Editing Hampton Court Palace (section)

=== Tudor times ===
[[File:Hampton Court Key.jpg|thumb|300px|Hampton Court Palace, with marked reference points referred to on this page. '''A''': West Front & Main Entrance; '''B''': Base Court; '''C''': Clock Tower; '''D''': Clock Court, '''E''': Fountain Court; '''F''': East Front; '''G''': South Front; '''H''': Banqueting House; '''J''': Great Hall; '''K''': River Thames; '''L''': Pond Gardens; '''M''': East Gardens; '''O''': Cardinal Wolsey's Rooms; '''P''': Chapel.]]
[[Thomas Wolsey]], [[Archbishop of York]], chief minister to and a favourite of Henry VIII, took over the site of Hampton Court Palace in 1514.<ref name="Summerson, P12">Summerson, p. 12.</ref>  Over the following seven years, Wolsey spent lavishly (200,000 [[Crown (English coin)|crowns]]) to build the finest palace in England at Hampton Court.<ref name="Williams, P52"/> Today, little of Wolsey's building work remains unchanged. The first courtyard, the Base Court,<ref>"Base" in this instance simply means "lower" in the hierarchy of courtyards; it is not topographically lower.</ref> (''B on plan''), was his creation, as was the second, inner gatehouse (''C'') which leads to the Clock Court (''D'') (Wolsey's seal remains visible over the entrance arch of the clock tower<ref name=arch>[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22207 Spelthorne Hundred: Hampton Court Palace: architectural description, ''A History of the County of Middlesex'', Volume 2]: General; Ashford, East Bedfont with Hatton, Feltham, Hampton with Hampton Wick, Hanworth, Laleham, Littleton (1911), pp. 371–379.  Retrieved 21 March 2009.</ref>) which contained his private rooms (''O on plan'').<ref name="Summerson, P12"/> The Base Court contained forty-four lodgings reserved for guests, while the second court (today, Clock Court) contained the very best rooms{{spaced ndash}} the [[state apartments]]{{spaced ndash}} reserved for the king and his family.<ref name="Thurley, P6">Thurley, p. 6.</ref> Henry VIII stayed in the state apartments as Wolsey's guest immediately after their completion in 1525.

[[File:Tudor chimneys on Hampton Court Palace, Middlesex.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Decorative Tudor brick chimneys at Hampton Court Palace]]
In building his palace, Wolsey was attempting to create a [[Renaissance]] cardinal's palace of a rectilinear symmetrical plan with grand apartments on a raised [[piano nobile]], all rendered with classical detailing. The historian [[Jonathan Foyle]] has suggested<ref>{{cite web|author = Foyle, Jonathan | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/hampton_court_01.shtml |title=Hampton Court: The Lost Palace |publisher= BBC |date= 29 March 2011 |access-date= 12 July 2011| author-link=Jonathan Foyle }}</ref> that it is likely that Wolsey had been inspired by [[Paolo Cortese]]'s ''De Cardinalatu'', a manual for cardinals that included advice on palatial architecture, published in 1510. The architectural historian Sir [[John Summerson]] asserts that the palace shows "the essence of Wolsey{{snd}}the plain English churchman who nevertheless made his sovereign the arbiter of Europe and who built and furnished Hampton Court to show foreign embassies that Henry VIII's chief minister knew how to live as graciously as any cardinal in Rome."<ref name="Summerson, P14">Summerson, p. 14.</ref> Whatever the concepts were, the architecture is an excellent and rare example of a thirty-year era when English architecture was in a harmonious transition from domestic Tudor, strongly influenced by [[perpendicular Gothic]], to the Italian Renaissance classical style. Perpendicular Gothic owed nothing historically to the Renaissance style, yet harmonised well with it.<ref name="Copplestone, P254">Copplestone, p. 254.</ref> This blending of styles was realised by a small group of Italian craftsmen working at the English court in the second and third decades of the sixteenth century. They specialised in the adding of Renaissance ornament to otherwise straightforward Tudor buildings.<ref name="Copplestone, P254" /> It was one of these, [[Giovanni da Maiano]], who was responsible for the set of eight [[relief]] busts of Roman emperors which were set in the Tudor brickwork.<ref>Copplestone, p. 257.</ref>[[File:Thames riverside gate August 2023.jpg|alt=Thames riverside gate, now closed. August 2023.|thumb|Thames riverside gate, now closed. August 2023.]][[File:Hampton Court.jpg|thumb|[[Anne Boleyn]]'s Gate. The Tudor gatehouse and [[astronomical clock]], made for [[Henry VIII]] in 1540 (''C on plan above''). Two of the Renaissance [[bas relief]]s by [[Giovanni da Maiano]] can be seen set into the brickwork.]]
Henry VIII and his courtiers visited Wolsey at Hampton Court in [[masque]] costume in January 1527, disguised as shepherds to play [[mumchance]] and dance.<ref>Richard P. Sylvester and Davis P. Harding, ''Two Earl Tudor Lives: Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey'' (Yale, 1962), pp. 28–29.</ref> Wolsey was only to enjoy his palace for a few years.<ref name="Summerson, P14"/> In 1529, knowing that his enemies and the King were engineering his downfall, he passed the palace to the King as a gift. Wolsey died in 1530.<ref name="Summerson, P14"/>

