Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World (61 page)

Elizabeth had gone to stay at the newly rebuilt and restored palace at Sheen. By November 1501 the King had “finished much of his new building at his manor of Sheen, and again furnished and repaired that [which] before was perished with fire.”
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The renovated palace, which cost over £20,000 [£9.7 million], had only recently been made ready for occupation by the royal family. Built in late, ornate Perpendicular style around two broad, paved courtyards, it covered ten acres and faced the Thames to the south. It was dominated by Henry V’s massive donjon tower, which had survived the fire and was completely restored. Now surmounted by fourteen turrets, pepper-pot domes, and pinnacles, it contained the King’s and Queen’s suites of privy lodgings.

Lancaster Herald described the new palace as “this earthly and second paradise of England, the spectacular and beauteous example of all proper lodgings.” He noted the towers, pinnacles, and weather vanes sporting the royal arms, painted and gilded, on every building in the complex; on windy days the tinkling of the vanes was “right marvelous.”
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The palace was approached through a massive gatehouse with an archway eighteen feet high and eleven feet wide, which gave access from the green in front to the Great Court. Above the archway was emblazoned the Tudor royal arms supported by the red dragon of Cadwaladr and the greyhound of Richmond. From the gatehouse extended “a strong and mighty brick wall of great length,” encircling the palace complex. Lancaster Herald described it as having “towers in each corner and angle, and also in the midway,” with several stout oak gates studded with nails and crossed with iron bars. “Galleries with many windows full lightsome and commodious” overlooked the Great Court, where there were “pleasant chambers for such lords and men of honor that wait upon the King’s Grace.” A two-hundred-foot-long gallery afforded excellent views of the gardens.

The smaller inner court—the River Court—was paved with marble and boasted a stone conduit and a drinking fountain sculpted with lions and red dragons guarding branches of red roses, from which the water ran clear and pure to a cistern beneath. This was where people washed their hands, for there was no running water inside the palace. To the west side was the great hall, a hundred feet long and resplendent with a tiled floor, a central hearth, and a timber roof lined with lead and decorated with hanging pendants and carved knots—all “most glorious and joyful to behold.”
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The walls were hung with rich cloths of Arras, including a fabulous one depicting “The Destruction of Troy,” and there were “pictures”—probably statues—of “the noble kings of this realm in their harness [armor] and robes of gold, like bold and valiant knights”—with Henry VII naturally prominent among them. Beneath the hall was a cellar, and next to it, on the ground floor, the Royal Wardrobe and domestic offices—“the pantry, buttery, kitchen, and scullery.” Coal and fuel were stored in the yards outside, well out of sight of the royal family.

On the opposite side of the courtyard to the hall, up a flight of stairs, was the chapel, “well paved, glazed, and hung with cloth of Arras” and gold, with an undercroft beneath it. The altar was set with jewels and relics and laden with rich plate, and pictures of virtuous and pious kings of England—doubtless including St. Edward the Confessor and Henry VI—were displayed on the walls. A private closet to the left of the altar was shared by Elizabeth, her children, Margaret Beaufort, and their attendants, while the King’s closet was on the right side. Both closets were furnished with carpets, cushions, and silk curtains. The chapel ceiling was “checkered with timber lozengewise, painted azure, having between every check a red rose of gold or a portcullis.”
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From the chapel “extended goodly passages and galleries, paved, glazed, and painted,” adorned with golden badges sporting Tudor roses and portcullises. These led to the three-storied donjon, which was accessed through an imposing arched doorway sculpted with the royal arms and the red dragon of Cadwaladr, and was notable for its many windows. Here, on the first floor, were the King’s chambers, the first, second, and third of which (watching chamber, presence chamber, and privy chamber) were hung with costly cloth of Arras; each room had “white-limed” and “checkered” ceilings, and “goodly bay windows” overlooking the river.

Below, connected by a great staircase, were “divers and many more goodly chambers both for the Queen’s Grace, the prince and princess, my lady the King’s mother, the Duke of York and Lady Margaret, and all the King’s noble kindred and progeny.” These suites contained “pleasant dancing chambers and secret closets” and were “most richly enhanged, decked, and beseen.” More fine rooms were to be found in a new four-storied tower attached to the donjon.

