by Alison Weir
History of the King’s Works. It stood on the present Friary Street, but was ruinous by 1603 and was demolished in 1607.
Edward VI granted it in 1548 to George Brooke, Lord Cobham, but it had been demolished by 1558.
L&P; B.L. Additional MSS.; PRO; John Stow, Annals; Charles Wriothesley.
L&P.
Ibid.
CSP: Spanish.
L&P.
Ibid.
Newcastle MSS., Nottingham University Library.
L&P.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Charles Wriothesley.
CSP: Spanish.
There is a later story that she was publicly received back at court on 17 December, but since it is clear that she returned in October, this must be apocryphal (CSP: Spanish).
L&P.
Rooms were set aside for Mary at Ampthill, Enfield, Guildford, Woking, Otford, and Westenhanger. L&P; CSP: Spanish; Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; B.L. Cotton MSS.: Vespasian.
Cited in Neville Williams, The Court of Henry VIII.
Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary.
Henry Clifford.
Later versions are at Knole, Parham Park, and Castle Howard.
Cited in Robinson, Dukes of Norfolk.
CSP: Spanish.
50 “The Most Joyful News”
Edward Hall.
De Unitate Eclesiae.
Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court.
L&P.
B.L. Cotton MSS.: Cleopatra.
L&P.
Ibid.
Kybett.
L&P.
Ibid.; Brewer.
L&P.
Ibid.
Charing was not used by Henry VIII or his successors. It fell into neglect and was alienated from the Crown in 1629. The remains of the palace may be seen near the parish church.
Knole: Official Guidebook.
It is not certain whether this court and the tower were first built by Archbishop Morton, Archbishop Warham, or Henry VIII. Under Mary I, Knole passed to the Sackville family. It was vastly extended and remodelled by Thomas Sackville, first Earl of Dorset, in 1603–1608, and is now the largest private house in England.
Knole: Official Guidebook.
Otford rapidly decayed after Henry’s death; by 1549, the lead had already been stripped from the roofs of the hall, presence chamber, and privy chamber. It was sold by Elizabeth I to a local gentleman. Parts of the north entrance range of the outer court remain, consisting chiefly of a three-storey, red-brick, hexagonal tower that stood on the northwest corner of the palace complex and now rises stark, roofless, and derelict in the middle of a field. Its floors have long disappeared, but the fireplaces on each storey may be seen through the windows. Some other buildings have been incorporated into nearby Castle Farm; part of Archbishop Warham’s cloistered gallery with its red-brick floor has been converted into cottages. Otford has been the subject of an archaeological excavation.
See chapter 52.
PRO
Oatlands remained a favoured royal residence until the reign of Charles I, but was sold and largely demolished under the Commonwealth. In 1660, the remaining buildings were given to Queen Henrietta Maria, who converted them into a lodge, which was destroyed by fire in the eighteenth century. Some foundations remain underground beneath the council housing estate that now occupies the site. Parts of the red-brick wall and the gateway to the stables may be seen in Gate Road, off Weybridge High Street. The site was excavated in the 1960s. A picture of Oatlands may be seen in the background of a portrait of Anne of Denmark, wife of James I, by Paul van Somer (Royal Collection).
In the Royal Collection and at Petworth House, Sussex.
Known as the Chatsworth Cartoon, it is now in the National Portrait Gallery.
Karel van Mander.
L&P.
Ibid.; Lisle Letters.
L&P.
Ibid.
Ibid.; Lisle Letters.
Ibid.
L&P.
Chronica del Rey Enrico.
L&P.
PRO.
The ceiling remains today, the most splendid example of its kind in England, but the rest of the chapel was refitted by Wren in the late seventeenth century. The gallery was remodelled, but the holyday closets survive, as does a fragment of the original floor. The ceiling of the King’s holyday closet is still in good condition. The gold stars on the chapel ceiling were added on the advice of Augustus Pugin in the nineteenth century, when the ceiling was restored and the windows replaced in the positions they had occupied in Henry’s day. The Tudor glass, however, was all destroyed under the Commonwealth.
