by Karen Davies | Nov 20, 2019 | Blog, History, Writing
In Tudor times, Westminster was a sprawling cluster of buildings that stretched over 23 acres from Holborn in the east – the city’s legal quarter – to open fields beyond the abbey in the west.
Within the complex of Westminster was the Royal Palace of White Hall. This belonged to Cardinal Wolsey until 1529 during which time it was known as York Place because it was the London residence of the archbishops of York.
Wolsey surrendered the property to King Henry VIII in October 1529 in an attempt to appease the King after he had failed him in the matter of his divorce from Katherine of Aragon. That Christmas, the King set about redesigning York Place with Anne Boleyn. Together they transformed it into a magnificent renaissance palace that became known as the Palace of White Hall, adding a bowling alley, cockpit, tennis courts, tiltyard, great orchard, and gardens.
By the time it was finished, the Palace of Whitehall was larger than the Palace of Versailles in France. Its interior was opulent. A painting of Henry’s coronation graced the wall of the long gallery, and tapestries woven in jewel-coloured silks shot through with gold and silver threads adorned the great chamber, which would have shone. The ceiling was probably painted blue, like Hampton Court’s Great Hall, and the floor would have glistened with green and white tiles.
The old Palace of Westminster was situated just half a mile upstream from the Royal Palace of Whitehall, located on Thorney Island, where the River Tyburn enters the Thames. Three bridges connected Thorney Island to the mainland. The Old Palace of Westminster was the seat of government. The House of Lords sat in the Queen’s Chamber and the Commons in the abbey’s Chapter House.
On 1st June 1533, Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, made the journey by royal barge from Whitehall to Westminster for her coronation. Trumpets, drummers, and musicians would have marked her coming, and she would have been accompanied by a flotilla of small vessels hung with gold foil, and bells that tinkled. Anne wore a purple velvet gown trimmed with ermine fur and a cloth-of-gold kirtle. The boats would have glistened in the June sunlight as they sailed up the Thames. Hair flowing about her shoulders, Anne would have looked celestial as she stepped onto the King’s Steps at Westminster.
Anne Boleyn’s coronation feast was held in Westminster Hall. Three years later, it was the setting for the trial of four of the five men accused of adultery with Anne.
Over the centuries, Westminster Hall has borne witness to some of the most momentous trials in English history. The trials of William Wallace, King Charles I, and Guy Fawkes were all held here.
In 1605, Westminster was a hive of trade. Large sailed merchant ships and speedy rowing boats were continually offloading supplies of wine, food, and coal. This made it easy for Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators to smuggle 36 barrels of gunpowder into the vaults beneath Parliament.
Had the plotters succeeded, the explosion would likely have set fire to all the surrounding buildings. It’s hard to say, given the difficulty extinguishing the Great Fire of London, whether this would have caused London to burn 61 years earlier. Nevertheless, most of the Old Palace of Westminster was destroyed by fire in 1834. All that survived was Westminster Hall, the Jewel House, Undercroft Chapel, the Cloisters, Chapter House, and Abbey.
Today Westminster Abbey and the British Houses of Parliament are among the most recognisable buildings in the world and their history spans more than 900 years.
The Abbey is well worth a visit. The coronation seat of Edward I is 700 years old and would have been used by Anne Boleyn in her coronation. There are a number of interesting Tudor artefacts to see including the Essex Ring.
Walk in Anne Boleyn’s footsteps down the central nave to the high altar, as she would have done for her coronation. All of England’s elite would have been crammed into the Abbey to watch her coronation. Imagine, the powerful sound of the choir. The altar in front of you dressed in gold. Take a moment and look up at the vaulted ceiling that towers 100ft above your head and slip back in time.
by Karen Davies | Nov 4, 2019 | Blog, History, Writing
Every 5 November, we light bonfires and retell the story of Guy Fawkes, who plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Guy Fawkes and his twelve co-conspirators hoped to kill the Protestant King James I of England and VI of Scotland, along with the royal family, lords, and government of England. They came dangerously close to succeeding.
Since Henry VIII split the Church, the argument surrounding the Catholic mass and the doctrine of transubstantiation – the idea that the bread and wine of the Eucharist became the flesh and blood of Christ – had changed many times.
In Henry VIII’s reign, despite England’s split with Rome, the doctrine of transubstantiation remained, but under his son Edward VI, a staunch Protestant, the Catholic mass was outlawed.
Edward’s sister Mary, who succeeded him as Mary I, burned so many Protestants in a bid to restore England to Catholicism that she earned the name Bloody Mary. Her sister Elizabeth I tolerated Catholics worshipping the mass in private. But under King James, Catholics saw their houses raided and their priests executed.
The Popish Recusants Act 1605 outlawed Catholicism. Catholics couldn’t have their babies baptised and they could not be married by a Catholic priest. If they didn’t attend the Church of England on Sundays, they were made to pay fines, known as recusance.
The King was due to open the new session of Parliament on 5 November 1605. His wife, Queen Anne and their son Prince Henry were attending, along with the leading churchmen of the Church of England. The Privy Council, the 12 senior judges of England and the majority of the legal system would have been present. The administration of the country was carried out from the Palace of Westminster, which was also home to the Exchequer. Had the plot succeeded, they would have all been wiped out. Only a small garrison of soldiers in the Tower of London would have remained, but there would have been no chain of command, and they would have been overpowered by the Catholic uprising that was planned. But would the plotters have succeeded in changing the direction of the country?
