The King's Hawking Hood and Gloves

It is well documented that the Tudors enjoyed the sport of Falconry, not only as a form of hunting (to help put food on their tables), but also as a pastime. The sport involved the hunting of small game in their natural habitat with the aid of a trained bird of prey (either some form of falcon or hawk). Henry VIII himself was extremely fond of Falconry in his later years. In the month of September 1533, Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower of London remarked that Henry 'hawks everyday with goshawks and other hawks... lanners, sparhawks, and merlins both afore noon and after'. With the help of his Chief Falconer, Robert Cheseman, Henry had different falcons and hawks dotted all over the country, so that wherever he visited he always had some form of falcon or hawk at his disposal.

Portrait of Robert Cheseman, 1533, Hans Holbein the Younger, Mauritshius

Not only did falconry show off his manly skills (the Tudors believed Falconry helped them train/prepare for war), but it was also an area for further display of his kingship. This was achieved through the use of costly materials and fabrics to help create an image of magnificence, but it also served as a reminder of your social status and that no one was higher than the king on the social ladder except almighty God himself. 

As the birds belonged to Henry they (and the items associated with them) were also adorned with the finest silks and velvets that money could buy, and these such items could also be decorated with embroidery, feathers or silver and gold bells. Mark Milliner a falconer of the king put in a bill for a hawking glove that was 'trimmed with crimson velvet and embroidered with gold and silver and another trimmed with white velvet and embroidered with gold and silver, both costing 15s'. We are better able to understand what these looked like from written and pictorial sources. As with other forms of Tudor clothing and accessories any surviving pieces of hawking equipment would be extremely rare, as expensive fabrics and metal threads were frequently reused. Despite this, there is a surviving hawking glove and hood in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, both are linked to the 16th Century and are strongly believed to have belonged to King Henry VIII.

Hawking Hood (Front View)

Hawking Hood (Side View)

Hawking Glove (Right-Handed)

Hawking Glove 

The surviving hawking glove is made of red-brown doeskin with a lining of white doeskin. It is embroidered with silver-gilt thread which is held by red silk stitching, which forms a band that encircles the wrist. It is also embroidered with three circular motifs (each are 60mm in diameter), one at the centre front, one at the centre back and one on the inside fold, which are edged with blue silk. It has a small yellow silk tassel.

Hawking Hood 

The hawking hood is made of leather, which has been covered with a red fabric (probably velvet). The red fabric is decorated with gold thread embroidery, which has incorporated loops of gold and is edged with gold chain work. It does not have a plume.

If you have time to spare why not pop in to the Ashmolean Museum to view them. They are truly remarkable survivals of their time...

Sources

• Henry VIII and Falconry - HRP - 2nd April 2009 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFuG1ddWl8Y
• Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII - Maria Hayward - https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BCgxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT800&lpg=PT800&dq=henry+viii+hawking+hood+and+glove&source=bl&ots=c6oUObwljS&sig=0YNacv_pYlLWg_82n3py1tGULWY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj1xJfBgvjVAhWLAMAKHd1vASM4ChDoAQgnMAA#v=onepage&q=henry%20viii%20hawking%20hood%20and%20glove&f=false
• https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en/discover/mauritshuis/masterpieces-from-the-mauritshuis/portrait-of-robert-cheseman-14851547-276/
• http://www.ashmolean.org/ash/amulets/tradescant/tradescant07-06.html
• http://www.ashmolean.org/ash/amulets/tradescant/tradescant07-07.html

The Old Palace of Richmond

Richmond Palace (previously known as the Palace of Shene) is associated with all the Tudor Monarchs (it played a large role within all their lives), but it was mostly favoured by King Henry VII - the first Tudor king.

Elizabeth Woodville, the wife of King Edward IV, held the great Palace of Shene until shortly after Henry VII's victory over King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth on the 22nd August 1485, where she then handed it over to her new son-in-law. When the Palace of Shene had come into the king's hands, he had relatively little to do with it, that is until him and his court visited over the Christmas of 1497, and he decided to rebuild/restore the fire ravaged palace into a modern day Tudor pleasure palace. The king's carpenters and stonemasons set to work soon after.

Elizabeth Woodville, Queens College Collection, Cambridge, portrait 88.

Building work finished in 1501,  (the palace now covered over 20 acres) after the king had "rebuilt it up again sumptuously and costly..", with the King then changing the palace's name to Richmond  after his father Edmund Tudor, whose title was that of the Earl of Richmond.

