Tag: House of Tudor

The House of Tudor delivered the world some of the strongest-willed monarchs of all time. I explore different aspects of their tenacity here on The Diary of an Improvateur.

Someday, I expect I will move on to Queen Elizabeth I but for the moment, my fascination with the House of Tudor lies with Henry VIII. I’ve written about his built legacy, his devotion to the joust and his cunning use of cloth as a decorative device here on the blog. In terms of his built legacy, one of the palaces he enhanced architecturally is Hampton Court Palace, an extant gem in an oeuvre that gained him a reputation as a master builder.

According to Dr. Simon Thurley, who surveys the entirety of the King’s built legacy in his book The Royal Palaces of Tudor England, he was regarded as “a perfect Builder” as early as Elizabeth I’s reign. The author also notes the King was equally at home designing jewelry, armor “(‘suche as no armorer before that tyme had seen’), siege engines and a new sort of tiltyard.” Upon Henry VIII’s death on January 28, 1547, it took a group of hired commissioners 18 months to compile a detailed list of his belongings.

The first segment of the surviving inventory includes money, jewels, plate, artillery, munitions, ships, arms, armor, horses, masque garments, tents, religious gowns and books. And the second covers other items in the principal royal houses, wardrobes or stores. In total, the lists include hundreds of thousands of objects. This was indeed a legacy of wealth that plays on through his daughter’s reign and I will be exploring more subjects relating to the House of Tudor as time goes on.