All the King's Cooks: The Tudor Kitchens of King Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace

By Peter Brears

The massive kitchens at Hampton Court were built to supply the entire household of Henry VIII. They were the first professional kitchens organised on such a scale. Brears provides a practical guide to their running, dispelling many of the misconceptions about the cooking and eating of meals in Tudor England.
Including authentic recipes from the period, adapted for modern kitchens, such as Chicken Farced and Smothered Rabbit and White Leach (a form of cool jelly), All the King's Cooks is fully illustrated with colour photographs recreating the life of the kitchens. With the author's own detailed drawings, no other book gets so close to the sights, sounds and smells of the Tudor kitchen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Souvenir Press
• Release date: May 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9780285640238

Peter Brears

Peter Brears is a food historian and historic house consultant who specialises in recreating how people lived and cooked. He worked on the restoration of Hampton Court Palace kitchens and has organised an annual Christmas feast there.

Book preview

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the staff of Hampton Court Palace, especially Mr Dennis McGuinnes, Dylan Hammond, Anne Fletcher, Caroline Allington, Laura Cappellaro and Andrea Selley, together with all those who have warded and cleaned the kitchens during the Christmas events since 1991. Without their very positive assistance, it would have been impossible to have achieved such considerable success. Along with everyone interested in the history of the Tudor court, I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Dr David Starkey and Dr Simon Thurley, whose publications, of the highest scholarly excellence, have rendered so much primary evidence readily available for study. It should be stressed, however, that all views expressed in this book are entirely my own responsibility, having had no input from the curatorial staff of Historic Royal Palaces or elsewhere.

The practical operation of the kitchens has placed demands on all the historical interpreters who have worked here as Tudor cooks at the Christmas events. In addition to researching and making their own clothing, they have worked long days, frequently at sub-zero temperatures, chopping, pounding, turning spits, while still keeping up a constant flow of good-humoured, informative conversation with thousands of visitors. Then came the masses of washing and scouring of everything before retiring, exhausted, to their spartan garrets, just like their Tudor predecessors. For all this, and their friendship, I take the greatest pleasure in thanking the whole team: Marc Meltonville, Kane Allen, Lawrence Beckett, Andrew Butler, David Cadle, Barry Carter, Andrew Crombie, Richard Fitch, Robert Hoare, Marc Hawtree, John Hollingworth, Richard Jeale, Robin Mitchiner, Gary Smedley and Adrian Warrell.

I would also like to extend my thanks to Mr. James Doyle and the staff of the Souvenir Press for their care and attention in the editing and production of this new edition.

Peter Brears

Leeds, 2011

Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 The Counting House: The Hub of the Enterprise

2 Serving the Court: Numbers, Quantities, Costs

3 The Outer Court: Poultry, Bakehouse, Woodyard

4 The Greencloth Yard: Jewel House, Spicery, Chandlery

5 The Pastry Yard: Saucery, Confectionary, Pastry

6 The Paved Passage: Larders, Boiling House, Workhouses

7 The Hall-place and Lord’s-side Kitchens: Boiling, Broiling, Roasting

8 The Privy Kitchen: Food for the King

9 Preparing for Dinner: Pantry and Cellars

10 Serving the King: a Royal Ceremony

11 Dining in Chamber and Hall: Etiquette and Ritual

12 The Recipes: A Practical Approach to Tudor Food

Bibliography

Notes

General Index

Recipe Index

Plates

Copyright

Introduction

King Henry VIII is one of the most memorable figures in English history. His portraits still convey his indomitable power and presence, while history records his dynamic actions; marrying six wives, establishing the Church of England, leading military expeditions into Europe, and effectively creating this country’s major defences on both land and sea. He was also a builder on the most prodigious scale, constructing palaces and gardens of true magnificence. Most of these have disappeared over the last four hundred years, but much of his Hampton Court still survives intact, closely identified with King Henry in the public consciousness.

