- beautiful, that it would become a pretty woman, his throat being rather long and thick." He had seen all the kings in Christendom. Pasqualigo concluded, and so had grounds for comparison. Henry stood out among them all.^
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The Venetian had formed this impression when he first saw the king at Richmond a week or so earlier. It was Saint George's Day, the day when the Garter Knights were installed and the order's anniversary celebrated. The court was at its most splendid and solemn, and when the ambassadors arrived they were ushered into the royal presence through room after room of gorgeous display. Each chamber they entered was hung with richer tapestries than the one before, the shadowed texture of the hangings highlighted by gold and silver threads. Halbardiers of the king's bodyguard lined the way, armed with pikes and wearing silver breastplates. They had been chosen for their height; "and, by God," Pasqualigo wrote, ''they were all as big as giants."
Finally they entered the throne room, where the notables of the court had taken their places around the king as if posed for a portrait. Ranged along an aisle leading to the throne were dozens of noble men and women in cloth of gold and silk. Ten heralds wearing the arms of England on their gold tabards and six officers bearing golden scepters surrounded the king, while to his right were eight of his fellow Garter Knights and to his left a number of bishops in their linen rochets and miters. The king stood under a heavily embroidered canopy of golden cloth—"the most costly thing I ever witnessed," Pasqualigo said—leaning casually against his gilded throne. He was dressed in his Garter robes, his slashed hose and striped doublet in tones of scarlet and crimson and white. A purple velvet mantle girt with a thick rope of gold hung from his shoulders and ended in a train four yards long. His ornaments were a dagger, a gold collar with a round cut diamond, "the size of the largest walnut I ever saw," Pasqualigo noted, a necklace with a pendant Saint George in diamonds, and his garter of knighthood. His fingers, the Venetian wrote, "were one mass of jeweled rings."^
After the May Day banquet of venison on Shooter's Hill huge pasteboard figures representing the giants Gog and Magog were brought out and placed on wheeled cars. Another car held Lady May and Lady Flora, who sang duets to the king before joining the long parade back to the palace at Greenwich. The guardsmen led the way, after them the decorated cars and musicians "sounding the trumpets and other instruments," and then the king bringing up the rear "in as great state as possible," an observer recorded, "being followed by the queen, with such a crowd on foot, as to exceed, I think, twenty-five thousand persons."^ Not twenty-five, but several thousand persons may well have followed Henry back to Greenwich that day, jumping and straining to catch a glimpse of the tall king in his Lincoln green on his capering horse.
It is likely many in this crowd were palace servants. The life of the royal court was sustained by a shifting, conglomerate population of serving men and women thrown together into a tiny kingdom of their own. They staffed the enormous assemblage of coordinated operations that made up the royal household. Taken separately, each function in the aggregate was an extension of a personal service done for the king himself—cooking his food, looking after his clothes, his furnishings, his family, his entertainments and his treasure. But because the king lived
magnificently, and because his person was the focus of a crowd of attendants, officials, suitors and bearers of public business, serving him became a colossal task to be divided among some five hundred ushers, yeomen, grooms and their servants.
Below the principal household offices of steward, treasurer, and comptroller were the heads of the major categories of service. The gentlemen ushers saw to it that the rooms and halls of the palace were cleaned and properly furnished, walking through every chamber early in the morning and ordering fresh rushes here, a carpet there, a fire laid or a warming brazier provided. When the king stayed as a guest in a nobleman's house—as he often did when hunting, or on progress—it was the duty of one of the gentlemen ushers to go before him and make certain the roofs and floors of the strange house were strong and sure, that no rain could leak into his bedchamber, and that any back doors were locked or boarded shut. The assigning of rooms was of special importance to Henry; it was the responsibility of his gentlemen ushers to see that none but his preferred companions had the rooms below his bedchamber. Gentlemen ushers also allotted quarters to the servants, two to a bed (always "a gentleman with a gentleman and a yeoman with a yeoman"), and were in charge of arranging meals at the times the king requested.
