Richmond cost Henry £20,000 (around £6 million today). Some of the oaks in the present-day Richmond Park are old enough to have been seen by Henry VII, and he might even have hunted some of the ancestors of the deer that still roam here.
The palace was a way of signalling Henry’s magnificence and invulnerability. Like his constant warfare against pretenders, it depended on his creative brilliance in finding new ways to extract revenue from his subjects: such brilliance that, by the end of his reign, many felt him to be, in fact, greedy and rapacious. It was not for nothing that Lord Mountjoy wrote on Henry VIII’s accession, ‘Avarice is expelled from the country.’ How wrong Mountjoy’s proclamation would prove to be by the time Henry VIII was finished with the throne!
Henry VII died late at night on Saturday 21 April 1509 at Richmond Palace. It was also at Richmond that his granddaughter, Elizabeth I, died in 1603. But while Elizabeth is remembered, Henry VII, like Richmond Palace itself, was quickly forgotten. This incomplete monument reminds us of the Tudor we have neglected: Henry VII, the first monarch of the dynasty.
‘Hampton Court is a Royal Palace, magnificently built with brick … consisting of noble edifices in very beautiful work.’
Paul Hentzner, visiting German tourist, 1598
H ampton Court Palace is arguably the finest remaining Tudor palace; it was certainly one of Henry VIII’s favourites. In the sixteenth century, this Tudor palace was even more magnificent, but William III and Mary II demolished some of the Tudor buildings in the late seventeenth century, replacing them with their baroque palace, meaning that today Hampton Court is a palace of two halves.
The first sight of the Tudor palace is of the Great Gatehouse, built by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey — Lord Chancellor of England, papal legate and Henry VIII’s right-hand man — in 1522, and lowered in 1772 from its original five storeys. The Gatehouse bears two terracotta roundels featuring busts of Roman emperors (there are another nine in the palace) that were commissioned by Wolsey from Florentine sculptor Giovanni da Maiano to symbolise Henry’s good rule. Unfortunately, Wolsey unwittingly chose two of Rome’s worst tyrants, Nero and Tiberius, as his exemplars!
Externally, early Tudor houses often give the impression of being fortified and defensible. You will usually see crenulations,battlements, turrets and gatehouse towers. For the most part, however, these were decorative features, rather than offering any real hope of defence.
Hampton Court is a good example: crenulated like a castle, it is nevertheless utterly indefensible, and was from the very beginning intended to be a palace of pleasure, where Wolsey and Henry VIII could entertain foreign ambassadors, feast, hunt and joust. The first courtyard, Base Court, built by Wolsey, testifies to this role: it is surrounded by forty apartments, which, with their two rooms, private garderobe (or lavatory) and fireplace, would have been the height of luxury for visiting guests. The wine fountain you can see in this courtyard is a recent installation on the site of an original fountain or conduit, and is modelled on the fountain in the Field of Cloth of Gold painting in the permanent ‘Young Henry VIII’ exhibition [see also L EEDS C ASTLE ]. Wolsey also built Clock Court, now named after the wonderful astronomical clock made for Henry VIII in 1540 by Nicholas Oursian, Deviser of the King’s Horologies (or ‘clockmaker’), that you can see on Anne Boleyn’s gatehouse. As well as showing the time and date, it displays the phases of the moon and the times of the tides, and features the sun orbiting the earth. (Just three years after it was made, Copernicus would discover that it was, conversely, the earth that orbited the sun.)
Although Wolsey had always referred to Hampton Court as Henry’s palace, and had built suites for both the King and Queen, Henry properly acquired the
The palace was a way of signalling Henry’s magnificence and invulnerability. Like his constant warfare against pretenders, it depended on his creative brilliance in finding new ways to extract revenue from his subjects: such brilliance that, by the end of his reign, many felt him to be, in fact, greedy and rapacious. It was not for nothing that Lord Mountjoy wrote on Henry VIII’s accession, ‘Avarice is expelled from the country.’ How wrong Mountjoy’s proclamation would prove to be by the time Henry VIII was finished with the throne!
Henry VII died late at night on Saturday 21 April 1509 at Richmond Palace. It was also at Richmond that his granddaughter, Elizabeth I, died in 1603. But while Elizabeth is remembered, Henry VII, like Richmond Palace itself, was quickly forgotten. This incomplete monument reminds us of the Tudor we have neglected: Henry VII, the first monarch of the dynasty.
‘Hampton Court is a Royal Palace, magnificently built with brick … consisting of noble edifices in very beautiful work.’
Paul Hentzner, visiting German tourist, 1598
H ampton Court Palace is arguably the finest remaining Tudor palace; it was certainly one of Henry VIII’s favourites. In the sixteenth century, this Tudor palace was even more magnificent, but William III and Mary II demolished some of the Tudor buildings in the late seventeenth century, replacing them with their baroque palace, meaning that today Hampton Court is a palace of two halves.
The first sight of the Tudor palace is of the Great Gatehouse, built by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey — Lord Chancellor of England, papal legate and Henry VIII’s right-hand man — in 1522, and lowered in 1772 from its original five storeys. The Gatehouse bears two terracotta roundels featuring busts of Roman emperors (there are another nine in the palace) that were commissioned by Wolsey from Florentine sculptor Giovanni da Maiano to symbolise Henry’s good rule. Unfortunately, Wolsey unwittingly chose two of Rome’s worst tyrants, Nero and Tiberius, as his exemplars!
Externally, early Tudor houses often give the impression of being fortified and defensible. You will usually see crenulations,battlements, turrets and gatehouse towers. For the most part, however, these were decorative features, rather than offering any real hope of defence.
Hampton Court is a good example: crenulated like a castle, it is nevertheless utterly indefensible, and was from the very beginning intended to be a palace of pleasure, where Wolsey and Henry VIII could entertain foreign ambassadors, feast, hunt and joust. The first courtyard, Base Court, built by Wolsey, testifies to this role: it is surrounded by forty apartments, which, with their two rooms, private garderobe (or lavatory) and fireplace, would have been the height of luxury for visiting guests. The wine fountain you can see in this courtyard is a recent installation on the site of an original fountain or conduit, and is modelled on the fountain in the Field of Cloth of Gold painting in the permanent ‘Young Henry VIII’ exhibition [see also L EEDS C ASTLE ]. Wolsey also built Clock Court, now named after the wonderful astronomical clock made for Henry VIII in 1540 by Nicholas Oursian, Deviser of the King’s Horologies (or ‘clockmaker’), that you can see on Anne Boleyn’s gatehouse. As well as showing the time and date, it displays the phases of the moon and the times of the tides, and features the sun orbiting the earth. (Just three years after it was made, Copernicus would discover that it was, conversely, the earth that orbited the sun.)
Although Wolsey had always referred to Hampton Court as Henry’s palace, and had built suites for both the King and Queen, Henry properly acquired the
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