trouble of installing so many sophisticated

bathrooms if he did not intend to use them.

The King’s bathroom, or “bain” (French for bath), in the Bayne Tower at Hampton Court, built in 1529,

had a ceiling laced with gilded battens, and window seats. The bath was attached to the wall, and there

were taps for hot and cold water, the hot water being heated by a stove in the next room. There were

comparable facilities at the Tower, Windsor, Beaulieu, Bridewell, and even in some lesser houses; all

were on the first floor near the royal bedchamber.

During the latter part of his reign, the King built

himself huge sunken baths on the ground floor, like those of Francis I of France at Fontainebleau; that

at Woodstock had water piped from a spring called Rosamund’s Well, and was cold in summer and

warm in winter.

There was a similar bath at Hampton Court, and another was excavated at Whitehall

in the 1930s. The latter is known to have been equipped with thirty-five towels of Holland linen,

washing cloths, bathrobes, pails, and sheets and sponges for lining the bath.

At Beaulieu and

Greenwich, the bathrooms contained folding beds complete with curtains:

it was customary for a

bather to retire to bed for a time after a bath to ensure that he did not take a chill.

There was a garderobe adjacent to each of the King’s bedchambers, and sometimes a stool chamber;

those at Greenwich and Hampton Court had pictures and bookshelves.

A close stool was a pewter

chamber pot set in an elaborate boxed seat; one of the King’s close stools was upholstered in black

velvet, silk fringing, and two thousand gilt nails, and it had “elbows and side pieces.”

It is often

claimed that the King did not use close stools until the end of his reign, but his sister Mary took one to

France with her in 1514,

so they must have been in use much earlier. Five of Henry’s were recorded at

Hampton Court in 1547: one was covered in green velvet and silk, “embroidered with the King’s arms

and badges.”

Two of his close stools at Ampthill had backs, and some even had their own cisterns for

flushing.

The title of Groom of the Stool derived from that gentleman’s privilege of attending his sovereign

whenever he used the close stool; his duties were to provide him with a flannel “to wipe his nether

end”

and to summon a Yeoman of the Chamber to empty and clean the pot. Sir Thomas Heneage,

Groom of the Stool from 1536 to 1546, was witness to the King’s chronic constipation and his efforts

to relieve it, and was present when, one night in 1539, the King took a laxative: “he slept until two of

the clock in the morning, and then rose to go to the stool, which by working of the pills had a very fair

siege.”

Once he was ready to face the world, the King “came forth” from his privy chamber, and was

immediately crowded by the hordes of courtiers and petitioners waiting outside.

Once he had fought

his way past them, having graciously dealt with some requests, he went in procession to mass in the

chapel royal, then, whenever possible, spent the morning hunting before returning for a late dinner.

Alternatively he might read or work in his library, visit the stables to see his horses, or spend time

mixing the medicinal remedies that he was fond of devising. Often, he was to be found relaxing in the

privy chamber in the company of his Gentlemen, and might not come forth at all that day.

The King’s schedule meant that he did not always eat his meals at the same time as the rest of the

court.

Since the thirteenth century English monarchs had enjoyed the advantages of having their own

privy kitchens: mealtimes could be flexible, the King could be served the choicest menus, and there

was less risk of his food being poisoned, accidentally or deliberately. At Hampton Court, the privy

kitchen was directly below the King’s apartments, connected by a spiral stair, so meals arrived hot,

which was not always the case elsewhere. There were similar arrangements in other royal residences,

and on the Queen’s Side.

The royal menus were always decided by the Master Cook in consultation

with the King’s physicians and the Sewer, and the Gentlemen Ushers let the privy kitchen know when

and where Henry wished his meals to be served and how many guests would be present. The Ushers

were also responsible for ensuring that the table was set properly and that everyone was seated in the

right place. The King always sat in the middle of the high table, “a little above the salt, his face being to

the whole view of the chamber.”

Even when he ate in the privacy of his privy chamber, the King’s meals were always conducted with

great ceremony and formality. After arriving with the Lord Chamberlain to the sound of trumpets, he

sat alone at a table set up before the chair under his canopy of estate, and his Gentlemen and Grooms

served him bareheaded on bended knee, while favoured courtiers, councillors, clergy, and men of

letters would stand behind and to the side, conversing with their master.

The two Esquires of the Body

sat at Henry’s feet throughout the meal.

The King’s damask tablecloth might be embroidered with flowers, knots, crowns, or fleurs-de-lys,

while the water in the royal finger bowl had been heated in a chafing dish.

On the table, in front of the

King, would be the splendid gold nef, a prestige item of plate fashioned like a ship, which held his

knife, spoon, napkin, and salt. His manchet bread would be wrapped in a “coverpain” of embroidered

linen or silk,

and his meat placed by the Carver on his plate, which might be of silver gilt or marble,

with a depression for salt at one edge.

Thirteen dishes in two courses were served to the King at each

meal, at a cost equivalent to a staggering £1,285.

His favourite dishes included venison, game pies

stuffed with oranges, haggis, eels, baked lampreys, salmon, sturgeon, ling, and an early version of beef

olives (beef stuffed with forcemeat and vegetables).

For the void, he preferred custards, fritters, tarts,

jelly, and cream of almonds. He was always eager to try new and rare foods, such as porpoise, which

became a Tudor delicacy, and even, probably, coconuts, or what were described as “nuts of India,

greater than a man’s fist.”

All the food prepared for the King would be assayed for poison by the

Master Cook and the Lord Steward before it was presented at table.

When Henry had finished eating, the Carver scraped the cloth free of crumbs with a knife, and the King

stood while a kneeling Usher brushed crumbs from his clothes. He remained standing while the table

was cleared and removed, again with meticulous ceremony, then washed his hands in a basin brought

by a nobleman.

A pen-and-ink drawing of Henry VIII dining in solitary state in his privy chamber is in the British

Museum, and shows officers of the Chamber, holding their staves of office, standing to one side, while

on the other is a buffet displaying plate.

If the King was entertaining guests in his presence chamber, a fanfare would herald the arival of a

procession led by the Lord Steward and officers of the Greencloth, followed by the Master Cook, the

Carver, the Sewer—the latter two were always of noble or gentle birth, and wore towels of office over

their shoulders—and Grooms bearing the food on heavy silver-gilt chargers.

The King’s Cupbearer

would assay his drink from a few drops poured into the lid of the royal cup, which might be of precious

metal, mother of pearl, alabaster, porcelain, or colourful, ornamented glass imported from Venice.

When the King had placed his cup on the table, drinks might then be served to the rest of the company.

The King’s leftovers were always given to the poor.

It was not unknown for Henry to take his meals in his secret lodgings, where there was less formality.

In 1528, for example, he “supped apart” in “a chamber within a tower” at Hunsdon.

In the afternoon, the King might exercise his horses, or he might receive ambassadors, often

summoning them at very short notice. After supper, he sometimes attended to state business, but his

councillors complained that he often put it off until late at night.

It was rare for the King and Queen to dine together, but Henry often took supper in his wife’s

apartments, usually as a prelude to sleeping with her. Sometimes, without warning, and often at a late

hour, he brought guests to join them at table. Alternatively, he spent the evenings watching some