Henry VIII's Royal Progresses - New Research at the Palaces

Historic Royal Palaces Podcast

Historic Royal Palaces

London, Palace, Tower, Historic, Conservation, Royal, Lecture, Learning, Kensington, Hampton, Kew, Banqueting, History, Court, Of, House, Palaces

4.6 • 635 Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The practice of journeying around the country on royal progress is one that monarchs used to strengthen their rule. But they can reveal a lot more than you’d think about kingship and queenship, even for tried and tested subjects such as Henry VIII and his six Queens.

We follow Post-Doctoral Research Assistant Kirsty Wright, as she guides us through the importance of new research into where and why Henry VIII went on royal progress. Kirsty also reveals how the progresses of Henry’s Queens are contributing to highlighting their individual roles and personalities, helping to answer bigger questions about 16th century queenship and monarchy.

In this series, we'll be exploring fresh research that is taking place in our Palaces. We won't be releasing this series sequentially, so these episodes will appear throughout the year.

To find out more about the Henry VIII on Tour research project go to:

www.hrp.org.uk/about-us/research/henry-viii-on-tour-landscapes-communities-and-performance/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the Historic Royal Palaces podcast. I'm Kirstie Wright and I'm a postdoctoral
0:08.8	research assistant here at the palaces. Today's episode is part of a series where we're exploring
0:14.7	new research that is taking place in our palaces. We won't be releasing this sequentially,
0:19.6	so these episodes will appear throughout the year.
0:23.8	Historic Royal Palaces is an independent research organisation, which means there is always a lot
0:28.9	going on behind the scenes to make sure we present the history of our palaces properly, and that's
0:33.7	what this series is all about. We want to share any new research projects or discoveries with you.
0:40.2	From the buildings themselves to the objects and people that have lived in them,
0:44.0	we hope that this series brings to light some new history for you.
0:53.2	We're here bright and early this morning in Hampton Court in what we call the Master Carpenter's Court just outside the Tudor Kitchens.
1:02.0	We're here because this is where deliveries would have come into the palace throughout the centuries.
1:08.0	So to get here this morning I've walked up through the Seymour Gate,
1:11.6	through the Lord Chamberlain's Court, and then up through the gateways into master carpenters,
1:18.6	which is this area full of sort of barrels and carts that represent all of the goods that would have come in through this entrance historically. The reason I'm here is because the information that we can find about these deliveries can tell us interesting things about much bigger questions around life at court and how the king and queen moved around.
1:45.0	So the court didn't operate in a vacuum.
1:48.0	It relied on a number of servants and it relied on a huge amount of resources
1:54.0	in order for the king and queen to look, behave, eat and dress like royalty. One of the interesting things that I've come across recently
2:04.3	in my research is just how useful the records of these tradespeople can be. So there's a huge
2:12.7	number of accounts ranging from sort of scrappy bills through to formal accounts books,
2:17.6	totting up the totals and the debts for the year,
2:20.2	which record all of the purchases that were made to sustain the court.
2:24.7	And these include a range of things from velvet for the Queen's dresses,
	...

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