Loading summary
Transcript55 lines
- [00:01]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
Thanks for listening to Not Just the Tudors. To get all History hit podcasts ad free early access and bonus episodes, head over to historyhit.com subscribe and you can sign up on Apple Podcasts with just one click.
- [00:20]
Paige DeSorbo
Hey, it's Paige from Giggly Squad. Everybody knows about Daphne. They know I just got a cat. I would literally die for her. I was so nervous about the litter box portion of getting a cat and honestly, I think it was like the number one thing that was keeping me from being a cat owner. Litter Robot by Whisker is the solution to all of your litter box problems. Its self cleaning technology automatically cleans after every use, so your cat will always have a fresh bed of litter and your friends won't think that your house smells like a litter box. I feel like Daphne is unique in so many ways, but I actually feel like Daphne is more of a clean freak than other cats. I don't know why I feel like that, but I feel like she gets especially happy when I clean up her area. So the fact that her litter is always rotating, I know that when she's in there she feels clean and that means a lot to me. There are over 1 million happy pets and pet parents who have upgraded to litter robot. So what are you waiting for? Right now, whisker is offering $75 off litter robot bundles. And as a special offer to Gigglers, you can get an additional $50 when you go to stopscooping.com acast that's an additional $50 off when you go to stopscooping dot com acast stopscooping.com acast Ryan.
- [01:44]
Ryan Reynolds
Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.
- [01:46]
Brett Doleman
With the price of just about everything.
- [01:47]
Ryan Reynolds
Going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium Wireless. 30. 30.
- [01:58]
Brett Doleman
Better 30. Get 20, 20, 20.
- [02:00]
Ryan Reynolds
Better get 20. 20, 15.
- [02:01]
Brett Doleman
15. 15, 15.
- [02:02]
Ryan Reynolds
Just 15 bucks a month. So give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch.
- [02:07]
Brett Doleman
$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only taxes and fees, extra speed slower above 40G.
- [02:18]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais, relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. The oldest surviving part of Hampton Court palace is a series of chambers and closets built in the 1520s for Thomas Cardinal Woolsey, Henry VIII's chief advisor and lord chancellor. In these Woolsey rooms, we find exquisite geometric ribbed ceilings of blue and gold featuring Woolsey's heraldic badges. There are walls covered with 500-year-old linen fold paneling. And there is now a wonderful new exhibition bringing together artworks created during Henry VIII's reign. With some evocative 16th century objects and brilliant interactive displays. All are designed to take us back into the Tudor world and the lives not just of the kings and queens, but of the ordinary people whose labor upheld the functioning and magnificence of the Tudor court. Joining me today to discuss this new exhibition is Brett Doleman, curator of collections at historic royal palaces and one of the masterminds behind its installation. I'm professor Suzanne Lipscomb. And this is not just the Tudors. Brett, thank you so much for, for talking to me here at Hampton Court about your new exhibition, the Tudor World. We've just been looking around it. Can we start by having talk about the Wolsey Rooms? Can you describe this part of Hampton Court? Yeah.
- [04:18]
Brett Doleman
So the Wolsey Rooms are some of the oldest surviving interiors at Hampton Court. They're created in the 1520s for Thomas Woolsey, who was Henry VIII's right hand man through the early part of his reign, his chief minister friend, an enormously powerful statesman and cardinal of the Roman Catholic church, and the owner of Hampton court in the 1520s when this place was transformed from a relatively modest manor house into a palace. And not much of Woolsey's residence survives. Henry VIII took over Hampton Court in the late 1520s, rebuilt it, expanded it further into a great royal palace. And much of Henry's palace was also demolished by the rebuilding and modernization for later monarchs too. But we do have Woolsey's private apartments in this rather secret corner of the palace, really, which do survive. And they are really evocative Tudor spaces still. Most of the rich furnishings and furniture have long gone, but we've still got the colorful decorative ceilings, the stone fireplaces. And these are fragments of what would have been magnificent Renaissance interiors. You have to imagine them really sparkling under Judah candlelight and would have made Hampton Court one of the most splendid, most modern buildings in the country. So the rooms really are artworks in their own right. And one of our main objectives in doing the exhibition this year has been to reopen them for the first time since 2019.
- [05:51]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
And one of the sort of mantras of historic royal palaces is to talk about History, where it happened. So what happened, do we know, in these spaces, or might we imagine could have happened?