Ordering meals meant, first, notifying the ewerer of the character of each meal and the number to be served, so that he could have the table laid with either fine damask or diaper table linen or plain canvas or holland cloth. Next came a meeting with the sewer, who arranged the dishes at the table, and the carver, who cut the meat; both were '*armed" with their towels of office, the sewer's around his neck and the carver's around neck and arm, baldric-wise. Finally the gentlemen ushers watched to make certain the seating arrangement was perfect, with the king seated exactly in the middle of the table, "a little above the salt, his face being to the whole view of the chamber," and the other diners ranged in rank on either side, their importance indicated by their nearness or distance from the towering gold saltcellar that sat beside their lord.
Between five hundred and a thousand people ate from King Henry's bounty every day; on special occasions the number could rise to fifteen hundred. Feeding them required nearly as much planning, provisioning and scheduling as feeding an army on campaign. Try as they might, though, the household officers could make only an approximate estimate of how much food would be needed. When the vast hall or great chamber was filled for dinner or supper, and the diners removed their caps to shouts of "Room for the sewer!" as the dishes were brought in, there were nearly always more mouths to be fed than anyone had foreseen. Idlers and vagabonds usurped the places laid for court officials and visiting nobles. Thieving servants reduced the available portions still further, and the dogs which made off with scraps from the alms tubs that held the leavings of the meal occasionally took food from the tables as well. Grooms armed with whips and bells patrolled the dining hall in vain in an effort "to fear them away withal," but there were too many; courtiers often brought their hunting dogs with them when they attended on the king, and the
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sound of their snarling and fighting with the pets and mongrels of the palace was a familiar annoyance at dinner and supper.
Large quantities of food and other stores were kept in readiness for the needs of the cooks and kitchen staff. Perishables such as fresh meat, fish, poultry, cheese, vegetables and eggs were stored in the acatery, a general storehouse for the foodstuffs bought daily at the palace gates by the clerk of the market. Non-perishable foods were bought in much larger quantities a few times a year, thousands of bushels of wheat at Michaelmas, dozens of barrels of oil, honey, and salted meat and fish, verjuice and vinegar, brewed liquor and spices—hundreds of pounds of pepper, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and "grains of paradise." These, along with many cauldrons of sea coal and charcoal, stacks upon stacks of logs and kindling, thousands of pounds of candlewax and yards of cloth, were stored in the bakehouse, brewhouse, buttery and scullery and a dozen other household departments.
Beyond the servants and officers of the household itself there were falconers, huntsmen, fewterers to keep the greyhounds, rat men and mole men to control house and garden pests. Aveners and squires and ordinary stableboys fed and brushed the king's horses, farriers shod them, and a special category of "the king's riding boys," or "boys which run the king's geldings" exercised them. Particular keepers were assigned to each of Henry's favorite horses. A large complement of laborers of many kinds—carpenters, bricklayers, joiners, plumbers, plasterers and masons—were kept constantly employed in building and repairing the palaces, while a crew of gardeners and women listed in the account books as "weeders in the king's garden" kept up their grounds. Still another group of servants attended to the moving of the highly
itinerant household from one palace to another. Furniture, kitchenware and other heavy fixtures were not transported, but all personal effects were. Hundreds of chests were packed for each removal, loaded onto carts or strapped to the backs of horses or mules tended by sumptermen with specialized functions. Moving the queen's goods alone required, in addition to saddlers, yeomen of the litter, gentlemen of the "chair" and yeomen of the "close chair," an array of sumptermen for the bottles, beds, robes, and closet.