Within six months of coming into ownership, the King began his own rebuilding and expansion.<ref name="Thurley, P6"/> Henry VIII's court consisted of over one thousand people. While the King owned over sixty houses and palaces, few of these were large enough to hold the assembled court, and thus one of the first of the King's building works (in order to transform Hampton Court to a principal residence) was to build the vast kitchens. These were quadrupled in size in 1529, enabling the King to provide [[bouche of court]] (free food and drink) for his entire court.<ref>Thurley, p. 8.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/historyhamptonc04lawgoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyhamptonc04lawgoog/page/n212 150]|quote=Bouche of court.|title=The History of Hampton Court Palace|last=Law|first=Ernest Philip Alphonse|date=1890|publisher=George Bell and Sons|language=en}}</ref> The architecture of King Henry's new palace followed the design precedent set by Wolsey: perpendicular Gothic-inspired Tudor with restrained Renaissance ornament. This hybrid architecture was to remain almost unchanged for nearly a century, until [[Inigo Jones]] introduced strong classical influences from Italy to the London palaces of the first Stuart kings.

Between 1532 and 1535 Henry added the Great Hall (the last medieval [[great hall]] built for the English monarchy) and the [[Royal Tennis Court, Hampton Court|Royal Tennis Court]].<ref>This court is still in use for the game of [[real tennis]], an older version different from the present game. It is now the oldest extant real tennis court.</ref> The Great Hall has a carved [[hammerbeam roof]]. During Tudor times, this was the most important room of the palace: here, the King would dine in state seated at a table upon a raised [[dais]].<ref>Summerson, p. 21.</ref> The hall took five years to complete; so impatient was the King for completion that the masons were compelled to work throughout the night by candlelight.<ref name="Williams, P52"/>

The gatehouse to the second, inner court was adorned in 1540 with the [[Hampton Court astronomical clock]], an early example of a pre-[[Copernicus|Copernican]] [[astronomical clock]]. Still functioning, the clock shows the time of day, the phases of the moon, the month, the quarter of the year, the date, the sun and star sign, and [[high water]] at [[London Bridge]].<ref>Thurley, p. 18.</ref> This last item was of great importance to those visiting this Thames-side palace from London, as the preferred method of transport at the time was by barge, and at low water London Bridge created dangerous rapids. This gatehouse is also known today as [[Anne Boleyn]]'s gate, after Henry's second wife. Work was still under way on Anne Boleyn's apartments above the gate when Boleyn was beheaded.<ref>Williams, p. 53.</ref>

[[File:Hearth.jpg|thumb|left|An original Tudor roasting hearth in the Great Kitchens]]During the Tudor period, the palace was the scene of many historic events. In 1537, the King's much desired male heir, the future [[Edward VI]], was born at the palace, and the child's mother, [[Jane Seymour]], died there two weeks later.<ref name="Thurley, p. 9">Thurley, p. 9.</ref> Four years afterwards, whilst attending [[Mass (liturgy)|Mass]] in the palace's chapel, the King was informed of the adultery of his fifth wife, [[Catherine Howard]]. She was then confined to her room for a few days before being sent to [[Syon House]] and then on to the [[Tower of London]]. Legend claims she briefly escaped her guards and ran through the Haunted Gallery to beg Henry for her life but she was recaptured.<ref name="Thurley, P23">Thurley, p. 23.</ref>

King Henry died in January 1547 and was succeeded by his son Edward VI, and then by both his daughters in turn. It was to Hampton Court that Queen [[Mary I of England|Mary I]] (Henry's elder daughter) retreated with King [[Philip II of Spain|Philip]] to spend her honeymoon, after their wedding at [[Winchester]].<ref name="Williams, P52">Williams, p. 52.</ref> Mary chose Hampton Court as the place for the birth of her first child, which turned out to be the first of two [[phantom pregnancies]]. Mary had initially wanted to give birth at [[Windsor Castle]] as it was a more secure location, and she was still fearful of rebellion. But Hampton Court was considerably larger and could accommodate the entire court and more besides. Mary stayed at the palace awaiting the birth of the "child" for over five months, and only left because of the uninhabitable state of the palace due to the court being kept in the one location for so long. Her court departed for the much smaller [[Oatlands Palace]]. Mary was succeeded by her half-sister, [[Elizabeth I]], and it was Elizabeth who had the eastern (privy) kitchen built; today, this is the palace's public tea room.<ref name="Thurley, p. 9"/>