- [06:03]
Brett Doleman
We have to do a lot of imagining. There's very few specifics that we know, but Woolsey needed a house that would impress his important European guests as well as other Tudor courtiers, and have enough room for grand entertainments, guest bedrooms for the royal family, even a chapel. That's the wider picture of what he's doing at Hampton Court. He built Henry viii, Catherine of Aragon, at the time, Princess Mary, their own royal lodgings. But the Wolsey rooms were, that survive, are his private apartments, and they once extended over three floors across the riverside of his new palace. And we've got six rooms, really remaining. And this is where he would have conducted business as well as where he would have had his more private moments. You can imagine him, I think, looking out over the gardens to the River Thames, awaiting the arrival, perhaps, of the French ambassador or an envoy from the Pope. So this is really where some of the big conversations happened in the 1520s. This is where the Tudors met the rest of the world. But beyond that, we know very little about how each of the surviving spaces were used or furnished. There's two large rooms which were probably for entertaining or for meetings, two very intimate closets, and two sort of in between spaces. Woolsey must have had a bedroom and a study. We know he had a long gallery where business would have taken place and also where he would have walked for relaxation, for exercise. But that's long gone, demolished in the later building programs. So all of that's really one of the reasons why, when we designed this project, we weren't looking to recreate the rooms, because we don't know what they look like and what specifically they were for. But there's enough left to give this immersive sense of them being Tudor interiors and why we've instead gone down the path of using artworks and other historic objects in our care to tell some wider stories about the world of Woolsey and the world of Henry viii.
- [07:54]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
And it is very much that world that we're looking at, you've got the key stories that we know and love about the royals, about Henry VIII and his wives, and these are really important. But much as we do on the podcast, which is called Not Just the Tudors for a reason, it's the Tudors, but not just. And you do the same. You're setting these people we know so well in the context of their broader world. What are some key aspects of the period that people, in your view don't connect enough to the world of the Tudor court.
- [08:28]
Brett Doleman
Well, just to start by reinforcing the messages that people do know about. Hampton Court is already world famous for being Henry VIII's palace of the 1530s and 40s. And I think most people focus on the two perhaps things that Henry VIII is remembered for. His six marriages and the stories of the six queens, and also his great matter, the split with the Church of Rome that led to the big events of his reign. The establishment of the Church of England, the dissolution of the monasteries. And those two stories are obviously interlinked. And we tell those stories already at Hampton Court through the Tudor state apartments and through our programs, et cetera. But what we haven't done historically and what we're setting out to do now is paint this broader picture of the world of the Tudors, how these big events, these big decisions that were made, impacted the lives of those at court and across society more generally, how the events in England fit in with what's happening elsewhere in the world. So we go beyond our familiar Hampton Court story, and we asked questions like, who worked for the Tudor court? How did the Tudor dynasty provide new opportunities, new ideas, new encounters, or maybe to put it another way, what contact did the Tudors have with the rest of the world? How did it feel to work for this most ambitious and unpredictable royal regime? How did England change in the 1500s? How did people navigate what was both a century of opportunity, but also of division, of persecution, of challenge. So through all of that, we want people to get a sense of what the world looked like, what it felt like in the 1500s, beyond Henry's reign, beyond Europe, into the reign of Elizabeth I. And for this perhaps also to be the start of a new dialogue about the Tudors, where we ask fresh questions about the early modern era and occasionally.
- [10:25]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
What it smelled like. As we've seen, you are presenting here some of the absolute treasures of the royal collection that are kept here at Hampton Court. And perhaps some of the most important of those are the so called history paintings from Henry VIII's reign. The battle of the spurs, the Embarkation at Dover, the Field of Cloth of Gold. So can you talk to me about these pictures? Because, I mean, they're just so remarkable. But what can we see? What messages are they supposed to convey? When were they created?
