The Marriage Bed of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York: A Masterpiece of Tudor Craftsmanship

By Oxbow Books

The Henry VII and Elizabeth of York marriage bed, rediscovered in 2010, is an exceptional piece of late medieval English royal furniture: no other equivalent example of secular domestic furniture is known to have survived, and, indeed, precious little woodwork from this period remains outside of ecclesiastical settings. As a tour-de-force of medieval royal woodwork, the bed offers an unprecedented insight into elite domestic furniture from this period.

Since its rediscovery, the bed has been subjected to a wide array of investigation by furniture specialists, medieval historians, design historians and scientists. Emerging from a decade-long multidisciplinary research project, this book is the first sustained account of the bed: it shows how numerous disciplines covering the arts and conservation sciences can be brought together to assess and interpret such rare historic survivals.

Broken down into thematic chapters, the book explores the bed’s form and structure, context, iconography, wood, paint, physical history, provenance - including its curious reproduction by George Shaw in Victorian England - and relationship with known surviving Tudor furniture, as well as Georgian and Victorian Gothic Revival beds. Although thought to be a nineteenth-century fake, this book presents historical, archival and scientific evidence to show, beyond doubt, the bed’s late medieval age.

While grounded upon research presented at a 2019 conference funded by the Institute of Conservation and held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the book incorporates additional historical and scientific discoveries made since the conference. Written by a range of scientists, historians and specialist researchers, this volume is a multi-disciplinary work of immeasurable value to readers from numerous disciplines.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Apr 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781789257939

Book preview

1. Introduction

Peter N. Lindfield

Exceptional pieces of furniture are occasionally not just examples of decorative art. The Badminton Cabinet, sold in 2004, was one such piece and it was referred to by the Chairman of Christie’s UK as having ‘transcended the boundaries of furniture, combining architecture, sculpture and painting in pietre dure, resulting in a unique masterpiece’.¹ The Henry VII and Elizabeth of York bed, the subject of this book, is another piece breaking the traditional boundaries associated with furniture: it combines architecture, iconography, high-quality craftsmanship, and decoration that are not only specific to early Tudor England, but the bed is also an important representation of Henry VII’s statecraft. This book offers the first truly interdisciplinary analysis of the bed; these chapters are written by trained and qualified historians, curators, and scientists who have physically examined, researched, and undertaken direct scientific analysis of the bed over the course of more than a decade. To try and understand such an interdisciplinary historical object, it is necessary to harness the knowledge and experiences of numerous experts in their respective fields; some of these specialists have not contributed to the book’s chapters, however their input is reflected in the book’s acknowledgements.

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The place that Henry VII and Elizabeth of York hold within English history cannot be overstated. They are the two central figures in Van Leemput’s painting Henry VII, Elizabeth of York, Henry VIII, and Jane Seymour from 1667 (Fig. 1.1), and parents to the most notorious monarch in English history: Henry VIII. Henry VII’s victory over Richard III at Bosworth brought to a close what is now known as the Wars of the Roses (1455–85), even if there remained Yorkist malcontent after this victory. The January 1486 marriage binding Henry to Elizabeth also united the two warring houses of Lancaster and York. As it has been observed, ‘Henry did, naturally, appear to be the new Messiah’, and he was ‘first and foremost a statecraftsman, who was prepared to use any material or sentiments that might strengthen his own position as king’.² This marriage was certainly calculated and politically advantageous. But Henry’s accession to the throne preceded his union with Elizabeth, and by doing so Henry demonstrated the pre-eminence of his militaristic and kingly qualities. The marriage’s significance and utility would come next and afford their issue both Lancastrian and Yorkist heritage.³

Fig. 1.1: Remigius van Leemput, Henry VII, Elizabeth of York, Henry VIII and Jane Seymour. 1667. RCIN 405750. Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2022.