For the christening, see B.L. Cotton MSS.: Julius; Edward Hall; L&P; Charles Wriothesley; John Leland, Collectanea.
Charles Wriothesley.
Holbein’s painting was probably lost in the fire which destroyed Cowdray House in 1793 (only ruins remain). A copy is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Holbein’s original portrait sketch is in the Royal Collection.
L&P.
Cited by Fraser.
L&P.
Ibid.; Hall.
B.L. Additional MSS.; John Leland, Collectanea.
L&P.
Ibid.
Anne Basset transferred to the household of the Countess of Sussex.
Edward Hall.
L&P.
51 “The Very Pearl of the Realm”
Katherine was a connection of the Boleyns. She later married John Ashley, or Astley. Both remained in Elizabeth’s service until their deaths.
Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court. Lady Margaret and her husband Sir Thomas Bryan received grants of monastic lands in Buckinghamshire in recognition of her good service to the King’s three children.
Bodleian Library MSS.; Thurley, Royal Palace. The canopy was recorded during a visit to the More, but was probably a feature of all the Prince’s cradles.
Literary Remains of Edward VI. Edward’s lodgings were largely rebuilt after a fire in 1886, which destroyed forty rooms in Chapel Court.
Collection of Ordinances.
L&P.
B.L. Additional MSS.; Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; L&P.
PRO. James I may have been following the precedent set by Henry VIII when he gave St. James’s Palace to his son, Henry, Prince of Wales, as an official residence (History of the King’s Works; Strong; Thurley, Royal Palace).
L&P.
Still in the Royal Collection.
CSP: Spanish.
Edward Hall.
Lisle Letters; L&P.
L&P.
Ibid. Only the west range of Hatfield Old Palace survives; it contains the great hall (now used as a restaurant) with its original Tudor stained glass windows, a gatehouse with traces of sixteenth-century wall paintings, and various domestic chambers. The palace was granted to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, in 1607. He demolished most of it and used the materials to help build the present Hatfield House, which stands opposite.
It burned down in 1773.
History of the King’s Works. It was granted to the Earl of Dunbar in 1605.
Hatfield MSS.
Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court.
Cited in Maurice Howard, The Early Tudor Country House.
Various pictures of Nonsuch survive: a late sixteenth-century drawing by Joris Hoefnagel (British Library) shows the elaborate south front, encompassing the inner court, while an anonymous early seventeenth-century painting in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, shows the more conventional entrance façade to the outer court. Nonsuch became one of Elizabeth I’s favourite residences, yet this astonishing palace lasted for only 140 years. The Stuarts did not like it, and it was confiscated by Oliver Cromwell. At the Restoration, Charles II gave it to his mother, Queen Henrietta Maria, who died in 1669. Samuel Pepys visited Nonsuch in 1663 and found the gardens in ruins; when John Evelyn dined in the palace two years later, it was still in good repair. Both diarists marvelled at the R
enaissance reliefs on the outer walls. In 1670, however, Charles II gave Nonsuch to his mistress, Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland. Later, after he had discarded her, she had the palace demolished, divided up the park into farms, and sold off the lot. Most of the original park has now been built over; only a small part survives, the present Nonsuch Park at Cheam, Surrey. The Tudor banqueting houses, like the palace, have long since vanished. The palace site was excavated in 1959–1960, when the layout of the house was discovered. The foundations then exposed are now underground in Nonsuch Park; the site is marked by a plaque. Some stonework and pottery uncovered during the dig are on display in the Tudor house known as Whitehall in Cheam, which has associations with the palace, and at Bourne Hall, Ewell. An inlaid wooden chest from the palace is also at Bourne Hall; its decoration is said to mimic the architecture of Nonsuch.
History of the King’s Works.
William Camden.
52 “A Sort of Knaves”
L&P.
Ibid.
Ibid.; CSP: Spanish.
L&P.
Now in the National Gallery.
L&P: CSP: Spanish.
L&P.
John Foxe; L&P.
