In 1517, the papal nuncio Francesco Chieregato arrived at the court of Henry VIII and was stunned by its magnificence. “The wealth and civilisation of the world are here,” he marvelled, “and those who call the English barbarians appear to me to render themselves such. I here perceive very elegant manners, extreme decorum and great politeness, and amongst other things there is this invincible King, whose acquirements and qualities are so many and excellent, that I consider him to excel all who ever wore a crown.”
Coming from a Venetian imbued with the culture of the Italian Renaissance, this was praise indeed, and a reminder of what Henry VIII achieved during the first decade of his reign. Today, we need such a reminder, because the splendours of Henry’s court are long vanished, and it requires a great leap of the imagination to reconstruct the reality from what few remains there are.
Henry VIII succeeded to the throne in 1509, to great acclaim. He had all the virtues expected of a Renaissance prince. Yet by the time he died in 1547, he had acquired the reputation of a tyrant whose hands were soaked in the blood of the many he had executed—among them two of his six wives. Because he married so many times, he has gone down in history as a veritable bluebeard. Over the centuries, the truth about the King has become blurred by his legend, which culminated in Charles Laughton’s caricature of him in the 1930s film The Private Life of Henry VIII. Thanks to this, Henry still lives in the popular imagination as a man who thought of nothing but chasing the ladies, and who threw chicken bones over his shoulder as he presided over court feasts in the great hall.
The reality, of course, was strikingly different. As a rule, Henry did not dine in the great halls of his palaces, and his table manners were highly refined, as was the code of etiquette followed at his court. He was in fact a most fastidious man, and—for his time—unusually concerned with hygiene. As for his pursuit of the ladies, there is plenty of evidence, but most of it fragmentary, for Henry was also far more discreet and prudish than we have been led to believe. These are just superficial examples of how the truth about historical figures can become distorted.
Fortunately, scholars during the last few decades have undertaken a vast amount of research on Henry VIII and his court, and it is now clear that many of our earlier perceptions of both must be revised. Henry was a complex personality of many talents, and there is so much surviving source material for his reign that we know even the most intimate details of his personal life. Furthermore, this man of exquisite taste and a grand sense of majesty established the most magnificent court ever seen in England. No English sovereign ever owned as many houses as Henry VIII, or spent so lavishly on a lifestyle deliberately calculated to enhance his own prestige. Few monarchs have been surrounded by so many talented and charismatic personalities. And few have ever been so controversial.
My aim in this book has been to draw together a multitude of strands of research in order to develop a picture of the real Henry VIII, his personal life throughout his reign, the court he created, and the people who influenced and served him. Hitherto, studies of the Henrician court have concentrated on household organisation, art and culture, or courtier factions. I aim to paint a far broader canvas, which incorporates all these themes and much more, and sets the life and reign of the King, for the first time ever, against a realistic portrayal of his court.
In an age of personal monarchy, the court was at the hub of royal government, but this is not a political history of the reign: my brief has been to record the events that help build up a picture of the life and ethos of the King and the court. Henry VIII’s wives naturally played a large part in the life of that court, but, having already written a book about them, I have taken care to avoid too much repetition: where events were dealt with in detail in that former book, they are touched upon briefly, and only where relevant, here. I have also taken the opportunity to revise some of my conclusions in The Six Wives of Henry VIII in the light of recent research.
Although this book is presented in a basically chronological format, the first third is largely devoted to setting the scene and describing the court and the royal palaces. This is a necessary prologue to the account of the King’s life and reign that follows, for without it much of the context of events would be blurred. However, the book is not just a descriptive account of Henry’s court and reign, but is packed with anecdotal evidence intended to bring to life this most colourful period of English history and the larger-than-life character who dominated it.
I have also attempted to describe and analyse the cultural and social development of the English court, and to this end have included every aspect of court life: the ceremonial and pageantry, state occasions, entertainments, sports, poetry and drama, art, music, religious observances, sexual and political intrigues, banquets and feasts, dress, transport, household organisation and administration, finance, hygiene, and even pets.
The Tudor court, however, was primarily the place where a host of persons, great and lowly, gathered about the King. Therefore, one of my chief aims has been to weave the lives of queens, princes, princesses, lords, ladies, privy councillors, knights, gentlemen, artists, craftsmen, and servants into the rich tapestry of court life, intrigue, and vicious faction fights.
In the notes and references at the end of the book, I have given details of the surviving buildings and artefacts connected with Henry VIII and his court. Where monetary values are quoted in the text, the modern equivalent (which is approximately three hundred times the sum quoted) is given in parentheses—with some surprising results. We should contrast the vast sums spent on clothes and royal meals, for example, with the meagre salaries paid to artists such as Hans Holbein.
Finally, a note about capital letters, which I have used for titles of household departments and officers but not for the names of rooms within the royal palaces. Thus, the department that provided for the King’s personal needs is referred to as the Privy Chamber, while the lodgings he occupied are called the privy chamber. Similarly, the Chapel Royal was the religious establishment of the court, whereas the chapel royal was a place of worship.
I hope that this book will convey to those who read it the same pleasure and sense of affinity with its subject that it afforded me while I was researching and writing it, that they will be able to make that great leap of imagination across the centuries and arrive at a very lively understanding of the subject, and that, for them, Henry VIII and his court will come to life.
Alison Weir
Carshalton, Surrey
13 March–17 September 2000