Blood would certainly have been spilled as the country fell into civil war. It’s likely the Great Fire of London would have happened 61 years earlier as the explosion would have caused a raging fire throughout the city. But with no government to take control of the situation, people would have turned on one another. The question of identity would have become ever more prominent. With the threat of invasion from Catholic France or Spain, would the English people have put their nation above their faith? English Catholics were certainly proud to have seen off the Spanish Armada 17 years earlier. That would all have been for nothing had the plotters succeeded. It could be argued the success of the plot would have seen England become more staunchly Protestant than ever, as anti-Catholic feeling would have been so high.
The union of the crowns would likely have collapsed without a King to hold it together, with Scotland becoming even more fiercely Protestant. It is possible that the English would have resented the Scottish King’s pursuit of Catholics, and even blamed him for their troubles.
The conspirators had captured King James’s daughter princess Elizabeth. They planned to install her as their puppet Queen. She is reported to have said, when the plot was discovered, that she would rather have died with her father than agree to the crown under such terms.
And what would have happened to the crown if she had? King James was not the heir to the throne under English Law as per the terms of Henry VIII’s will, which ruled the Scottish line out of the succession and named the Grey sisters, his great nieces, and their heirs as his successors. It is possible that the English Protestants would have rallied around Katherine Grey’s son, Edward Seymour Viscount Beauchamp. It’s impossible to speculate on what might have happened. Any one of a dozen powerful nobles might have seized the crown for themselves, and there would certainly have been a period of chaos if not outright civil war.
Civil war, of course, was coming. Even though the plot failed, religious tensions embroiled the country in a bloody civil war just 17 years later. This led to the execution of James’s son, Charles I, and Britain became a republic for three years. After this, the monarchy was restored, and Charles’s son was crowned Charles II. On his death, his brother James became King James II, the last Roman Catholic King, until he was deposed in the ‘Glorious Revolution’. It seems therefore, that regardless of what might have happened had the plotters succeeded, Britain had become Protestant and was determined to remain so.
by Karen Davies | Nov 4, 2019 | Blog, History, Writing
Today, nothing remains of the Tudor manor house at Greenwich, otherwise known as the Palace of Placentia. During the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell turned it into a biscuit factory and then a prisoner of war camp. By 1660 it had fallen into disrepair, and Charles II had it demolished. But, in Tudor times, the Palace of Placentia had been a principal and impressive royal residence, a magnificent red-brick manor that stretched 200 meters along the great sweep of the Thames.
It was the birthplace of Henry VIII and his two daughters, Mary I and Elizabeth I.
The first manor at Greenwich was built in around 1420 by the powerful, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester when he was Regent to Henry VI. In 1433, the King granted the Duke 200 acres of land around the manor, which he turned into a royal park (now Greenwich Park, the oldest of the royal parks). He also built a watchtower on the site of Greenwich Observatory. Henry VIII is said to have kept his wines and met his mistresses there.
When Henry VII came to the throne, after winning the English crown at the Battle of Bosworth, Henry demolished Duke Humphrey’s manor and rebuilt Placentia in the famous Tudor red-brick on the site of what is the Royal Naval College today.
During the reign of Henry VIII, Placentia became a favoured royal residence, just three miles downriver from the Tower of London. Behind it lay Blackheath and the old Roman Road, Shooter’s Hill, that leads to Kent.
Paintings of Placentia show an elaborate frontage, many mullion windows, and a donjon five storeys high, that housed the King’s lodgings, his privy chamber, library, and study.
Henry VIII added the magnificent banqueting hall and twin tiltyard towers in 1518, now the grounds of the National Maritime Museum. While watching the May Day joust on 1st May 1536 from the Royal stand with Queen Anne Boleyn, the King was passed a note. He is said to have risen, called for six men to ride with him to London, then left the tournament. The Chronicler Edward Hall wrote ‘many men mused’ at his behaviour. It was the last time Anne Boleyn saw her husband. The following day, while watching a game of tennis, Anne was arrested and taken from Greenwich to the Tower.
Three years earlier, while six months pregnant, Anne had travelled the same route to her coronation. What a shocking contrast it must have been, with one lonely cannon firing a salute to let everyone know an important prisoner had been taken to the Tower. In 1533, a continuous cannonade had saluted England’s new Queen.
Henry VIII built his armouries at Greenwich. A set of timber-framed workshops with brick chimneys was established around 1511. The workshops would have been a crucible of activity, accompanied by the smell of burning charcoal and fuming mercury.
Imagine what Placentia must have looked like as dusk fell and the daytime noise subsided. Wisps of ghost-grey smoke rising from its twisting chimneys. The soft glow of candlelight in the windows. The heavy echo of a raven croaking in the parkland. And the bright flame of the beacon that guided the night boats to the jetty.
In recent years a large number of Tudor artefacts have been found in the sand on the banks of the Thames: green glazed pottery, Bellarmine beer pots from the Rhineland, and the bones of wild boars, lamb, chickens, beef, and oyster shells that the servants must have thrown off the jetty near the kitchens.
Greenwich is where the court spent lavish Christmases. In 1516, Henry VIII threw England’s first masquerade ball, and in 1532 temporary kitchens were set up on the grounds as more than two hundred dishes were served at the Twelfth Night feast.
The Naval College has a small exhibition about the old Tudor palace, and it is well worth a visit. Coming from Blackheath, you get an idea of the size of the park from the brick wall that King James I built to replace the fence that prevented deer escaping from the hunting park. Arriving by boat, however, and you are following in the footsteps of kings and queens.