- [10:57]
Brett Doleman
So, as you say, we're very fortunate to have in our new displays three of the most important surviving paintings in the royal collection from the reign of Henry VIII. The Battle of the Spares depicts Henry VIII's 1513 military campaign against France. While the Embarkation at Dover and the Field of Cloth of Gold celebrate the spectacular festival and sporting tournament of 1520, when Henry VIII meets Francis I, king of France, the the first time. Now, we don't know exactly when these were painted. The Battle of the spurs is normally dated close to the events that it depicts. The embarkation and Field of Cloth of Gold are more likely to have been commissioned towards the end of Henry's reign in the 1540s. They all commemorate, in different ways, Henry's claims to be heroic, successful, powerful, rich and magnificent. A word that's normally thrown about to talk about the Tudor court. And it's the right word. The Embarkation, for example, shows this busy seascape outside Dover Harbour, with the English fleet in all of its military glory gathering for departure, and the assembled throngs of courtiers queuing to board little boats ready to ferry their passengers to the bigger ships. The ships are decorated with celebratory banners and flags. One has golden sails and beneath which, standing on the deck is the king himself. And then the Field of Cloth of Gold shows the astonishing spectacle of the 1520 event. Henry again appearing center stage at the head of this magnificent. There's that word again. Procession that weaves across the painting. And there's hundreds of gold and painted tents all gathered around this temporary English palace that was built for this occasion. So these paintings are glorifications of Tudor power and ambition, of Henry's navy, of the palatial splendour of his campsite. And these paintings are not just about golden events, but are themselves made from gold. You've got details covered in gold leaf or shell, gold being used to add decorative highlights to the paintings. Yet these paintings are more than just expensive pieces of colorful propaganda. They're also full of life. What we want to do with our new displays is to get people to see the other things in these paintings beyond the stories of Henry. There were ordinary men and women of all sorts and classes jostling for our attention here and along the harbour side in the middle of a battle, firing cannons to salute the departing fleet, manning the rigging in the ships, queuing up to get a glimpse of Henry's procession, or watching the jousting tournament, cooking, or waiting upon the bespangled courtiers sitting down for their elaborate banquets, begging for arms around the fountains that really did flow with wine outside the temporary palace of 1520. This is, if you like, the supporting cast of thousands who served in Henry's navy, fought his battles, built the field of Cloth of Gold. And they are a wonderful gateway into the lives of some of the ordinary men and women who lived and worked at Hampton Court and enabled the Tudor court to exist and to flourish.
- [14:09]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
You mentioned that it's assumed that these are painted later in Henry's reign. What evidence do we have about when and why they were painted? Why do we conclude that they were painted later in his reign?
- [14:22]
Brett Doleman
There's no specific evidence that can date the paintings. The first time they are described is actually right at the end of the 16th century. We don't know where they were or who they were painted for and when they were painted because of various little bits of circumstantial evidence. The costume that's depicted in the artworks themselves, the way the ships are represented, the way that Dover coastal fortifications are represented, the fact that there is quite a lot of detailed knowledge about the Field of Cloth of Gold, but that some of it isn't quite scrupulously accurate, all of that can be used to argue that the paintings were probably painted during Henry VII's reign. There's not much reason for them to have been done later, probably painted for court, because who else would have wanted these events memorialized in this way? And probably at the end of Henry VIII's reign, there is an argument that suggests that they could have been used to decorate a grand palatial interior, one of the great lost pieces of Edo, a Tudor palace that no longer survives, or they could have been done for a specific occasion. Art like this fits into the more general language of magnificent display, of printed polemic, of theatrical performance, and lots of other things that create this, what's been called the swaggering theater of court life. The way that Henry projected his image to the wider court. And, of course, the message of the embarkation at Dover. And the Field of Cloth of Gold is also one about friendship with France. So at the end of his life, Henry VIII was also going through a period where a new friendship, a new set of treaties with France, were being proposed. We have a visiting French embassy coming to England in 1546, and it may have been for that occasion that these artworks were created. Just as a small aside, you could often be misled by some of the evidence in front of you. So for a long time, one of the other things that was said was that the image of Henry VIII in the Field of Cloth of Gold, which is this quite small miniature portrait within a much larger painting, looks very much like a Post Holbein image of Henry. But it turns out that the paintings were vandalized. In the early 1600s by a visiting Spanish group of soldiers who were in the room next door to an important meeting. And they took out all the people in the paintings that they didn't like. And so the painting that's there is a later insert of Henry that was then added to replace on a different piece of canvas, the painting that was lost.
- [16:47]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
Oh, that's fascinating, because I'd always assumed, incorrectly, it turns out, that they had replaced a younger version of Henry with an older version of him.
- [16:56]
Brett Doleman
No, I think it's fairly clear that this event happened in the early 1600s under the reign of James I, and that the canvas is very different and I think it's been inserted to mend the painting and they've obviously then just gone to a more familiar Henry VIII template. So you're right, in a way, it is an older Henry that's been put there, but not, I think, for a. An updating reason during the reign of Henry viii.
- [17:17]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
I love the idea that these might have been painted when the French came to visit here to sort of say, oh, let's not remember Boulogne and the sinking of Mary Rose. Here she is in her full glory and everything was fine then.