L&P.
Henry Pole died in the Tower in about 1542. Edward Courtenay remained a prisoner there for nearly fifteen years, being released only on the accession of Mary I in 1553.
L&P.
Cited in Starkey, Reign of Henry VIII.
A copy of the lost original, by one of Holbein’s followers, is in the possession of the Courtauld Institute, London.
Thomas Fuller.
CSP: Spanish.
Michell. Beddington was granted to Thomas, Lord Darcy, in 1552 by Edward VI.
Examples of the Great Bible are in the British Library and the Royal Collection at Windsor.
L&P.
Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
L&P.
Charles Wriothesley.
Acts of the Privy Council.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; Nottingham University Library MSS.; L&P; PRO.
L&P; PPE. Ashridge, which was alienated in 1575 to Thomas, Lord Ellesmere, was in ruins by the late eighteenth century. What was left of it was cleared in 1808–1814, when a neo-Gothic mansion, designed by James Wyatt, was built on the site. This is now a college.
Elsynge, which stood near to the surviving Jacobean mansion Forty Hall, has disappeared. It was decaying by the late sixteenth century and was demolished under the Commonwealth. Trent Park is all that remains of its grounds. The foundations of one range of the Tudor house were excavated in the 1960s.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library. Edward VI demolished the manor house, which was located opposite the church on the present High Street, and in its place built Enfield Palace, which he granted to his sister Elizabeth in 1550. Much of Edward’s palace was pulled down in the early seventeenth century, but parts survived until the 1920s.
It was extensively altered in the seventeenth century.
53 “Nourishing Love”
Collection of Ordinances. Mary I abolished the office of Lord Great Master and restored that of Lord Steward. Two of the Masterships of the Household lapsed on Henry VIII’s death because they had been allocated to the Queen’s side, and Edward VI never married.
Cited in Erickson, Great Harry.
Edward Hall.
Palmer’s portrait is in a private collection; Parr’s is in the Royal Collection.
PRO; B.L. Royal MSS.
Henry’s psalter is now in the British Library.
After Henry’s death, Somers remained at court, acting in masques and interludes for Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. After he retired, Queen Elizabeth did not employ any more fools, preferring more sophisticated entertainment. Somers was therefore the last court jester.
L&P.
Ibid.
Collection of Ordinances.
State Papers.
Lisle Letters.
Ibid.
L&P.
Ibid.
Chronicle of Calais.
Edward Hall.
L&P.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
54 “Displeasant Airs”
L&P.
Ibid. There is no surviving contemporary evidence that Henry ever referred to Anne of Cleves as “the Flanders mare.” This story dates from the late seventeenth century, when it was first written by Bishop Burnet, who quotes no source for it.
L&P; Correspondance politique, ed. Kaulek (hereafter referred to as CP, ed. Kaulek).
L&P.
Edward Hall. Hall is the chief source for the reception of Anne of Cleves.
Ibid.
Ibid.
L&P.
Edward Hall.
Ibid.; L&P.
Ibid.
Now in the Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums.
L&P.
Ibid.; Strype.
Ibid.
Under Mary I, Anne was to become a Roman Catholic. She died in 1557.
Now in the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.
Holbein’s designs for nine such jewels are in the British Museum.
L&P.
Charles Wriothesley.
History of the King’s Works. The Tudor ceiling survives, although the chapel was enlarged, panelled, and redecorated in 1836–1840, when the box pews were installed and the royal closet reduced in size. The chapel was damaged by enemy action during the Second World War, but is now fully restored. St. James’s Palace became a favourite royal residence in the seventeenth century, when Sir Christopher Wren enlarged it and added the great staircase. After Whitehall burned down in 1698, St. James’s became the sovereign’s chief London residence, remaining so until it was superseded by Buckingham Palace in the late eighteenth century; ambassadors are still accredited to the Court of St. James’s today. Much of St. James’s Palace was destroyed by a fire in 1809. The present St. James’s Park was designed by John Nash in 1827.
Lisle Letters.