Having acquired the palace from Cardinal Wolsey in 1529, Henry rapidly expanded its accommodation and services to produce one of the most impressive residences of its day. Every detail was purposely designed to facilitate the highest degree of stately magnificence, control and efficiency. Having to provide meals and accommodation for up to 1,200 people, it elevated domestic planning to a truly industrial scale. His kitchens at Hampton Court are probably the earliest, largest, finest and best-planned of England’s innovative factories, their scale and sophistication remaining unrivalled over the next 250 years.

In 1737 the royal court left the Palace for the last time, and the kitchens were adapted for other purposes, including that of grace-and-favour residences granted by the monarch to worthy individuals. It is still remembered that one of the great kitchen fireplaces served as a bathroom for the late Lady Baden-Powell, the Chief Guide, in the earlier twentieth century, sooty drops falling down the wide chimneys on wet days! In order to satisfy a growing public interest in historic kitchens, the Department of the Environment carried out a major restoration programme in 1978, removing many of the later partition walls and inserted floors.

1. The Kitchens, Hampton Court Here the kitchens are seen from the north, as shown in Anthonis van der Wyngaerde’s watercolour drawing of around 1558 on which the top drawing is based. The key is numbered from right to left, following the progress of the food from the Outer Court through to the Great Hall.

1. Outer Court

2. Great House of Ease (latrines)

3. Back Gate

4. Porters’ Lodge (?)

5. Yeoman and groom of the Counting House (?)

6. Jewel House

7,8. Comptroller’s lodgings

9. Comptroller’s Cellar

10. King’s Coal House

11. Greencloth Yard

12. Spicery office

13. Chandlery

14. Moat

15. Clerk comptroller

16. Inner gateway

17. Bottle House (Salt Beef Store?)

18. Dry Fish House

19. Pastry Yard

20. Scullery office

21. Pastry office

22. Confectionary

23. Pastry Bakehouse

24. Pastry workhouse

25. Pastry (Storehouse? Boulting House?)

26. Boiling House

27. Paved Passage (Fish Court)

28. Dry Larder

29. Stair from Buttery to Great hall

30–31. Hall-place workhouses

32. Wet Larder

33. Larder

34. Hall-place dresser office

35. Hall-place dresser

36. Pewter Scullery

37. Scullery Yard

38. Cooks’ lodgings (?)

39. Hall-place kitchen

40. Great Hall

41. Lord’s-side kitchen

42. Lord’s-side dresser office

43. Silver Scullery (?)

44. The Great Space

45. Lord’s-side kitchen-workhouse

46. Clerk of the kitchen’s lodgings

47. Wafery and lodgings for surgeons and others

48. Stairs to Great Watching Chamber

49. Drinking House

50. Great Wine Cellar

51. Privy Wine Cellar

52. Stairs to Great Watching Chamber

53. Beer Cellar

54. Stairs to Great Hall

55. Almonry

56. Bread delivery room

57. Privy Buttery

58. Great Buttery

59. Base Court

60–68. Lodgings

In 1990 Dr Simon Thurley, first Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces agency, published the architectural history of Henry VIII’s kitchens at Hampton Court, and re-displayed them with a variety of original and reproduction artefacts and an introductory exhibition. This proved extremely popular with all visitors, now attracting them in increasing numbers. It was at this point that Historic Royal Palaces, knowing my work in the restoration and operation of historic kitchens, asked me to introduce the first live re-enactment in any of the royal palaces. The aim was to show the kitchens in action, with accurately researched and reproduced utensils, clothing, cooking methods and ingredients as used here in the 1530s and 40s. This presented a real challenge, for there were only a few weeks in which to make the necessary preparations. These included recipe research, the sourcing of foodstuffs, practical equipment, furniture and period-style clothing, detailed negotiations regarding housekeeping, conservation, public safety and security matters, and the logistics of transport, accommodation and staffing. All was to be ready by 9a.m. on 27th December, 1991, when the royal press corps, numerous other reporters and the first of thousands of visitors expected to see the kitchens in full action for the first time since 1737.