- [17:28]
Brett Doleman
Well, yes, I think we know that art was used in this way. For example, there's further back in time in the 1520s, there's this embassy to Greenwich where we know that the French had to walk underneath a painting that represented the Battle of the spurs, which was when Henry VIII had gone to war with France, which was both, in a way, a reminder of what England could do should you get it cross again. But also it's all about movement in palaces. And there's a lot of meaning in the way that these events are conducted. And so by moving under this archway, moving away from the Battle of the spurs and leaving it behind, you could have argued that part of this messaging was there to create this idea that they were moving towards a better future together. Unfortunately, we do not have the direct evidence for knowing when the embarkation and the field of cloth of gold were painted and what they were painted for. So we can only really guess. And it might be that they were just used as a kind of a celebratory end of reign statement of Tudor power and glory.
- [18:25]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
This is a period, of course, in which we've got loads of new discoveries, ideas, inventions, and your exhibition is drawing attention to some of those. What are you particularly highlighting?
- [18:37]
Brett Doleman
So, yes, as you say, the 1500s were a time of great change, challenges for English people as they were for People all over the world. And one way of looking at 16th century England is to see a country that was emerging from a century of a damaging civil war, the wars of the Roses, to engage in what was happening elsewhere already, this revolutionary world of new ideas, faith in science, art and design, fashion and culture. So pulling together and showing people in our display what was going on at the same time is part of our ambition, really, because sometimes it's difficult to make those connections. So in 1543, the astronomer Nicholas Copernicus publishes his radical idea that the Earth orbits the sun, not the other way around. And Copernicus himself was drawing on Arabic, Persian, Latin, Byzantine ideas about the solar system. And before 1500, the Islamic world in particular had already seen great advances in science, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, agriculture, art, and the Tudor court. What you see is them embracing the new scientific discoveries and inventions of the European and Islamic worlds. One of the objects we have on display, on loan from the University of Oxford History of Science Museum, is as a portable sundial that helps Thomas Woolsey tell the time. And so in some respects, the 1500s were this fertile century of exploration, of discoveries, of sharing knowledge and of trade. How astronomers in gene at the heart of the Songhai empire in modern Mali, for example, were making new observations about the movements of the planets. How the universities of Timbuktu and Sankore collected books from all over the Islamic world. Or back in England, how John Dee Elizabeth, the first astronomer and advisor, renowned mathematician and alchemist, studied Aztec magic imported from Central America. But of course, there's also this much darker side to this story. This huge expansion in European exploration of the globe during this century, led by Spain and Portugal, quickly led to exploitation as more powerful nations found it easier not to engage in fair trade, but to conquer, to colonize, to steal. So this is an age where you see natural resources being plundered, habitats devastated, families enslaved, communities ravaged by new diseases, identities even destroyed. And new ideas don't always create progress or peace. We have Chinese gunpowder technology leading to the development of new guns and weaponry, cannons. So war becomes more deadly, more destructive. Weapons enabled the European colonization of America and later Africa. So what we're trying to do with our displays, as well as having these beautiful works of art, and as well as telling the story of Woolsey and Henry VIII at Hampton Court, we're trying to shine a light on all of this from a global perspective, to show how the world was becoming increasingly connected in good and bad ways. And we do all of this not just through the original artworks, but through other or everyday original and replica objects through digital interactives, through maps and stories which reflect this wider narrative as England begins its own journey. It's this economic and political expansion over the next 300 years towards this colonial empire that would end up affecting the lives of millions around the globe. This is, if you like, the origin story that needs to be told.
- [22:13]
Ryan Reynolds
In case you haven't heard, in the US It's a presidential election year. We're going to hear a lot of this is America. No, no, you're all wrong. This is America. But on American History hit We're leaving that to the rest of them. Join me Don Wildman twice a week where we look to the past to understand the United States of today. With the help of some amazing guests, let us introduce you to the Founding Fathers, guide you through the West Wing of the White House, and shelter you on the battlefields of years gone by. To find out just how we got here, American History hit A podcast from History Hit.
- [22:52]
Brett Doleman
Are you a professional pillow fighter? Or a 9 to 5 low cost time travel agent? Or maybe real estate sales on Mars is your profession? It doesn't matter whatever it is you do, however Complexplex or intricate, Monday.com can help you organize, orchestrate and make it more efficient. Monday.com is the 1 centralized platform for everything work related and with Monday.com work is just easier. Monday.com for whatever you run. Go to Monday.com to learn more.
- [23:22]
Ryan Reynolds
Ready to pop the question. The jewelers@bluenile.com have got Sparkle down to a science with beautiful lab grown diamonds worthy of your most brilliant moments. Their lab grown diamonds are independently graded and guaranteed identical to natural diamonds and they're ready to ship to your door. Go to blue nile.com and use promo code LISTEN to get $50 off your purchase of $500 or more. That's code listenile.com for $50 off blue.