Beds as Symbols of Power

We know that a bed was commissioned and made for the couple’s wedding, and such beds, as examined in Chapter 3 of this book, were both private and political apparatus necessary to consummate marriage. The royal marriage bed was therefore highly significant to enshrine Henry’s and Elizabeth’s union and to create a Tudor dynasty. Beds were the most important piece of furniture of estate—moveable pieces that expressed their owner’s station within society—and the king was the highest ranked figure in society. Such beds, therefore, articulated the monarch’s status, with lavish drapery and a ‘tester’ or canopy ranged over them in an arrangement that is commonly but inaccurately referred to today as a ‘four-poster’.⁴

Royal state beds, consequently, were self-consciously lavish and ostentatious expressions of royal power and identity. At this level, as examined at points throughout this book, the royal marriage bed is representative of high-quality and expensive craftsmanship that is more relatable to what we consider to be the work of artists. Penelope Eames in her landmark 1977 publication on medieval furniture recorded how such royal furniture could be differentiated from less-elevated examples. Regarding the form and appearance of the coronation or St Edward’s throne (Fig. 1.2) at Westminster Abbey, Eames concludes that it,

Fig. 1.2: Coronation chair. c.1300. © Dean and Chapter, Westminster Abbey.

prove[s] the accuracy with which illuminators portrayed thrones […] and the exquisite decoration in gold glass mosaics, now hardly discernible, provides a valuable insight into the true appearance of the many precious chairs familiar from written sources. As with the painting upon the state cradle made for Philip the Fair or Margaret of Austria in 1478/9 we recognize that the secondary decoration to St Edward’s chair is the work of a great artist or team of artists in an important workshop.⁵

The comparative manuscript example that Eames refers to here is that included in MS 020 at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, that depicts a coronation (Fig. 1.3).⁶ Eames continues by articulating how such exceptional furniture should be treated as high-quality art:

It is fascinating to observe how art, when it is not free to follow individual fancy but is locked into the exigencies of function, seems to create the most satisfying and powerful forms and images; in one sense it is subservient to function yet, through imaginative power, it transcends it […and such] furniture […] happen to have been worked on by great artists, rather than by merely competent craftsmen. Such furniture is very rare and is underrated; it should be treasured and take its place with other exceptional works of its age.⁷

The royal marriage bed examined in this book not only conforms to known Tudor iconography and decorative forms, perhaps being one of the earliest manifestations of these traditions in Tudor England, but also preeminent royal furniture produced by talented artists. This elevates the bed from other, more humdrum elite furniture from the period.

As moveable objects transported between royal residences and elsewhere, such beds were the most important piece of furniture of estate in medieval England. As such, the state beds relate specifically to notions of conspicuous consumption and display. The idea of magnificent display was certainly of concern in medieval England, and the following sets out the ways in which magnificent display could be expressed:

Item, it shall nede þat the kyng haue such tresour, as he mey make new bildynges whan he woll, ffor his pleasure and magnificence; and as he mey bie hym riche clothes, riche furres […] riche stones […] and oþer juels and ornamentes conuenyent to his estate roiall. And often tymes he woll bie riche hangynges and other apparell ffor his howses […] Ffor yff a kyng did not so, nor myght do, he lyved then not like his estate, but rather in miserie, and in more subgeccion than doth a priuate person.⁸

This is from The Governance of England, written c.1470 by Sir John Fortescue (c.1394–1479), and it clearly sets out that the monarch ought to be wealthy and display this wealth through various lavish means: constructing buildings and owning ornamental and lavish possessions that speak of magnificence and rank. As Simon Thurley remarks, Guillaume Fillastre, Chancellor of the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece, indicated that a prince’s most important virtue was such magnificence; this followed Aristotle’s concept where ‘the magnificent man is a sort of connoisseur; he has an eye for fitness, and can spend large sums with good taste’.⁹ State or tester beds articulated this theory of rank-related magnificence especially well. And writing specifically of the Tudor royal interior, Thurley states that ‘the abiding principle behind the early Tudor royal interior was that of magnificence. It was axiomatic that no surface whatsoever was to be unadorned, but the nature and extent of adornment was controlled and tempered by two considerations: hierarchy and harmony’.¹⁰ As Chapter 3 of this book demonstrates, the bed is covered in a wealth of iconographic decoration that not only presents the King and his Queen as Adam and Eve but also Christ and the Virgin Mary, and that, in these personæ, they are representative of England’s salvation from the destruction and strife of civil war.

Fig. 1.3: Coronation of a king. c.1300–25. MS 020, 68r. Image courtesy of The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. CC-NC-4.0.