Richmond Palace by Anthonis van den Wyngaerde, C. 1558-1562 

Henry VIII was not as fond of Richmond Palace as his father had been and during his reign it quickly became one of the homes for his discarded queens. Anne of Cleves (Henry VIII's 4th wife) was even given it as part of her marriage settlement. However, Henry VIII's daughter Mary I and Elizabeth I made better use of the palace, with Mary staying at the palace with her new husband Phillip II of Spain as part of their honeymoon, and Elizabeth frequently visiting over the winter months, particularly at Christmas and Shrovetide. Elizabeth I was even at the palace when she died on the 24th March 1603.

The palace then passed from royal hand to royal hand until it was sold by the Commonwealth (after the execution of King Charles I). With the buildings of the royal estate being divided up, and some of the buildings even being destroyed so that the stone could be sold off. To this day the only surviving parts that can be seen of the Tudor Palace of Richmond are the Wardrobe buildings and the gate house.

The surviving Gatehouse

This stonework above the gateway is Tudor, but has been restored over the years.

To give you an idea of the scale of how big the palace would have been - this is me and the doorway.

When I got home after visiting the remains I opened my copy of 'The Royal Palaces of Tudor England' by Simon Thurley, and leafed through it to try and find a picture of the Gateway that I had just seen. And here it is...

Image from 'The Royal Palaces of Tudor England' by Simon Thurley.

You can clearly see the gateway, the stonework above it and the now bricked up doorway to the right of the gateway.

If you are walking through Richmond, or are looking for somewhere to visit on your holidays/travels do not neglect the remains of the palace. They are well worth a visit. It was always on my Tudor Bucket List to visit and it didn't disappoint. The perfect Tudor hideaway from the busy hustle and bustle of London...

Sources

1. https://www.queens.cam.ac.uk/life-at-queens/about-the-college/college-facts/foundresses-and-patronesses/elizabeth-woodville
2. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Wyngaerde_Richmond_1562.jpg
3. https://www.richmond.gov.uk/media/6334/local_history_richmond_palace.pdf
4. The Royal Palaces of Tudor England by Simon Thurley, Yale University Press; First Edition; (31st Aug 1993)

Bibliography

1. http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/richmond-lost-palace/
2. http://richmond.gov.uk/services/libraries/branch_libraries/local_studies_collection/local_history_timelines/royal_richmond_timeline

Meeting the Historian and Author Leanda De Lisle and Dom Smee...

Hello Everyone!

I hope your weekend has been as fun filled and joyous as mine. I managed to tick two things off the Tudor bucket list this Sunday. Let me tell you what they are and how I did them.

This Sunday I attended the Battle of Bosworth Medieval Heritage Festival at Bosworth Market in the UK. For those of you that don't know this is the battle where Henry VII (Henry VIII's daddy) won his throne through right of conquest off of Richard III (the king under the car park, and hide and seek champion). The festival itself sadly doesn't take place on the actual field the battle is fought on, as that is currently a working farm, but at the Bosworth Hertitage Centre close to where the battle was actually fought. The festival itself is fundamentally a recreation of the battle of Bosworth - it's the second year I have visited this festival and it is well worth attending. They also have lots of market stalls with traders offering their wares, games for all the family, a living history camp with various presentations, jousting and feats of arms by Destrier (a jousting group -  check them out!), which all work alongside their heritage centre.

Battle recreation - The yorkists under their King Richard III line up ready for battle.

Throughout the day the festival had arranged for Phillipa Langley MBE and Leanda De Lisle, author and historian to give educational talks. Phillipa's talk (which I sadly didn't get to go on as it was sold out) was about her new project on the missing princes in the Tower, and Leanda's was on The Tudors a family story (based on her book), which informed you of how the Tudors came to power throughout this turbulent period of history. We managed to get tickets to Leanda's talk, and it was great. It was so well researched and she showed the audience many images, which I have never seen before relating to this period. Afterwards, she was doing a book signing, and as I had brought one of her books earlier (I had the other one they were selling already at home), I got in the queue ready for her to sign my book.

Me in line, my mum was saying something to me at the time I couldn't quite hear - hence my face!

So I waited patiently and finally it was my turn to meet her and for her to sign my book. All I can say is she is so lovely! She was more than happy to talk to those who had come to see her, and it didn't seem any trouble to her to have her photo taken. She also told me that Phillipa Gregory had based her book on the book I had just asked her to sign. 

And here she is... huzzah! A photo where I haven't accidentally pulled a face or squinted - result!

After this, I left Leanda to meet the rest of her adoring fans, to go and watch the jousting by Destrier,  which was based in the main arena. On the way, however I paused (okay, and jumped up and down a lot in excitement - granted) before grabbing my mums arm, and then pointing over in the direction of the huts. Stood in front of them was none other that Dominic Smee!