- [23:50]
Paige DeSorbo
Nile.Com code LISTEN hey, it's Paige from Giggly Squad. Everybody knows about Daphne. They know I just got a cat. I would literally die for her. I was so nervous about the litter box portion of getting a cat and honestly I think it was like the number one thing that was keeping me from being a cat owner. Litter Robot by Whisker is the solution to all of your litter box problems. Its self cleaning technology automatically cleans after every use so your cat will always have a fresh bed of litter and your friends won't think that your house smells like a litter box. I feel like Daphne is unique in so many ways, but I actually feel like Daphne is more of a clean freak than other cats. I don't know why I feel like that, but I feel like she gets especially happy when I clean up her area. So the fact that her litter is always rotating, I know that when she's in there she feels clean and that means a lot to me. There are over 1 million happy pets and pet parents who have upgraded to litter robot. So what are you waiting for? Right now, whisker is offering 75 off litter robot bundles. And as a special offer to Gigglers, you can get an additional 50 when you go to stopscooping.com acast that's an additional 50 off when you go to stopscooping dot com acast stopscooping.com acast.
- [25:28]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
One of the other major things that's happening in terms of new ideas, although no one calls them new, is the Religious Reformation. And some of the objects in the exhibition really pick up on both this as an age of clinging on to old ideas and this sort of emergence of the new. Can you talk through some of the wonderful things that you have here?
- [25:53]
Brett Doleman
Yeah. So English culture In the early 1500s was defined by the Catholic Church. Forget about this. People from all backgrounds worshipped every day. Travel to holy places across the country. We've got some pilgrim badges from this period which were collected as souvenirs, testaments of your faith. But as you've said, new. Protestant Reformers challenged the Roman Catholic Church's authority. And some of these ideas were co opted by Henry VIII as he sought to find a way to get out of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. And as we know, Henry only got his way by establishing a new Church of England and ending England's traditional relationship with Catholicism. So from that point, the King starts to use punchy anti Catholic imagery to justify his split with Rome. So in one painting that we have once owned by Henry himself, we've got the artist Girolamo de Treviso, depicting the four Evangelists, author of the Christian New Testament, literally stoning the Pope as he lies sprawled on the ground surrounded by these female figures representing avarice and Hypocrisy. And Henry VII's rejection of Rome and his subsequent pillaging and destruction of Catholic Church property left a gaping spiritual hole in the centre of ancient English communities. Old truths were suddenly questioned and things like the charitable presence of monasteries and abbeys lost from the landscape. As William Shakespeare would later lament, there were now only, as he says, bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sing. And the impact of all of this on ordinary lives or people at court. Some people adapted readily, seized new opportunities. Others faced quite profound, momentous crises of faith. Famously, infamously, many suffered or perished for their faiths and beliefs, not just during the reign of Henry viii, but through the ups and downs and swings of religious orthodoxy over the next century, through the Catholicism of Mary I into the Anglican settlement of Elizabeth I. And we have some wonderfully evocative loans from Stonyhurst College in Lancashire that illustrate what was lost in the 16th century, what some communities struggled to keep alive. And one is this rare example of a once highly colored alabaster 15th century altarpiece depicting the Adoration of the Magi. Protestants demanded an end to the role of religious images in worship, which was seen as idolatry. So thousands of this sort of artwork and artifact were destroyed during the 1500s. This piece survives as a really moving reminder, not just of a lost faith tradition, but also of a lost and vibrant tradition of religious craftsmanship in England. We also have the traveling chest of a Catholic priest full of illegal religious contraband. Now, Catholic priests during the reign of Elizabeth I risked arrest, torture, exile, even execution. Disguised as traveling salesmen, peddlers, they traveled from house to house on pack horses, Their chests filled with everything that a priest needed to conduct a secret mass. Vestments, chalice pattern, rosary, altar stone. So we have one of these unpacked chests on display as well.
- [29:13]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
One of the amazing things about what's happening in this period is we have this great contest of ideas about faith at the same time, as you've mentioned, these amazing new revelations about things like what planet is at the center of the universe, an idea that is not very readily accepted. What we would call signs. And there's a sense that turning to God doesn't mean turning away from new ideas like that, nor does it mean actually turning away from old ideas of what we would call superstition. And one of the things that I most love about Hampton Court is the astronomical clock. And you've done something amazing in this exhibition, which is you have created a display that shows us how that works, what it is. Can you talk me through that and tell us what it says more broadly about the Tudor world?