In decorative terms, the bed is consistent with heraldically ornamented beds also within the royal collection in the Tudor period, and certain decorative features, such as the dry or dead wood returning to life, is illustrative of redemption. This is not only redemption via Christ, but via the accession of Henry VII to the throne. And whereas it has recently been argued that the shield at the foot of the Tree of Life on the headboard is representative of both Christ and St Edward the Confessor,¹¹ this is an unfortunate misreading of medieval heraldic practice and, instead, as demonstrated by the Rous Roll, this shield explicitly refers instead to one of Henry’s ancient forebearers: Egbert (d.389), king of the West Saxons, through whom his line is traced. Egbert’s kingdom-building was so strong that it set the unificatory pattern for Henry VII’s own agenda after the Wars of the Roses. This bed’s decoration is also a manifestation of Henry VII’s new rule, where, upon accession, the decorative and heraldic legacies of the Yorkist kings were progressively removed and replaced by his own devices.¹²

Themes of Loss and Survival

The overriding theme dominating ancient English material culture, especially religious and royal, is one of loss. Indeed, it has been stated that history is the ‘shipwreck of time’.¹³ As Roy Strong writes in the introduction to his Lost Treasures of Britain (1990), it ‘may seem a melancholy subject for a day dream. There is so much to throw us into a reverie of enchantment: the wonders of Nonsuch Palace, the legendary Tudor royal plate and jewels, the glittering shrine of St Cuthbert at Durham Cathedral, the wonder of Wilton’s great pre-Civil-war garden’.¹⁴ Thinking about the destruction of England’s history and material culture, Strong considers the Protestant Reformation a ‘holocaust’:

after the brief respite embodied by the five-year reign of Edward’s Catholic half-sister, Mary, renewed frenzy broke out on Elizabeth’s accession in 1558, when England once more turned Protestant. […] The effect of that holocaust was, of course, irreparable. The damage was such as virtually to obliterate any true assessment of English medieval art, because nearly everything that wasn’t a building simply vanished.¹⁵

There was, of course, another profoundly destructive period: England’s Civil War.

Much like the effects of the Protestant Reformation, the Civil War brought widespread destruction upon especially high-status furnishings and decoration. Thurley reflects upon what Tudor furniture could look like, and in 1993 he writes that,

early beds were quite simple, lacking any elaboration. All the richness was reserved for the hangings. Later the frame itself became a subject for decoration, the posts, headboard and other components being elaborated carved and painted. Although no complete royal bed of this type survives, a very grand painted and carved bed does. This belonged either to Henry VII’s stepfather, the first Earl of Derby (d.1504) or more probably to the Earl’s grandson the second Earl (d.1521). Even in its unpainted state this bed with royal connections gives a good impression of the type of bed owned by Henry VII, or by Henry VIII early in his reign.¹⁶

The Thomas Stanley bed (Figs 3.9 and 5.11) examined in this book and elsewhere, was directly relatable to Henry VII’s marriage bed given that Sir Thomas was the king’s stepfather.¹⁷ When Thurley was writing, the existence and survival of the Henry VII and Elizabeth of York marriage bed had not been recognised. As examined here, the Stanley bed and a related corpus of beds from Tudor Lancashire responded directly to the royal marriage bed: they share a derivative iconographic scheme, and decoration and carving that betray their regional production rather than origin in the royal workshop. In comparison with the royal marriage bed, their relative magnificence is calibrated to the social station of their original owner.

Dating the Bed

As demonstrated in Chapter 7 of this book, dendrochronological analysis of the bed’s tree-rings’ growth-patterns has returned no matches with British and European master chronologies. As identified by Andy Moir, the tree that supplied almost all of the timber used to construct the bed had suffered from cockchafer infestation; this disrupted the ring sequence and because timbers affected by such disturbances are not entered into master chronologies, a match cannot be made. But because dendrochronology indicates that the bed is made almost entirely from one tree, we can rule out that it is a piece of Victorian cut-and-shut combining ancient carved timber with more modern (Victorian) infill.