A high proportion of the household staff was occupied with personal service to the king. Yeomen of the chamber made the fire in his bedchamber and cleaned his chamber pot. Yeomen of the ewery supplied his chambers with basins and candlesticks; yeomen of the wardrobe looked after his bed furnishings, replacing the decorative quilts on his bed with warmer furs or "Irish rugs" at night. His plume-maker, Gerrard Van Arcle, ornamented his hats and his armor. His laundress Ann Harris took charge of the two chests kept in his chamber, "the one to keep the clean stuff, the other to keep the stuff that has been occupied," and provided the sweet herbs needed to keep the clothing entrusted to her fresh-smelling. Caring for the king's clothing was a full-time task for a staff of skilled wardrobe servants. The wardrobe itself was equipped with racks, trunks, presses, brushing tables and a variety of covering- and carrying-cloths to protect the costly garments. Wardrobe servants had to be able to
look after the dozen or so kinds of velvet used by the royal tailors, and had to know how to brush up the raised pile on the cut brocades and how to treat the precious cloth of gold and silver. Folding and "laying up" doublets and robes was an art in itself, and moving the entire elaborate operation from one palace to another took many hours of preparation.
The king's day began when his pages, who had already dressed and eaten, entered his apartment at seven o'clock to bring firewood. They woke the esquires of the body, two of whom slept on straw pallets in the "pallet chamber" outside the king's bedchamber itself. The esquires then dressed and presented themselves at the bedchamber door at eight. A yeoman usher took up his station there to keep out everyone but the esquires and gentlemen of the privy chamber. Then, one by one, the royal garments appeared, brought to the bedchamber door by the yeoman of the wardrobe, received at the door by a groom of the chamber, handed through the door to one of the six gentlemen of the chamber who passed them to the other five in turn and finally given to the king.
The men privileged to serve in the privy chamber had a responsible yet delicate office. They had to have the reverence and sensitivity to wait on their master's intimate needs while keeping "a convenient distance from the king's person, without too homely or too boldly advancing themselves thereto." They needed to have a "vigilant and a reverend respect and eye to his Majesty, so that by his look or countenance they may know what lacketh or is his pleasure to be had or done." While he was present they had to anticipate his every wish; in his absence they guarded his rooms, keeping strangers out and passing the long hours until his return in dicing and gossiping. With his going and coming their sole focus of attention inevitably they speculated—perhaps even wagered—on his activities, much to his annoyance. Henry complained that his chamber men were given to inquiring where he was, where he intended going, and how long he meant to stay, mumbling about his pastimes and shaking their heads over the late hours he kept.^
In the evening, whether he was present or not, his bed was made with extraordinary ceremony. The exacting ritual called for a yeoman or groom of the wardrobe to bring in the clean sheets, pillows and blankets. Then, with gentlemen ushers holding the curtains at the sides and foot of the bed out of the way, two esquires of the body took their places at both sides as a yeoman leaped onto the bed and "rolled him up and down" to try out the straw, incidentally making certain there were no weapons concealed in it to the king's harm. Next the featherbed was laid on, and beaten well, then a yeoman placed the first blanket on the bed, and the esquires smoothed it and tucked it in, "laying it straight upon the bed without any wrinkles." The same procedure was followed with several more layers of sheets and blankets, and coverings of marten and ermine, and then, the bed turned down, the yeomen took the pillows, fluffed them, and tossed them to the esquires to set in place. Finally a gentleman usher closed the bedcurtains and an esquire sprinkled them with holy water, and the whole group retired to a comer of the room to reward themselves with bread, ale and wine.
The household thrived on such rituals, and on minute differentiations of function. Each servant knew exactly where his or her duties began and ended, and if those limits were not observed, conflicts arose. The yeomen in waiting knew well that they were to appear, their livery well ordered and their persons clean and groomed, at the door of the king's great chamber at seven o'clock each morning to relieve their counterparts who had the night watch. They knew that persons who insisted on seeing the king or bringing him messages were to be referred to the huissiers, who would relay the information to the chamberlain, who would pass it on to the king. They understood their obligations to summon the carver and sewer, to serve at supper when needed, to bring the king torches, or water to wash his hands if necessary, and to carry his messages. And if theirs was the night watch, they expected to remain alert throughout the night, listening for suspicious noises, ejecting suspicious persons, and guarding against the sudden fires that flared up in candlelit bedrooms and menaced the wooden interiors of the palace.
