by Alison Weir
Hibbert, Court at Windsor.
Collection of Ordinances.
Andrew Boorde.
Pewter plates were first recorded in 1553, but are almost certainly depicted in the anonymous painting of the Field of Cloth of Gold, which dates from the 1540s and is now in the Royal Collection (Paston-Williams).
Inventory.
Paston-Williams; Brears.
Inventory.
Collection of Ordinances; Brears.
Collection of Ordinances.
The Babees’ Book.
Collection of Ordinances.
9 “Elegant Manners, Extreme Decorum, and Very Great Politeness”
Skelton’s Speculum Principis.
The coronations were those of Henry himself (1509) and Anne Boleyn (1533); the summit meeting was the Field of Cloth of Gold (1520); the state visits were that of the Emperor Charles V to England (1522) and that of Henry VIII to France (1532); Anne of Cleves’s reception was in 1540.
Thurley; Norris.
John Leland, Collectanea.
Collection of Ordinances.
Hibbert, Court at Windsor.
Sturgis.
Cited in Erickson, Great Harry.
George Cavendish.
Elias Ashmole.
CSP: Venetian.
L&P.
Inventory.
Cited by Sim.
Inventory.
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.
Collection of Ordinances; Antiquarian Repertory.
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.; PPE.
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.; Antiquarian Repertory.
Inventory; “a tassel of hair to make clean combs” is also listed.
Collection of Ordinances.
L&P.
B.L. Additional MSS.; Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; B.L. Harleian MSS.; Thurley, Royal Palaces.
Thomas Platter; Thurley.
Inventory; Thurley.
Ibid.
Thurley; Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; Inventory.
L&P.
Inventory of Mary Tudor’s trousseau, cited by Norris.
Inventory.
Bodleian Library MSS.; Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; Thurley.
Cited by Sturgis.
L&P.
Ibid.; CSP: Spanish.
Thurley.
Collection of Ordinances.
Sturgis.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.
Cited in Erickson, Great Harry.
Starkey, Henry VIII; Collection of Ordinances.
Norris.
Collection of Ordinances.
Inventory.
Ibid.; Brears.
Collection of Ordinances.
PPE.
Letter of Henry Huttoft, Surveyor of Customs at Southampton, to Thomas Cromwell, 1539.
This drawing was once attributed to Holbein, but more recent historians have suggested that it dates from the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. There is, however, internal evidence that it may be contemporary. For a fuller discussion of this, see Thurley, Royal Palaces, and Henry VIII: A European Court in England.
Collection of Ordinances; Inventory; Brears.
Inventory; Sotheby’s Concise Encyclopaedia of Glass; Sim. Henry’s Inventory lists six hundred items of glass.
Collection of Ordinances.
Letter of Bryan Tuke to Cardinal Wolsey, L&P.
Letters of Henry VIII; CSP: Spanish.
Cited in Erickson, Great Harry.
Inventory.
Collection of Ordinances; Bowle; Neville Williams, Royal Residences.
Ralph Sadler to Thomas Cromwell, L&P.
PRO.
Hibbert, Court at Windsor; Chapman, Sisters of Henry VIII; Prescott, Mary Tudor; Early English Meals and Manners .
L&P; CSP: Spanish.
10 “Innocent and Honest Pastimes”
CSP: Spanish.
Ibid.
Cited in Richardson, Mary Tudor.
CSP: Spanish.
Ibid.; L&P.
Cited in Scarisbrick, Henry VIII.
CSP: Milanese.
Stow, Annals.
Starkey, Henry VIII; Loades, Tudor Court.
CSP: Venetian.
CSP: Spanish.
Erasmus, Opus Epistolarum.
Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII (cited hereafter as Four Years).
Much of our information on Wolsey comes from the biography by his Gentleman Usher, George Cavendish, published in 1557.
Cited by Mackie.
L&P; Edward Hall.
L&P.
PPE.
William Roper.
Nicholas Udall, Ralph Roister Doister.