- [30:05]
Brett Doleman
Well, the astronomical clock is this astonishingly complicated and beautiful object, work of science, mechanical ingenuity that sits at Hampton Court has been there since 1540, when it was built for Henry VIII, probably by Nicholas Kratzer, the king's timekeeper, which is a wonderful occupation title and Nicholas Ursian. And it does lots and lots of different things. It's not just a clock. And From a personal point of view, I've worked at Hampton Court for a long time and I've struggled to stand in front of it, pointing up at the clock tower and explain it to visitors. So we have turned it into a big audiovisual projection inside our exhibition, which takes you through the different elements of it. Basically, it amounts to a number of dials which all rotate at different speeds. Difficult to explain in words. You have to come and see the audio visual for yourself. But it only shows the time, but also shows, for example, the day of the zodiac sign, 29th of August today as we're recording this, which I think is the seventh day of Virgo. So that's an important piece of information for your Tudor courtier. And it also shows this universe depicted through symbols on the clock face with, as you say, the Earth still sitting at the center with the sun rotating around it, with the moon also shown in all of its phases, because that was also a meaningful piece of information for Tudor courtiers. And it also shows with a little red arrow which again rotates and changes the time of high tide at London Bridge every day, which is really useful for a culture that is using the river to move from palace to palace. So the clock is a typical piece of 16th century practicality based in maths and science and technology, but also a reflection of superstition and traditional belief. And the Tudors believed in science, but also astrology. And they continue to use both forms of forecasting to make important decisions. And it's wrong, I think, to think of science and faith in this polarized way. They are all part of the same way that the Tudors used, as the wider world did, to explain the world around them. So new scientific discoveries didn't replace traditional beliefs, they added to them. And I think it's wrong to think of science and faith as being these polarized opposites. They were part of the same belief system which the 16th century used to understand the world around it. So, yes, this is an age when lots of things were being discovered about nature, about the universe, about mathematics, about science, about medicine. But they were all combined into the same, if you like, traditional set of beliefs, one didn't replace the other.
- [32:51]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
And once people have looked at this wonderful display of the astronomical clock, they can go outside and they can see it in all its glory and understand it now.
- [32:59]
Brett Doleman
It is wonderful, hopefully. Yes, that's the idea because they are quite next to each other in the palace. And it's certainly one of the ambitions to make that work for people, but also to use that Again, as a way of then getting across one of these wider truths about the 16th century, about what people believed, how the new ideas in science and technology were woven into traditional patterns of behavior and belief. So people kept the astrology, as we still do today, but also combined that with practical knowledge about high tides and the way that the universe worked.
- [33:31]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
One of the things that Hampton Court does is it shows us how deeply integrated England was with continental Europe at this time. And I think it's important to highlight this because so often the Tudors is told as a story of great Englishness, as a kind of patriotic narrative. What are some of the ways that foreign influences are reflected in the material culture of the court in this exhibition?
- [33:57]
Brett Doleman
Well, you're right, but again, I think it's not a story of there being a developed sense of an English culture apart from everything else. The two stories of integration with the world, of new encounters, and of a developing sense of an English, if you like, material culture, style, are all part of the same thing that's happening in the 16th century. And the Tudors certainly coveted a lot of the exquisite material cultures that they found as they traveled the world. Men and women copied the luxurious and colorful foreign fashions that they saw. Patterns from Spain, from North Africa were used in embroidery. There was an international trade in fabrics, jewels and precious dyes. You get Indian diamonds, Persian turquoise, Southeast Asian rubies and sapphires, Colombian emeralds and gold from Africa and America. And in terms of dyes, blue indigo from India, scarlet cochineal from Mexico. And Tudor records show that the court paid for the richest fabrics dyed in the most expensive colors to black velvet, green silk, scarlet wool brocade woven with threads of silver and gold. Henry VIII himself wore a Turkish overcoat, we're told, and a jewel encrusted hats. You get Continental style padded cod pieces which were revealed by these knee length open skirts. And it's quite interesting that Englishmen, and I think this is true in many centuries, were accused of mocking and scoffing at all countries for their defects, but also of crudely copying their clothes and fashions, of specifically in this case, turning cod pieces into footballs. And as well as the dress, you get the homes of rich English courtiers being decorated and furnished in Italian and French silks, in Turkish carpets, Flemish tapestries, Chinese porcelain. An example of the costume that we have in the exhibition is this wonderful and mysterious full length portrait by Marcus Gerard of an unknown woman in what we think is probably an Ottoman dress. Gerritz was a Flemish artist who came to England as a religious refugee in the 1560s, fleeing the persecution of Protestants in his homeland, what was then the Spanish Netherlands. And he's given us this portrait of a young woman, we don't know who she is, dressed in a beautiful pale pink floor length robe embroidered with colorful flowers, fruits and birds. She's also wearing an elaborate hat with a golden veil that flows down her back and blue jeweled shoes. What we can say is that this is not an English dress. It's based on Persian or more probably Turkish fashions copied and created by English embroiderers. And as I said, as well as fashion, it's just the decorative schemes within people's homes, within palaces. And Hampton Court is another example. You have artists and craftspeople being invited to England because of their expert workmanship. Thomas Woolsey and afterward Henry VIII employ Italian sculptors and artists to adorn the palace with the latest lavish designs, symbols of wealth and power, of faith and dynasty, but also of interconnectedness, of being part of this wider renaissance. And such design is inspired by the mythology and art of the ancient world of Europe, by Islamic patterns, and by plants and animals that people are discovering around the globe.