Together with my colleagues Marc Meltonville, Gary Smedley and Adrian Worrell, I arrived at the Palace late on the previous evening to take up residence in the original confectioners’ quarters. Next morning we were given our first access to the kitchen just after 8a.m., with under an hour to clad the early stoves with firebrick and sheet metal, set up the work-tables with all their equipment, carry in the logs, charcoal, water and food and put everything in place. In the middle of all this the butcher arrived with the roasting joint for that day, a huge pig, over five feet from snout to rump, which had to be mounted on the Palace’s slender spits. Work on this had hardly started when the press rushed in, dozens of reporters and photographers representing newspapers, magazines and agencies, along with several national and regional television and radio crews. They all gave excellent coverage for the event, ensuring its success. Over the next few days tens of thousands of visitors passed through the kitchens, many being international tourists spending Christmas in London, along with others from the Home Counties.

Everyone was both enthusiastic and interested, asking numerous questions, which we answered as our 20th-century selves, not as our 16th-century predecessors. Most English people would have been puzzled, probably beyond credibility, had we attempted Tudor speech, while this would have been totally unintelligible to visitors from overseas. The purpose of the enterprise was to interact with, and inform the public about the kitchens and Tudor food in the most easily-approached and accessible manner.

This initial period of kitchen re-enactment proved so popular and commercially successful that it was repeated and expanded year by year, now being in its twentieth season. Over this period hundreds of thousands of people have been able to see, first-hand, that the food cooked for Henry’s court was of the finest quality, tenderly cooked and richly flavoured. They have also seen how the table manners of the period were neat, efficient, cleanly and elegant, vastly different from those invented by 20th century filmmakers, actors and presenters, with their belching, gnawing, food-throwing and other ridiculous obscenities.

The project has produced other benefits too, particularly in the understanding of the form and function of the kitchens. By actually living and working here, carrying out identical operations to those of the Tudor cooks, and with a knowledge of their household regulations or ordinances, many of the subtleties of the building’s design have slowly become apparent. In the following chapters, the reader will be given a tour of the Hampton Court kitchens built by Henry VIII. Each suite of rooms will be introduced in turn, commencing with the administrative offices at the back gate, going into the now demolished departments in the outer court, then following the progress of the food from its reception into the kitchens through to its service in the hall and chambers, and the table-manners employed there. It is an impressive journey, one which slowly reveals the vast expertise and practical knowledge of its original designers as incorporated into their 400 by 90ft (122 by 27m) structure.

Unfortunately it cannot convey some of the most memorable and moving experiences of staging and working in the palace. These always take you by surprise. When least expected, centuries can suddenly slip away, as on one black January night when groups of us all in Tudor clothes, were walking, chatting, along the lantern-lit passages amid the thick muffling mist which had risen from the Thames. The perfect authenticity sent a shiver down the spine: there was nothing separating us from the 1540s. Many other memories are based on food, as should be expected, everything from pungent mustards to rich succulent stews, massive pies and intricate sugarwork. Here there is every opportunity to enjoy and appreciate dishes cooked for Henry VIII, his queens, courtiers and servants, the final chapter giving both the menus for their meals, and contemporary recipes (in modernised form) for cooking each individual dish. The only way to fully appreciate the fine quality of England’s Tudor food heritage is to take this book into the kitchen, and start cooking. The results will amply repay the effort.

Peter Brears

Leeds 2010.

NOTE: In the following chapters, the positions of each room, as shown in the plan and elevation of the kitchens (fig. 1) pp. 2–3, is indicated by giving its number in round brackets. Where the name of any section begins with a capital letter, as in ‘the Pastry’, this refers to this division of the household administration, but if it is entirely lower case, as in ‘the pastry’, this refers to the rooms in which its practical work was undertaken.