L&P. The gabled west wall and the great rose window of the fourteenth-century Bishop’s Hall are all that survive of this once vast mediaeval palace.
Narratives of the Reformation, ed. Nichols.
CP, ed. Kaulek; L&P.
The original miniature is in the Royal Collection, while Holbein’s copy is in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch.
CP, ed. Kaulek; L&P.
Roberts; Princely Magnificence catalogue.
CSP: Spanish.
L&P.
Ibid.
Cited in Loades, Tudor Court.
Lisle Letters; L&P.
CP, ed. Kaulek; L&P.
Lisle Letters.
Original Letters, ed. Ellis; L&P.
L&P.
Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court.
L&P.
Ibid.
55 “I Have Been Young, and Now Am Old”
L&P.
Ibid.
Ibid.; CP, ed. Kaulek.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Now at the Tower of London and Windsor Castle. The foot armour in the Tower has decorative borders designed by Holbein.
L&P.
Ibid.; CP, ed. Kaulek; English Historical Documents.
CP, ed. Kaulek; L&P.
L&P.
Ibid.
Ibid.
The reformer Philip Melanchthon, quoted in L&P.
L&P.
Ibid.
Stephen Gardiner, Letters.
L&P.
State Papers.
L&P.
Ibid.
Ibid.; CP, ed. Kaulek.
Ibid.
Nicholas Sander.
Statutes of the Realm.
L&P.
B.L. Royal MSS.
L&P.
Ibid.; CP, ed. Kaulek.
When the book was reprinted in 1545, after Katherine Howard’s execution, the dedication to her
was omitted.
L&P; CP, ed. Kaulek.
L&P.
Ibid.; CP, ed. Kaulek.
Seymour Papers; State Papers.
CP, ed. Kaulek; L&P.
L&P.
State Papers.
CSP: Spanish; L&P.
L&P; PRO; Literary Remains of Edward VI; Seymour Papers; State Papers; B.L. Cotton MSS.: Vespasian.
State Papers; PRO.
CP, ed. Kaulek; L&P.
L&P.
State Papers.
Collection of Ordinances.
L&P; Weir, Margaret Douglas.
56 “Is Not the Queen Abed Yet?”
CP, ed. Kaulek; L&P.
Acts of the Privy Council.
PRO; B.L. Harleian MSS.
Acts of the Privy Council.
L&P.
Now in the British Museum.
B.L. Royal MSS.; State Papers; B.L. Additional MSS.
In 1698, Whitehall Palace was destroyed by a fire accidentally started by a laundry maid who left washing to dry over an open fire. The Holbein Gate survived the fire, but was demolished in 1749–1750 when the thoroughfare now known as Whitehall was widened. The palace was never rebuilt, and government offices occupy much of the site. The only surviving Tudor building is the underground wine cellar.
The only part of the original clock to survive today is the face. The mechanism has been repaired and replaced several times over the centuries, and the clock still works. During the 1830s, William IV had the face replaced with one taken from a clock at St. James’s Palace, but the original was later restored under Queen Victoria.
Cited by C.R.N. Routh.
Westenhanger was alienated from the Crown in 1585 and is still in private hands. The extensive ruins of the castle incorporate an eighteenth-century house.
L&P.
Ibid.
CP, ed. Kaulek; L&P; Raphael Holinshed.
Statutes of the Realm.
L&P; CP, ed. Kaulek; CSP: Spanish.
CP, ed. Kaulek; L&P.
CSP: Spanish.
L&P.
CP, ed. Kaulek; L&P.
Ibid.
Cited by John Scarisbrick.
L&P.
CP, ed. Kaulek; L&P.
L&P.
It is unclear from the few surviving records exactly what works were carried out. Most of the monastic buildings had disappeared by 1562, and the King’s Manor was largely rebuilt before 1600.
L&P.
Ibid.; State Papers.
B.L. Cotton MSS.: Augustus.
L&P.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
57 “Little, Sweet Fool”
L&P.
Acts of the Privy Council.