- [37:30]
Ryan Reynolds
In case you haven't heard, in the US It's a presidential election year. We're going to hear a lot of this is America. No, no, you're all wrong. This is America. But on American History hit. We're leaving that to the rest of them. Join me, Don Wildman, twice a week where we look to the past to understand the United States of today. With the help of some amazing guests, let us introduce you to the Founding Fathers, guide you through the west wing of the White House and shelter you on the battlefields of years gone by. To find out just how we got here. American History hit. A podcast from History Hit.
- [38:08]
Brett Doleman
Are you a professional pillow fighter or a 9 to 5 low cost time travel agent? Or maybe real estate sales on Mars is your profession? It doesn't matter. Whatever it is you do, however Complexplex or intricate, Monday.com can help you organize, orchestrate and make it more efficient. Monday.com is the one centralized platform for everything work related. And with Monday.com work is just easier. Monday.com for whatever you run. Go to Monday.com to learn more.
- [38:50]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
When a visitor comes to Hampton Court, they will of course find the story of Henry VIII and his six wives. But you also explore in this exhibition some of the lesser known stories associated with the palace, with the people, with the objects you have here. Can you give me some examples?
- [39:04]
Brett Doleman
If you come to Hampton Court, you will visit the Tudor State apartments. You will visit the Judah kitchens. That is where we give people the story of Henry viii, the story of the six queens. We talk about the politics, the decisions that were made here at the palace and elsewhere that changed society, that affected the world of the 16th century. But what we haven't done historically, perhaps, is tell some of the smaller stories, the more surprising and unheard stories of the people that helped build things like the field of the cloth of gold that worked at the Tudor court. And I think it's also really important to continue to ask different questions of the familiar objects and paintings and artworks in our care. So I've just been talking about the amazing fabrics and dyes that came into this country and the fact that rich English courtiers, rich Europeans, enjoyed luxury fabrics from around the globe. They were also able to enjoy new exotic foods and their beautifully adorned new homes. But to monetize this demand, traders might not just be indulging in free trade, but seizing natural resources. They might be enslaving local communities, destroying precious local ecosystems and cultures. So I think it's important to ask how these things were brought to this country, where they were made, how they were farmed, how they were produced. So to give just a couple of examples, we know that European armies at this point are seizing the lands of the Aztecs in Mexico and the Inco in Peru, looting vast amounts of gold, precious metals and emeralds. And, of course, what this all leads to eventually, is the shameful awfulness of the transatlantic slave trade in the following centuries. And these are important stories to tell. Another story, a more personal one perhaps, would be we've got this exquisite crucifix reliquary, once owned by Thomas More, on loan to us from Stonyhurst College, which is an exquisite artwork. It's beautifully made, rich gold enamel with these three pearls hanging off it. And it's obviously, on one level, a statement of Thomas More's success, also his faith. But where did these materials come from? Where did the gold come from? Where did the pearls come from? What does this tell us about the material culture and trade of the Tudor age? So this kind of questioning hopefully opens up new interesting aspects of the 1500s for our audiences. It makes them look at things in different ways. All of them are valid questions. And the more questions we ask of objects, the more interesting answers we get.
- [41:36]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
Yes, it's so interesting to think about it like that. And you've got these sort of layered stories. Thomas More, we think of as a sort of great martyr of the Church. Thomas More is a Great statesman, man of faith, wealthy, but also, as you say, the normally untold stories of where these things are coming from. And in a similar way, you're thinking about the court, you know, not just the queen and king enjoying their luxury and the magnificence of court, but how that was produced, how the court was enabled to function. And you draw out some of the stories of the little people, as it were, us, basically, in history. Can you give a couple of examples of those as well? Yeah.