If you don't know Dominic Smee, where have you been?!?! Dom has the same curvature of the spine as Richard III, and following the dig for Richard was provided with armour specially made for his body so that he could carry out athletic-based tests to see how his body performed with this slight disability, and whether they could even get armour on somebody with scoliosis. Turns out you can, and it's didn't put him at a great disadvantage as many were to have believed. I have attached a link below to a short clip of Dom talking about how his life has changed since he helped scientists with these tests.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/richard-iii-the-new-evidence/videos/all/becoming-richard-iii/3728093957001

So, I plucked up the courage, ran over and asked him for a photo. Thankfully, he said yes, and I said to him ''I bet you get this all the time'', to which he said ''yes'' and then chuckled a little.

Me and Dominic Smee...

After, this I thanked him and then we had to run off for the jousting. I was on a high and then the sombre part of the day came round - the battle reenactment. I'm not really a teary person, but last year when they carried Richard off on the horse, and then Henry VII was given the crown I was fighting back the tears a little - and this year was no different. I guess it's just because I have spent many years following, and researching things to do with the Tudor period, but this is where it truly began.

In all I had a wonderful day, and was so fortunate to be able to tick two things off of my Tudor Bucket List. I even ran into my friend Catherine Brooks (who works for The Tudor Society and Made Global Publishing), her partner David Ibbotson and their wonderful son Lukas. 

Third Greatest Day Ever!

Hello Everyone!

Sorry for the delay in posting. I have been out having the most marvellous time ever, since I got some wonderful news through! More on that in a second.. I need to give you some background before I can tell you it, and you won't think me crazy (it happens a lot believe me).

So to give you a bit of background about me, I never knew what I wanted to be at school, and subsequently bummed my way though school and college (literally the worst thing I could have done - yep, I know that now!). Any who, my love of the Tudor period came later, a lot later. I liked History but it was never something I thought of as a career or anything. So I stumbled my way through different jobs before settling on a position in HR, which I quite enjoy, and hey it pays the bills.

Through my many years re-enacting Henry VIII's immediate family though, I realised this was something I truly enjoyed, and I couldn't wait for my weekends to come so that I could run from the day job, and have a weekend of pure bliss.

From this I know now that my dream job would be working for Past Pleasures or Historic Royal Palaces as a Costumed Interpreter. Basically that meant I would go around in costume interacting with the public, and bringing the past closer to visitors by interpreting a historical site and it's objects, and telling it's story to them. However, making this leap wouldn't be easy, I'm running out of time in life, and I do not have a qualification in the relevant fields, besides having a bucket load of passion. Also the job market in Heritage is unbelievably tough, so a lot of people carry out volunteering in the relevant field to gain experience, alongside working for their degree's. I have volunteered for Sudeley Castle before and carried out work as a guide, so volunteering in a historical site was nothing unusual for me. Let me tell you it's a completely different world on the other side of the doors!

One day I was searching on the National Trust website, and decided to look at the Volunteering section instead of the jobs section, and low and behold they had a Costumed Interpreter role going - this was crazily rare! Then I thought knowing me it will be somewhere so far away that it would be unfeasible for me to do it, but I clicked on it anyway - seriously God/a higher power (whatever you choose to believe) was smiling on me this day. The position was at Chedworth Roman Villa just 25 minutes up the road from where I lived! So I applied... and then I waited.. and waited..

A couple of weeks later, I received an email from a lady at the National Trust. The references I gave came back satisfactory and could I come in for a Trial day. Here was the tricky part, I have so much going on at work at the moment so I said I could, but I would only be able to at the weekend, and I couldn't do this one as I was taking part in a Relay for Life for Cancer Research (everyone raised £80k + what an achievement!). She replied that she was taking part too, and that we could meet up there. Which was amazing - don't you just love life when it plans out! So here was the funny bit, it was a fancy dressed event, which meant she had to look for me and I was wearing a massive yellow anorak (Singing in the Rain) and I had to look for her, and she was dressed as a Nun (Sister Act)! You literally can't make that up!

That's just some of my team below, just so you understand how lovely I looked..

So, I met her, and agreed with her to go in the following Saturday to meet with a long serving Costumed Interpreter there to have a look around. I came away pinching myself, not quite believing this was real. Yes, it's Roman (which I don't know very well - I am happy to learn of course), but it's a direct foot in the door to something I would love to do, with a phenomenal and well known company. I can't stop smiling!

Until next time...