Editing Yeomen of the Guard (section)

=== Changes under King Henry VIII ===
[[File:British - Field of the Cloth of Gold - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|ca 1545 painting of the [[Field of the Cloth of Gold]], held near [[Calais]], where [[Henry VIII]] met [[Francis I of France]] in 1520.]]
Henry VIII was ostentatious, and enjoyed impressing foreign dignitaries. Hewerdine quotes the impression made on the [[Republic of Venice|Venetian]] ambassador by his visit to Henry VIII at [[Richmond Palace]] in 1515:
{{Blockquote|text=... we were conducted to the presence, through sundry chambers all hung with most beautiful tapestry, figured in gold and silver and in silk, passing down the ranks of the bodyguard, which consists of 300 halberdiers in silver breast-plates and pikes in their hands; and, by God, they were all as big as giants, so that the display was very grand."{{r|1998_Hewerdine|p=67}} The following year (1520), Henry VIII commanded the Captain of the Guard, Sir Henry Mamey, to select 200 of his tallest men to accompany the King to his meeting with [[Francis I of France|Francis I]], king of France, at the [[Field of the Cloth of Gold]]. 100 Yeomen were to be mounted on "suitable horses".{{r|1998_Hewerdine|p=73}}}}
* barracks moved to St James's Palace
* issued [[Arquebus|harquebus]]

==== Eltham Ordinance of January 1526 ====
{{Main|Eltham Ordinance}}
This Household Ordinance is the first to mention regulations for the Yeomen of the Guard. It described the need to reduce the size of the Guard from its wartime strength back down to a peacetime level. The surviving copy of the Ordinance has left a space for that number to be written in{{Spaced en dash}}it never was. [[Holinshed's Chronicles|Holinshed]] reported that the number was 84.{{r|1998_Hewerdine|p=39}}