- [42:15]
Brett Doleman
So, as you say, this huge magnificence of court style, of interior decoration, of costume, required armies of builders and laborers, artists, craftspeople, to produce the imposing buildings, the glorious decorative arts, the paintings, the sculpture, the tapestries, and including the teams of artists who produce the Tudor history paintings that we've talked about. They're not the work of one artist. They're the result of teams of artists that are embedded in and around the court. And one of the really enjoyable aspects of this project has been to be able to display some of our own collections at historic royal palaces, more everyday items and surviving fragments of these untold stories, these lost lives. So we have fragments of the blue and gold decoration of Woolsey's lost palace. We have a Tudor tap, a spice grater, a glazed tile from Henry VIII's bath chamber, an ear scoop, all hinting at the kind of everyday roles and occupations available at court. And at the other end of the stair, we have a wonderful Tudor tapestry from the royal collection, telling the story of the mythic Trojan hero Ineus. And the weavers responsible for that were based in what's now Belgium, but are just one example again, of the teams of artists that worked in and around the Tudor court, creating this astonishingly rich, colorful material culture. And they were just one of many different trades that found opportunities for employment at places like Hampton Court, where you have to imagine up to maybe 1,000 men and women living and working, from high ranking Tudor courtiers to what were called gong farmers who cleaned the toilets. It's a small town that needs to be cleaned, fed and watered alive with intrigue and gossip and debate. You've got even children working here as chimney sweeps, turn spits, tapestry beaters. And we know the names of some of these people and what they were paid. What the Tudors were really good at, and we have been very good at throughout history, is writing down how much things cost and where the money went. And so one of the few women that we know worked closely with Henry VIII was a woman called Anne Harris, who's responsible in the 1540s for cleaning and maintaining Henry VIII's personal napery and his undergarments and his bandages. Anne Harris is looking after Henry late on in his life when he's suffering from these terribly pus filled leg ulcers. And Anne was expected to provide, it is written in the records, as much sweet powder, sweet herbs and other sweet things as shall be necessary. A lot of emphasis on sweet, suggesting that the odor was a problem and a significant issue. And the royal laundress was expected to have a knowledge of what to do about it and to pay for the appropriate ingredients. And she did get a pay rise, interestingly doubling her income in 1546-£20 a year.
- [45:04]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
And that is a sizable income. Clearly they needed her services. Well, thank you so much for talking me through both what's in the exhibition, but also the thinking behind it. And visitors can see this for how long?
- [45:20]
Brett Doleman
Well, this is a permanent reopening for the palace. So this is open now and it's open during the normal palace opening hours as part of the normal entrance to the palace. And it will be there for reimagined at least 10 years.
- [45:31]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
You've got plenty of time to see it folks, but there's no time like the present. Brett, thank you so much for your time. It's been really wonderful to talk to you.
- [45:37]
Brett Doleman
Thank you very much. It's enjoyable to talk about the new things that we're doing here at Hampton Court.
- [45:43]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
Thanks for listening to this episode of Not Just the Tudors and also to my researcher Alice Smith, my producer Rob Weinberg, and to Ella Blacksell who edited this episode. We are always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects we can cover. So do drop us a line at not just the tutorshistoryhit.com or on X, formerly Twitter otjusttutors. Remember that you can also listen to all of these podcasts ad free and watch hundreds of documentaries when you subscribe@historyhit.com subscribe it's well worth it. And as a special gift, you can also get 50% off your first three months when you use the Code Tudors at checkout. That's historyhit.com subscribe with the code Tudors and if you would be so good as to follow Not Just the Tudors on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, you'll get each new episode as soon as it's released.
- [47:00]
Ryan Reynolds
Discover Hydro the best kept secret in fitness, Hydro is the state of the art home rower that engages 86% of your muscles, delivering the ultimate full body workout in just 20 minutes. From advanced to beginner, Hydro has over 5,000 classes shot worldwide and taught by Olympians and world class athletes. For a 30 day risk free trial, go to hydro.com and use code RO to sell. $475 on a Hydro Pro rower. That's H-Y--R D O W COM Code Row welcome to Dunkin with AMEX Gold.
- [47:32]
Brett Doleman
You can get up to $84 back annually at Dunkin locations.
- [47:35]
Ryan Reynolds
So your morning pick me up.
- [47:36]
Paige DeSorbo
Can I have a medium iced coffee.
- [47:37]
Ryan Reynolds
With one tastes even better.
- [47:39]
Brett Doleman
That's the powerful backing of American Express Enrollment required terms apply. Learn more@americanexpress.com with AmEx.