Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History podcast.

I'm your host, Heather Tesco.

This week, I'm going to talk about one of the most famous palaces that we think of

when we imagine Henry the 8th, his iconic palace along the Thames, Hampton Court, one of only two

palaces remaining, in addition to St. James's Palace, that actually belong to Henry directly.

So Hampton Court Palace is a royal palace in Richmond upon Thames, 11.5 miles southwest of

Charing Cross, and upstream of central London on the River Thames.

Thomas Woolsey, the Archbishop of York, chief minister and favorite of Henry the 8th,

who I actually had an episode about several years ago, took over the site of Hampton

Court Palace in 1514. But before then, it had actually had history as a property of the Order of

St. John of Jerusalem, a military order. The order acquired the Manor of Hampton in 1236 and used the site

as a center for agricultural estates where

produce was stored and accounts were kept. Excavations and early documents suggest that the

knights had a great barn or hall and a stone room that they used as an estate office.

There was probably very little, if any, residential accommodation.

By the 14th century, the Hampton estates were conveniently located between a few of the royal

palaces, and it was a perfect stopping-off point for royal visitors. The manor underwent some

construction to provide a guest house fit for royalty, and eventually

the order decided to rent out Hampton, and one of the early tenants was the Lord Chamberlain

to Henry the 7th. The area around Hampton was becoming more popular with the royal family,

as Henry the 7th started rebuilding the royal lodgings at Sheen as Richmond Palace.

The royal family with Henry the 7th and his queen, Elizabeth of York, spent a great deal of time

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