B.L. Additional MSS.
Ibid.
L&P.
CSP: Spanish.
Antiquarian Repertory.
Cited in Rowse, Windsor Castle.
CSP: Milanese.
CSP: Venetian.
Four Years.
Cited by Perry.
B.L. Additional MSS.; PPE.
Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York.
Four Years.
PPE; L&P.
Collection of Ordinances.
L&P; Statutes of the Realm.
Cited by Stevens.
PPE.
PRO.
L&P.
Ibid.
Accounts of Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon and Marquess of Exeter, in the Public Record Office.
L&P.
PPE.
Ibid.
Cited in Loades, Tudor Court; Emmison, Tudor Food and Pastimes.
11 “New Men” and “Natural Counsellors”
Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court.
Antiquarian Repertory.
Collection of Ordinances.
Cited in Starkey, Henry VIII.
Cited in Loades, Tudor Court.
Cited by Norris.
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Cited in Richardson, Mary Tudor.
Edward Hall. according to a tradition dating from Elizabethan times, the “Brandon Lance” in the Royal Armouries once belonged to Charles Brandon.
CSP: Venetian, for example.
L&P.
Cited in Scarisbrick, Henry VIII.
L&P.
Cited in Erickson, Great Harry.
L&P.
Cited in the Leeds Castle Guidebook.
CSP: Spanish.
He became guardian of the Princess Mary and, much later, Lord Chamberlain to Elizabeth I (epitaph in Bletsoe Parish Church).
Cited in Loades, Tudor Court.
Cited by Morris.
Sir Thomas Smith.
Cited by Morris.
Baldassare Castiglione.
William Fitzwilliam, cited by Fraser.
His body was discovered in an excellent state of preservation when his tomb in the collegiate church at Astley, Warwickshire, was opened in 1608.
The portrait is now in the Royal Collection.
William Camden.
12 “All Goodly Sports”
CSP: Spanish.
CSP: Venetian.
Cited by Bowle.
Baldassare Castiglione.
Statutes of the Realm.
L&P.
CSP: Venetian.
Letter from Sir William Fitzwilliam to King Francis I of France, 1521, cited by Bowle.
L&P.
State Papers.
L&P.
Collection of Ordinances.
Henry VIII: A European Court in England.
See Thurley, Royal Palaces.
PPE.
Numbers fluctuated throughout the reign; shortly before his death, the King owned only eighty mounts.
CSP: Spanish.
CSP: Venetian.
Ibid.
L&P. The other horse was given by Henry to Sir Nicholas Carew.
CSP: Venetian.
See Erickson, Great Harry, for a very good account of the King’s horses.
L&P; CSP: Venetian; Erickson, Great Harry.
PPE; Great Tournament Roll of Westminster.
CSP: Milanese.
PPE.
L&P.
The move, meant to be temporary, became permanent. Nevertheless, the name “The Royal Mews” was retained.
PRO.
L&P.
L&P; Lisle Letters. Lord Lisle was a bastard son of Edward IV, and therefore the King’s cousin; he served as Governor of Calais.
L&P.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Now in the Mauritshuis, The Hague.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; State Papers of Henry VIII in the Public Record Office.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library
See Thurley, Royal Palaces. A drawing of the cockpit, dated 1606, is in Sir John Soane’s Museum, London.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; Thurley, Royal Palaces. The Queen at that time was Anne Boleyn.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; Thurley, Royal Palaces.
PPE.
Ibid.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.
Four Years.
Loades, Tudor Court.
B.L. Additional MSS.
Four Years.
PRO; Norris; Inventory.
Lawn tennis is first recorded in 1591, and is said to have been invented to divert Elizabeth I; see Loades, Tudor Court.
Accounts of Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon and Marquess of Exeter, in the Public Record Office.
The modern type of net first appeared in the seventeenth century.
Thurley, Royal Palaces.
Now in the Museum of London.
See Antonio Scaino; de Luze; and Thurley, Royal Palaces for a fuller discussion of the rules of tennis.