1

The Counting House

The Hub of the Enterprise

Today it can be difficult to comprehend the wide range of practical problems involved in operating a Tudor royal household. First, there was its great size – up to around twelve hundred people in winter and about eight hundred in summer. Then there was its importance – it was a major centre of government, the focus of international, national and personal ambitions, and our most visible national status symbol, constantly observed by ambassadors and other visitors from throughout Christendom. It was also a remarkably mobile institution, moving from palace to palace every few weeks during the winter, going on extended progresses from great house to great house in summer. To efficiently feed and manage such a complex organisation required real skill and experience, especially at a time when only carts, packhorses and barges were available for transport, roads were largely unmade, and food preservation restricted to drying and salting.

Good hospitality has always been seen as a significant indicator of a monarch’s power and status. Edward IV’s Black Book (1472) of royal household regulations traced its origins back to the legendary King Lud, who ensured that every day his tables were loaded with excellent, if basic foods from eight in the morning till seven in the evening, and to King Cassibellan, who supposedly organised one great feast that necessitated the slaughter of 40,000 cattle, 100,000 sheep and 30,000 deer and involved ‘many disguisings, plais, minstralsye and sportes’. On somewhat safer ground, the Black Book went on to describe Henry I as a great meat-giver, Edward II as the king who could feed all his court from the beef and mutton bred in his parks, and Edward III as a great reformer of the royal household. His was ‘the house of very policy, the flower of England; [he was] the first setter of certainty among his domestics upon a grounded rule’.¹ The Black Book’s comprehensive regulations, or ‘ordinances’, were extended by Cardinal Wolsey at the palace of Eltham in 1526 and subsequently by Thomas Cromwell in 1540, each with the aim of improving the control of the household’s provisions and expenditure.

Although the royal household was a complex organisation, it was basically divided into four units. The Privy Chamber served the King’s personal needs, the Great Chamber those of the leading nobles and household officers, the Queen’s Side served the Queen and her household, and the former Lord Steward’s department provided all the provisions, equipment, fuel and major financial and catering services for most of the court. With the exception of a few separate departments, such as the Chapel Royal, the Jewel House, the Tents and Revels, the Works, the Ordnance and the Stables, which were directly responsible to the King, in 1540 the household was placed under the control of a Lord Great Master. Here we shall see how he and his staff administered the former Lord Steward’s department at just one of Henry VIII’s palaces, Hampton Court.

When you approach the long Tudor west front of Hampton Court Palace, you see the façade of Wolsey’s Base Court lodgings flanked by two projecting wings. The one on the right was the Great House of Ease, or latrine block, while the one on the left was the Back Gate, the entrance to the main kitchen buildings. Here, on the first floor above the gate passage, was the Counting House, the administrative centre of the royal household. In the Black Book its purpose had been defined as the maintenance of

worship and welfare of the hoole household … in whyche the corrections and judgements be gevyn; in whome ys taken the audyte of all thinges of thys courte, beying of the [Treasurer’s] charge, as principal hedde of all other officers in whom every officer of the household takyth hys charge on hys knee, promissing trouthe and obedyance to the King, and to the rules of thys office; for at the green-cloth ys alwey represented the Kinges power touching matters of thys household.²

To stress this power, the Counting House bore its own coat of arms – a key and a white rod arranged as a diagonal cross, indicating its right to open, close, and administer justice to all household offices. These devices were set on a green background to represent the ‘greencloth’, the table covered in green baize which stood in the centre of the counting house, around which all the chief officers sat when transacting their business. This is how its component parts are described in the building accounts:³

A pair of timbers for a table in the newe counting house …

for an iron trestle for the same table …

for 2 locks for the cupboard in the same table …

for 6 heart rings [handles] for the tills [drawers] in the same

table.

As head of the entire household, the Lord Great Master presided at the greencloth. This important post was first held by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, from 1540 to 1545, and then by William Paulet, Lord St John. These nobles were directly responsible to the King for regulating every aspect of his household, enforcing and introducing appropriate financial and

Reviews for All the King's Cooks

[iambookish-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved this Christmas present!
Now I want to go back to Hampton Court and pay more attention to the kitchens!