Henry VIII: The King and His Court

by Alison Weir

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.”76 They also dusted and washed the panelling and even the ceilings.77 In the 1540s, Henry employed three permanent staff to keep the vast palace of Whitehall clean during his absence.78

  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.”79 Pissing in the cooking hearths was expressly forbidden at the same time.80

  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.81 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.82 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rules were not obeyed, the transgressor would receive an oral warning; upon a second offence, his perquisites would be withdrawn, and on a third he would lose for good his lodgings, entitlement to bouche of court, and even his job.83

  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.”84

  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,85 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 1871.86 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.87 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.88

  Given the frequent purchases of scents and herbs to sweeten the air that appear in the royal accounts,89 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.90 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.91

  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.”92

  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, 93 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.94

  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.95 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,96 but stone or lead urinals were installed around the palace courtyards for the convenience of those who might otherwise have used the walls.97 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.98

  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”99 suggests that standards had rapidly slipped, and that the old King had succeeded only to a degree in enforcing certain standards of hygiene.

  7

  “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 d
omus providencie (the House of Providence), the “downstairs” kitchens and offices that serviced the Chamber and facilitated the display of royal magnificence.1 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:2 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.”3 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.4

  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.”5 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.” 6

  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. 7 The other female employee, “the wife who makes the King’s puddings,” 8 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.9 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.”10 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.11

  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,12 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.13

  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.”14 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). 15

  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.16

  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. 17 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,18 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. 19 Privy Chamber servants were distinguished by a livery embroidered with the King’s arms and Tudor roses.