Further analysis of material related to the bed, examined in Chapter 7 of this book, also reveals that an overtly Jacobite achievement installed in St Chad’s in Uppermill (Plate 6), was made from oak felled around the end of the seventeenth century or the beginning of the eighteenth century. This royal achievement appears unremarkable, however the very specific and highly unusual phrasing of its thistle and rose-bush stems around the base of the garter makes direct reference to the brokenbranch/ dead tree forms applied across the bed and as found in late medieval manuscript illustrations addressed in Chapter 4 of this book (Figs 4.9–4.11). Stylistically, this Georgian achievement was certainly made to correspond with the bed in terms of certain formal characteristics, yet the presentation of the heraldic supporters speaks firmly of Georgian production unlike the late medieval figurative decoration on the bed.

Moir’s dendrochronological analysis of the bed supersedes an earlier investigation of the bed’s tree-ring patterns conducted in 2011; this earlier report identified that the bed was made from white American oak from New England, perhaps Massachusetts, dating to the late eighteenth century or, even at the outside, the very early nineteenth century.¹⁸ DNA analysis of the wood, undertaken by the Thünen Institute, Germany, presented in Chapter 8 of this book, examines the origins of this wood, and following extraction of the timber’s DNA and its subsequent amplification to facilitate analysis, the American origin was disproved. Instead, the bed’s timber was determined to be European. The 2011 report indicating that the bed was made from wood imported from New England, and, hence, its Georgian date, must therefore be discounted.

Further extensive analysis of the bed’s surface treatment, examined in Chapter 4 of this book, includes fragments of paint trapped in and under the layers of Victorian varnish that today cover the bed. As Helen Hughes examines in her chapter of this book on the bed’s surviving fragments of a polychrome paint scheme, the paint’s layering, the materials used, their preparation, and their application are all consistent with the late medieval period. Lead-based paints were not found anywhere on the bed, and, as Hughes examines, the use of expensive materials, including natural ultramarine derived from lapis lazuli, to paint the bed are consistent with high-status work from the late medieval period. To strip this polychrome paint scheme off the bed before varnishing the whole structure does not make sense, particularly if the bed was produced as a piece of Victorian forgery designed to turn a profit. Even when placed under 500x magnification, Hughes argues that the paint is consistent with medieval preparation and application.

Parts of the bed have also undergone repeated Carbon-14 (¹⁴C) dating, and so has a series of closely associated wainscot posts addressed in Chapters 2 and 7 of this book. The calibrated date ranges for samples of wood taken from the bed have offered periods of 1450–1650 (rings 28–34) close to the tree’s core, and 1640–1950 (rings 198–206) moving towards the tree’s outer edge (estimated at c.260 rings, as discussed in Chapter 7 of this book).¹⁹ More recent ¹⁴C analysis of the bed and the coeval wainscot posts has given a calibrated date range of 1700–1945 for this material, with a heavy weighting to 1890–1945. As Plate 1 demonstrates, one of these wainscot posts has such severe woodworm infestation and destruction that it is impossible for them to be as new as the ¹⁴C dating result suggests. The historical nature of the paint found on the bed and associated wainscot posts questions the accuracy of the ¹⁴C dating.²⁰

Questioning the Bed’s Age and Authenticity

It has been claimed recently, based upon the now debunked Georgian white American oak findings, that the bed was made by the early Victorian antiquary, collector, architect, and forger George Shaw (1810–76) of Uppermill in Saddleworth.²¹ Shaw copied the bed several times, selling these copies as ‘genuinely ancient’ family relics to a number of Victorian aristocrats, including Algernon Percy (1792–1865), fourth Duke of Northumberland.²² As examined in Chapters 4, 5, and 6 of this book, Shaw’s copies are not only incredibly crude in execution, but they also lack the highly sophisticated, multi-layered, and intensely Tudor iconographic scheme woven throughout the royal marriage bed. They also lack any trace of a medieval paint scheme as found on the royal marriage bed and as explored at length in Chapter 6 of this book. Finally, Shaw’s Victorian ‘Tudor’ beds lack the clearly and repeatedly re-worked and repaired structure presented by the royal marriage bed as examined at length in Chapter 2 of this book. Shaw’s beds are clearly modern Victorian productions that, today, still appear new, whereas the royal marriage bed has a multi-layered patina of age, repair, use, and movement that cannot be easily faked. Consequently, the royal marriage bed