Both the King’s and Queen’s apartments were on the southeast side of the donjon and overlooked “most fair and pleasant” enclosed gardens and galleries with open loggias, a feature never before seen in England. There were kitchen gardens and orchards to the west, and a privy garden to the east. The latter had symmetrical railed beds with “royal knots” of flowers, and lions and dragons on decorative poles; alleys led through the beds and beyond, to “places of disport” and
“houses of pleasure”—bowling alleys, archery butts, and tennis courts—another feature borrowed from the Burgundians.
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Henry VII gave the palace a new name: “from this time, it was commanded by the King that it should be called Rich Mount,” or Richmond, “because his father and he were earls of Richmond” in Yorkshire.
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It became his favorite residence, and remained the largest English royal palace until Hampton Court was built in 1514.

In 1499, Henry VII had founded, or refounded, six English houses for Observant (Grey) Friars of the Order of St. Francis, one of which was at Richmond. In May 1502 the King gave the friars the old manor buildings and chapel of Byfleet, and work began immediately on converting them into a convent. This was screened off from the palace by an orchard—no ordinary orchard, but a charming pleasaunce “with royal knots alleyed and herbed”; along its alleys were set statues of “many marvelous beasts, as lions, dragons, and such other divers kind, with many vines, seeds, and strange fruit right goodly beset.” And “in the lower end of this garden beith pleasant galleries and houses of pleasure to disport in.” Galleries, beasts, and houses of pleasure were all features of the Burgundian palaces.
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Richmond was not just a beautiful palace but a showpiece, a visual statement of Henry VII’s achievements. Rampant with heraldry and resplendent with the very latest in Tudor taste, it was the flagship residence of the new dynasty, a treasure house packed with the symbols of power, wealth, and majesty—the ultimate in conspicuous display. Sadly, Elizabeth did not live to see it completed.

As soon as he arrived at Greenwich, the King “was met by the Queen’s Grace, whom he ascertained and made privy to the acts and demeanor between himself, the prince, and the princess, and how he liked her person and behavior.”
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Elizabeth must have been delighted to hear that her son’s bride was pretty and golden-haired, with a pleasing dignity.

Preparations for the coming wedding advanced briskly. There was much discussion of the etiquette to be observed when Katherine was presented to the Queen. Elizabeth and Margaret Beaufort were drawing
up lists of the ladies who were to attend her and the princess during the reception celebrations;
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Margaret would also arrange for Katherine to share several household officers with her. On November 2, Elizabeth appointed Agnes Tilney, Countess of Surrey, “with certain ladies awaiting upon her,” “to meet and receive the princess” at Amesbury.
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On November 9, Katherine was welcomed at Kingston-upon-Thames by Prince Henry, who escorted her to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s palace at Lambeth, where she was to lodge before her marriage. Here, a letter from the King awaited her, expressing his great “pleasure, joy, and consolation” at her coming, and assuring her that he and the Queen would treat her “like our own daughter.”

The next day the King and Queen were rowed to London in separate barges, Elizabeth attended by a “goodly company of ladies.” They took up residence in Baynard’s Castle, where the Queen made “ready for inducting the noble Princess of Spain.”
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Margaret Beaufort was busily renovating nearby Coldharbour to make it a fit residence for Arthur and Katherine after their marriage.

On November 12, as all the bells of London rang out, banners fluttered from windows, crowds packed the streets, music sounded from every side, and the conduits ran with free wine, Katherine made her formal entry into the City.
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She was greeted by a series of lavish pageants in the Burgundian style as she passed along the processional route; all were designed to underline the success of the Tudor dynasty in obtaining such a highborn princess for the heir to the throne. In Cornhill, “in a house wherein there dwelled William Geoffrey, haberdasher, stood the King, the Queen, and many great estates of the realm,” watching the procession with Prince Arthur. Henry, his son, Derby, Oxford, Shrewsbury, and some French envoys were at one window, while “in another chamber stood the Queen’s good Grace, my lady the King’s mother, my Lady Margaret, my lady [Mary] her sister, with many other ladies of the land, not in very open sight like as the King’s Grace did with his manner and party.” The Londoners had displayed a somewhat excessive zeal for flattery, for nearby was a pageant portraying Henry VII as God the Father and Prince Arthur as God the Son. Henry also paid for a “standing” in Cheapside from which to view
the proceedings, but seems not to have used it, unless he moved by a circuitous route from Cornhill, ahead of the procession.

