Hello and welcome back to another new episode on the historic Royal Palace's podcast,

the podcast that tells the histories and stories from our six palaces.

For this week's episode, we're bringing you another talk from our archives.

We all know Henry VIII was an extravagant king,

but in this talk we hear how he carried

that extravagance to a new level, with temporary palaces that travelled with him to events

such as the field of cloth of gold.

In part one today, curator Alden Gregory discusses the flamboyance of temporary palaces, particularly those made

from timber and what they can tell us about Renaissance kingship.

So when I began thinking about Tudel Royal Tents and timber lodging several years ago now,

one of the things that encouraged me that this was an interesting and worthwhile area of

investigation was a short description of a timber lodging

recorded in the inventory of Henry D.Ape's belongings made after his death in 1547. It reads,

item, a timber house, all of fur, which is softwood, painted and gilded with a square tower at every

end and corner, all covered with white plates, scallop-wise and sealed within with pastework painted,

the windows of horn with all beasts, veins, vices belonging to it.

So I hope you get a sense from this description of what an interesting building this timber lodging was.

And what I want to do is talk a little bit more about this building and also try and put it into context.

Timber lodgings were temporary buildings that were designed to be demountable, relocatable and reusable. They were also designed to be taken to war. Writing in 1520 during the preparations

for the field of cloth for gold, Charles, Earl of Worcester, reported a conversation about the design

of the tilt yard

with his French counterpart, the Gaspard de Colini.

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