L&P; Nottingham University Library MSS.; PPE; Thurley, Royal Palaces.
CSP: Venetian.
L&P.
A Relation . . . of the Island of England.
L&P.
Ibid.; B.L. Additional MSS.
PPE.
PPE; Loades, Tudor Court; Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; Thurley, Royal Palaces. There were three bowling alleys at Hampton Court.
PPE.
Edward Hall.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; Thurley, Royal Palaces.
Receipt of the Lady Katherine.
13 “Merry Disports”
CSP: Spanish.
PPE.
See Maurice Howard, Early Tudor Country House.
Collection of Ordinances; L&P; Archaeologia.
Collection of Ordinances.
Richmond Park was remodelled into its present form by Charles I and Charles II in the seventeenth century.
College of Arms MS.
Ibid.
The description of Richmond Palace is drawn mainly from the Antiquarian Repertory and The Receipt of the Lady Katherine . The only remaining parts of the palace are the gatehouse, some Tudor brickwork in the heavily restored wardrobe building, and fragments of masonry in nearby buildings. Much of the fabric was destroyed by the Commonwealth in 1649. What was left was granted by Charles II to his mother, Queen Henrietta Maria, upon the Restoration in 1660, but was too ruinous to be habitable or restored. It was broken up into tenements, but the Tudor buildings had largely disappeared by 1690. The present Old Friars stands on the site of the convent of the Observant Friars.
Cited by Benton Fletcher.
Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court.
Stow, A Survey of London.
Ibid.
Edward Hall.
Ibid.
Collection of Ordinances.
CSP: Venetian.
Edward Hall.
L&P.
Ibid.
CSP: Spanish.
L&P.
Four Years.
College of Arms MS.
Edward Hall.
CSP: Spanish.
Edward Hall.
Cited by Bowle.
CSP: Spanish.
CSP: Venetian.
Ibid.
Four Years.
The Procession for the Parliament of 1512 (MS. in Trinity College, Cambridge).
L&P.
CSP: Spanish.
Edward Hall.
L&P.
It remained light blue until the reign of George I, when the darker blue was introduced.
Diana Scarisbrick; Norris.
Stow, London.
Sim.
Edward Hall.
CSP: Spanish.
Ibid.
See Mathew.
Four Years.
L&P.
CSP: Spanish.
Bernard, Rise of Sir William Compton. When Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn in 1533, Mrs. Amadas got into trouble for making malicious prophecies about them (L&P). Her prediction that Anne would be burned at the stake within six months was perhaps born of jealousy.
L&P.
CSP: Spanish.
L&P.
B.L. Sloane MSS.
Sir Robert Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (published 1653; ed. Edward Arber, London, 1870, 1896).
Benton Fletcher. Greenwich Castle stood on the hill now occupied by the Royal Observatory.
George Puttenham, The Art of English Poesie. Puttenham was the nephew of Sir Thomas Elyot, Henry’s learned courtier and author of The Governor. Although not published until 1589, his Art of Poesie was probably compiled twenty years earlier. The offending verse was not printed in this work, but appeared in a Jacobean play about Henry VIII, When You See Me, You Know Me, by Samuel Rowley (1605).
State Papers.
Flugel.
L&P.
14 “Rather Divine Than Human”
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.
History of the King’s Works.
Very little remains at Windsor of the royal apartments Henry knew. They were extensively remodelled by Charles II in the 1670s, and even more drastically altered by George IV in the 1820s. The fire of 1992 revealed a great deal of valuable information about the mediaeval palace; see Brindle and Kerr, Windsor Revealed.
Edward Hall.
The Bassanos founded a musical dynasty that endured at the English court until the Civil War.
Now in the British Library. Only the base part survives.
Edward Hall.
Four Years.
L&P.
Ibid.
L&P. Their numbers fluctuated. This figure relates to the latter part of the reign.
B.L. Lansdowne MSS.
L&P.
The post of Master of the King’s Musick was not created until the reign of Charles I.