It was from her window in Cornhill that Elizabeth glimpsed her new daughter-in-law for the first time, as Katherine’s procession passed below; looking out, she would have seen a young girl riding “a great mule richly trapped after the manner of Spain,” flanked by Prince Henry and the papal legate, and wearing “rich apparel” in the Spanish mode: “a little hat fashioned like a cardinal’s hat of pretty braid with a lace of gold to stay it, her hair hanging down about her shoulders, which is fair auburn, and a coif between her head and her hat of a carnation color.” A little way behind walked the Queen’s master of horse leading a spare palfrey with a sidesaddle. At the climax of the procession, the bride-to-be was led by the Archbishop of Canterbury into St. Paul’s Cathedral, where she said her prayers and made an offering at the shrine of St. Erkenwald before retiring to the adjacent Bishop’s Palace for the night.

The following afternoon, on the eve of her wedding, the princess went to Baynard’s Castle to be presented to her mother-in-law. She was again accompanied by Elizabeth’s master of horse and “a right great assembly” of splendidly attired gentlemen and “certain ladies: some of the Queen’s, and some of the princess’s, at the Queen’s nomination.” The Queen’s chamberlain “received her at the foot of the grece [stairs] that goes up to the Queen’s chamber.” During her audience, she and Elizabeth both spoke in Latin, and they enjoyed “pleasant and goodly communication, dancing, and disports. Thus, with honor and mirth, this Saturday was expired and done,” and it was late when Katherine departed for Lambeth Palace to make ready for her wedding day. Already Elizabeth had begun the process of preparing her successor for the role she would one day occupy, and probably Katherine was glad to have the guidance of a kindly mother-in-law who could initiate her into the realities and mysteries of English court life.

After Katherine left, Elizabeth rode to Lord Bergavenny’s London house in Great St. Bartholemew’s by St. Paul’s, where she and the King were spending the night before the wedding. George Neville, Baron Bergavenny, had fought for Henry against the Cornish rebels and was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports; he had accompanied Henry and
Elizabeth to Calais the previous year. His first wife had been a granddaughter of Elizabeth’s aunt, Joan Wydeville.
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His house, which was burned down in the Great Fire of 1666, stood where the Stationers and Newspaper Makers Hall now stands in Stationers Hall Court; its inner courtyard occupies the site of the garden of Abergavenny House.

On November 14, Arthur and Katherine were married in St. Paul’s Cathedral. The King had done his utmost to underline the importance of the nuptials. “Within the church was erected a platform, or stage, six feet high and extending from the west door to the uppermost step of the choir; in the middle of this platform was a high stand, like a mountain, which was ascended on every side with steps covered over with red worsted. Against this mountain on the north side was ordained a standing for the King and his friends; and upon the south side was erected another standing, which was occupied by the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London.”

The royal standing—a “high place set in the nave and body of the church,” which was “decked and trimmed for the King and Queen and such others as they appointed to have”—was a kind of private box above the consistory, allowing Henry and Elizabeth privately to “go out of the Bishop’s Palace into the same consistory, and there hear and see the ceremonies of the marriage at their pleasure,” watching “in secret manner” from behind a lattice. The focus during the ceremony was to be on Arthur and Katherine, and Henry and Elizabeth “would make no open show of appearance.”

On the morning of the wedding day, the royal entourages assembled at the Tower. Elizabeth was wearing an embroidered white satin gown and a purple velvet train. She traveled with the bride in an open chariot from the Tower to St. Paul’s, following behind the King, who rode a white horse and looked splendid in his red velvet robes, his breastplate studded with diamonds, rubies, and pearls, and a belt of rubies at his waist. On arrival, the royal couple retired with the bride into the Bishop’s Palace, where Henry and Elizabeth discreetly entered the cathedral. Elizabeth’s sister Katherine and Lord William Courtenay were among the illustrious guests, as was Margaret Beaufort, who “wept marvelously” through the service.