Elizabeth would rule England for 45 years, ushering in a glorious Golden Age and surpassing that of her father, but she had no Tudor heir to whom she was able to bequeath the throne – of Henry’s three children, none would further the family line.
Mantel’s Wolsey reviews the history laid out before him, Henry’s first marriage, meant to consolidate the Tudor’s glorious legacy:
‘And now? Gone. Or as good as gone: half a lifetime waiting to be expunged, eased from the record.’
(Wolf Hall)
After just over a century in power, Henry VIII’s direct line ended, but the Tudor line survived through the offspring of his sister, Margaret Tudor, who married King James IV of Scotland, of the Scottish house of Stuart. The throne of England passed to their son, James V of Scotland, continuing the Stuart dynasty, which was uninterrupted through to the 18th century, ironically enjoying greater longevity than the Tudors. Nevertheless, the Tudors remain one of the most extraordinary threads in the fabric of English history.
THE TUDOR COURT
We all know that there was a Court, and we all use the term with frequent ease, but we seem to have taken it so much for granted that we have done almost nothing to investigate it seriously.
(Geoffrey Elton)
There are countless fictional portrayals of the Tudor court, but what did it look like and how was it was structured? The Tudor court was essentially wherever the monarch, his household and retinue of high-ranking officials resided. It was the focal point of power, patronage and pleasure. But it was not a fixed location, as Henry VIII had numerous royal residences, and wherever he chose to reside became the court. Being constantly on the move allowed each palace to be cleaned, and eased pressure on the land and the various royal parks, allowing the game to be replenished. Henry VIII had over 60 estates; each palace and castle served as the seat of government while the king resided there. It might house thousands of individuals, from nobles and courtiers to servants. Wealthy and powerful families had their own apartments within the palaces, having furnished these rooms with their own tapestries and furniture. Crucially, these rooms also had their own closed stool, or privy, so individuals would not have to use communal facilities. Other courtiers had small rooms and would dine in public in the great hall.
Royal palaces were a maze of rooms, designed to restrict access to the king. Traditionally, the court was based on the centuries-old concept of a Great Hall – a single hall where the monarch heard petitions, consulted his advisors, feasted and danced. A slightly less public Presence Chamber was added, in effect a throne room, where business was conducted, foreign ambassadors would be admitted for an audience, and councillors would have state papers signed. The medieval system had these two chambers but Henry VII preferred the Italian model, which included private rooms for the monarch to conduct affairs of state in peace, uninterrupted by the court. Henry VII created the Guard Chamber, which was guarded by yeomen, as well as the innermost room within the Court, the Privy Chamber – private royal apartments where only the select few where allowed to attend the king. These chambers were run by the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, who attended to the king’s every need, rising at dawn to help him dress, attending him throughout the day, and who would sleep just outside on pallets or folding beds. The Privy Chamber marked the private and public life of the monarch, and at the centre of this was the Groom of the Stool – he alone was permitted to enter the small room just off the bedchamber to attend the monarch’s ablutions, even wiping the royal bottom. We come to know Henry’s Grooms of the Stool, Henry Norris and Thomas Culpepper, very well through Cromwell’s eyes. Both men would have slept at the foot of the King’s bed, and in the morning would confer with the king to decide where he would hear Mass, when he wished to dine, and what activities he would like to pursue during the day. These decisions, made in the privacy of the inner sanctum, would ripple out towards the rest of the court, and set the palace in a flurry of activity.
Each palace consisted of two main divisions: the household proper, which was the domus providencie, presided over by the Lord Steward; and the domus regie magnificencie or ‘above stairs’, which was under the control of the Lord Chamberlain, and further sub-divided into the King’s household and the Queen’s household.
DOMUS REGIE MAGNIFICENCIE
This lay at the very heart of the Tudor court. Orbited by courtiers and members of the nobility and gentry, the Great Hall and chambers of court came under the jurisdiction of the domus regie magnificencie, where most fictional portrayals take place, and all the Tudor players can be located. Both chambers were bristling with individuals from either end of the spectrum, from gentlemen ushers, grooms, pages and chaplains to cupbearers. There was a strict and organized hierarchy as, for the most part, the whole court was always on show.
DOMUS PROVIDENCIE
The domus providencie was another world. Below stairs, this section was responsible for all practical elements of court life. The domus providencie was not one unit but rather several departments, all of which had their own hierarchy and head of operations, and these men would report to the Lord Steward. Departments included the almonry, bakehouse, cellar and kitchen, the acatry (which provided meat, fish and salt), the poultry (which provided fowl, lamb and eggs), the scullery (which took care of all the dishes and pots), the woodyard (which provided all wood for fires as well as wood for tables in the Great Hall), the spicery, the chaundry, and the confectionary (which was in charge
