Tents - no chance - Henry VIII travelled with flatpack castles

The king who liked comfort took a mobile home on campaigns – and it got bigger as he did, Mark Bridge writes.

Henry VIII was ‘‘not much of a camper’’ and led his French campaigns from the comfort of showy portable timber residences, a historian has found.

Alden Gregory, curator of historic buildings at Historic Royal Palaces which manages Hampton Court among others, said that while Henry was associated with the sumptuous tents at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, there was no evidence that he ever slept under canvas. Instead, if no castle or manor was available, he erected ‘‘extraordinary’’ flatpack homes that have been overlooked in royal inventories. They increased in splendour as his physique diminished.

The first ‘‘house of timber’’ was for a campaign in 1513 when, in his early twenties, he besieged Therouanne and Tournai. It is described in a draft inventory of the 1540s as a wooden building, painted to resemble brick, ornamented on the roof with heraldic beasts, crowns and vanes, and heated by fireplaces with iron chimneys. It appears to have had two rooms, each 3.6m wide, one 7.3m long and the other 4.8m. It took 12 carts to carry the disassembled parts.

A German in the retinue of Henry’s ally, the Holy Roman Emperor, described it as a ‘‘council house which puts together and takes to pieces again’’. He said: ‘‘Within is hung with golden tapestry. Therein stood the King’s bed, hung round with a curtain of very precious cloth of gold, the gilt woodwork being carved and very well finished.’’ His description suggests it was used for meetings with his advisers and visitors.

It was as nothing, however, compared with his quarters for the siege of Boulogne in 1544, when he was 53. Writing in The Antiquaries Journal, Gregory describes a ‘‘rather over-the-top expression of masculine selfimage and dynastic success.’’

The structure was a hotchpotch of Gothic and classical architecture and required about 30 carts to move. Royal records describe four towers at the corners, battlements and a roof of scalloped white-metal tiles that must have shimmered in sunshine. It boasted classical porticoes and ‘‘great columns’’ supporting pediments containing the coats of arms of the King and his son Prince Edward.

A conservative estimate suggests that each side of the building was between 10m and 11.5m long. One account suggests it may have been as large as 23m x 23m, however.

Inside were at least five rooms: the main chamber and four tower rooms. The rafters were hidden by a paste-work moulded ceiling, similar to those at Hampton Court. The interior panels and columns were painted to resemble white marble and jasper ‘‘of sundry colours’’, and a frieze or border was decorated with letters of ‘‘fine gold’’. The interior was lit by leaded windows of horn rather than glass, presumably for greater durability. The exterior was probably painted to resemble stone.

Henry’s army took Boulogne in September 1544, although it was returned to the French six years later under his son Edward VI.

Describing the expedition as ‘‘an attempt to relive the glories of his past’’, Gregory remarks: ‘‘Perhaps the King – ageing, ailing and no longer personally or physically able to cut the magnificent warrior figure on the battlefield that he had three decades before – now compensated for his weakness with his timber lodging.’’

If so, it did not come cheap. Construction cost £522 2s 51/2d, when craftsmen earned 6-8d a day, and it took a year to complete.

To make it collapsible and reusable, the craftsmen abandoned the traditional pegged mortice and tenon joints, which Gregory said would have been ‘‘inefficient and unreliable’’. Instead, they used screws, iron plates, and nuts and bolts to fasten the timber components into place, as well as hooks and eyes to hang the wall panels and architectural features.

Gregory said that the portable homes would have served as a ‘‘very visible symbol of royal power’’ and a ‘‘strong-room right at the heart of the encampment where the King could sleep soundly or retreat in moments of extreme danger.’’

Considerations of comfort should not be underestimated, he said, since the King appeared to have avoided sleeping in tents even on non-military travels. He was lodged at Guines castle at the Anglo-French friendship summit of the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, despite the availability of opulent tents and a wood-andcanvas palace.

Gregory said: ‘‘Despite access to any number of great palatial tents, Henry was not normally much of a camper.’’

While Henry VIII was associated with the sumptuous tents at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, pictured rear, there was no evidence that he ever slept under canvas.