A primitive form of trombone.
British Museum.
B.L. Royal MSS.
Scholes.
L&P.
PPE; B.L. Additional MSS.; Loades, Tudor Court; Henry VIII: A European Court in England.
CSP: Venetian.
Four Years.
L&P.
CSP: Venetian.
L&P.
Thomas Elyot.
John Leland, Collectanea; Stevens.
B.L. Royal MSS.
Cited by Scarisbrick.
CSP: Venetian.
Four Years. Virginals were an early form of harpsichord.
An ancient woodwind and brass instrument, not to be confused with the later cornet.
B.L. Royal MSS.
CSP: Venetian.
Ibid.
An ancient stringed instrument played with a plectrum. It is mentioned by Chaucer and Shakespeare.
An early type of oboe, usually an accompaniment to the sackbut.
Inventory.
Ibid.
Four Years.
B.L. Additional MSS.; Stevens; Songs, Ballads and Instrumental Pieces . . . etc. There are 109 pieces in the manuscript, including works by William Cornish and Philip van Wilder.
Henry VIII: A European Court in England.
Edward Hall.
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br /> Maurice Howard, Early Tudor Country House; Palmer, Royal England; Loades, Tudor Court; Thurley, Royal Palaces; History of the King’s Works. See also the following articles in Surrey Archaeological Collections: R.A.C. Godwen Austen, “Woking Manor” (7, 1880); D. J. Haggard, “The Ruins of Old Woking Palace” (55, 1958); N. Hawkins, “Woking Palace or Old Hall, Old Woking” (77, 1986), as well as the Victoria County History of Surrey, vol. 3. Woking Palace was alienated from the Crown in 1620, after which it fell into decay. All that remain are some brick and stone foundations and the vestiges of a moat.
Edward Hall.
L&P.
Ibid.
B.L. Additional MSS.
Original Documents relating to Queen Katherine of Aragon; CSP: Spanish; L&P; William Latimer; Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.
Four Years; L&P; PRO.
Stephen Gardiner, Letters.
L&P.
History of the King’s Works. This arrangement may be seen in the chapel royal at Hampton Court; the gallery was originally built by Henry VIII, but the throne and fittings date from the reign of William III.
MS. in the Collection of the Dean and Canons of Windsor. The artist was perhaps Lucas Horenbout.
Calendar of the Manuscripts . . . at Hatfield House.
Erasmus, Opus Epistolarum.
L&P; William Thomas echoes this, calling Henry “a perfect theologian, a good philosopher.”
Collection of Ordinances.
Ibid.; Myers.
PRO.
Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.
PRO; for a full discussion of royal chapels and organs, see Thurley, Royal Palaces.
15 “The Holy Innocent”
Cited by Erickson, Great Harry.
L&P.
John Leland, Collectanea; Collection of Ordinances; Trinity College Dublin MSS.
Ibid.
Collection of Ordinances.
Edward Hall.
Collection of Ordinances. The source is Lord Mountjoy, Katherine’s Chamberlain, who in 1533 informed Lord Cobham, Lord Chamberlain to Katherine’s successor, Anne Boleyn, of the procedure to be followed at royal confinements, so that the same could be observed for Anne.
Original Documents relating to Queen Katherine of Aragon.
L&P.
Ibid.
Original Documents relating to Queen Katherine of Aragon; John Leland, Collectanea.
B.L. Harleian MSS.; State Papers.
John Leland, Collectanea; Collection of Ordinances.
Edward Hall.
Collection of Ordinances; Plowden, Tudor Women; John Leland, Collectanea.
Sir Thomas Elyot, The Governor.
Collection of Ordinances; Plowden, Tudor Women; John Leland, Collectanea.
Edward Hall.
Steane.
Edward Hall.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
The date is sometimes given as 22 or 24 February, but Hall says the Prince died on the Eve of St. Matthias, whose feast day is 24 February.
Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court; Erickson, Great Harry; Fraser.
