LIFE AT THE TUDOR COURT

The Pleasure Palace, Between Two Queens, and future books in the Secrets of the Tudor Court series by Kate Emerson are set at the courts of the Tudor monarchs from Henry VII through the first Queen Mary. This page is a work in progress, designed to give glimpses into the people and places that make up the world of the novels and the real world of sixteenth-century England.

The royal palaces were many and varied. The painting at the top of this page shows Greenwich Palace from the Thames. Greenwich is the "pleasure palace" of the title. The old name for it was Pleasance

Below is a view of the Tower of London in Tudor Times. It, too, is an important setting in The Pleasure Palace, both as a prison and as a royal residence. And it has a significant role in Between Two Queens, too.

Some of the other palaces that figure in the novels in this series are Eltham, Richmond, Westminster, and Whitehall. After a fire at Westminster, Whitehall became "the king's place at Westminster" and is often called Westminster in records of the time. This leads, as you can imagine, to considerable confusion! I'll be adding more views of palaces in the future.

How did the courtiers travel from palace to palace? Often they went by water, as in this recent reenactment, when "Henry VIII" was rowed down the Thames.

There were people at court, too. The Who's Who section of this website has mini-biographies of many of the women at court, but the anonymous subjects of paintings and sketches also create a picture of life at court. Take the unknown lady below. She was immortalized sometime in the 1520s or 1530s by Lucas Hornebolt. She's wearing the gable headdress so hated by Nan Bassett in Between Two Queens.

Just as a matter of interest, a very similar portrait has been identified by one scholar as Mary Boleyn, who was King Henry's mistress in the 1520s. Below is a sketch of court ladies done by Hans Holbein the Younger at about the same period. Again, they're wearing gable headdresses.

The portraits below show the sitters wearing French hoods, a much more comfortable and flattering headdress. The sketch is by Hans Holbein the Younger and is probably Mary Zouche, who was one of Nan Bassett's fellow maids of honor.

In Between Two Queens, for Queen Jane's funeral, another sort of attire was required. Below is a sketch showing mourning dress for a countess.

I'll be adding more to this page as I find interesting depictions of people and places. Meanwhile, to return to the index page, click below.

last updated 3/26/10