Service to the king or queen was both an honor and an opportunity for enrichment. The men who dressed the king and held the basin and napkin in which he washed and dried his hands at dinner were all lords and gentlemen with household servants of their own. The king's yeomen, grooms and pages served in hope of earning preferment in the ladder of service and, eventually, the reward of lands and modest titles. To be sure, service had its ugly side. A sixteenth-century proverb advised all servants to cultivate "an ass's back, a pig's snout, and a cow's ears"—an ass's back to bear the burden of constant hard work, a pig's snout to be able to eat cold leftovers and sour wine, and a cow's ears to be oblivious to the master's abuse.
And if the gentlefolk who held the more important posts in the household would have resented this treatment, the hundreds of menials below them had never known any other. As a group, they had not been bred to civility. They had to be taught how to behave in polite company—how to stand quietly in attendance without clutching at their backs or heads as if after a flea, without picking their noses or blowing them loudly into their sleeves, without spitting, belching, "clawing their cods" or "casting stinking breath" on their lords. They had to learn how to keep their faces set in an expression of agreeable repose, without gaping or pouting or "squirting with their mouths," while cultivating a soft voice and a quiet tread. Once these lessons were mastered advancement in the household was assured. Longtime servants could even become loved and cherished friends. John Colet, a humanist at Henry's court, told a friend how he was called to his mother's country house to console her in her extreme grief. A serving man whom she had loved like a son had just died; it was weeks before she was restored to herself again.^
The affection of a kind mistress was only one compensation for faithful service. Discards and valuable scraps were always the perquisites of servants. The yeomen of the horse were given old saddles and bridles; huntsmen were allotted the skins of beasts killed in the hunt; wine lees and empty casks went to the yeomen of the cellar, and candle ends to the
yeomen of the ewery. In the kitchen, the clerks were allowed to take the heads and skins of lambs and calves, and the grooms and children who turned the spits shared the bones, necks and giblets of fowl and the savory drippings from roast meat.
If Henry's palace officers and servants recognized the benefits to be gained from faithful observance of their duties, they were also quick to sense that the young king was inclined to be a lax taskmaster where his household was concerned. For if he often insisted on decorum in his surroundings, and had immense personal dignity, he also liked noise and uproar
. He liked the constant coming and going of retainers and messengers; he liked crowds. There is good evidence that during the earliest years of his reign his court was a bedlam.®
The strict rules of service were sometimes kept, sometimes flouted. The good order to be observed on the king's arising was ignored. The esquires who slept in the pallet chamber refused to get up on time, and snored on until long after the energetic king was dressed and gone. People of every description burst in on Henry in his private bedchamber, asking for favors, complaining of injustices and simply urging recognition of their charm and merits. In the corridors and galleries of the palace servants of the nobles who lived at court or came there on business crowded one another and started fights, and the king's own retainers, overburdened and insulted, grew careless in their work and surly to one another.
Large retinues were the most obvious index of status, and every great personage who came to court brought with him as many servants as he could, complete with wardrobe chests, liveries, cartloads of baggage and horses for travel, hunting and the tilt. Some gentlemen brought not only their hounds but their hawks and caged ferrets, and filled their rooms with hunting gear and rabbit nets. They seemed determined to extort from the king every conceivable advantage due to their station. They squandered his food, especially his wines and ale. They used up his firewood and candles at a tremendous rate, and brought in their relatives and retainers to dine at his table uninvited. When they went with him to his country hunting lodges they trampled all the planted fields in the neighborhood and took the best fish in all the ponds. And when they left the steward complained that they had taken with them tables, cupboards, trestles and forms, and even the locks off the doors.
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