A Day at Windsor Castle & Hampton Court Palace – Part 2

Hampton Court Palace had audio guides and costumed interpreters. The audio guide was divided up by the different parts of the palace, so I could decide where I wanted to spend my time and how much time I wanted to spend there.

When I had been there before in 1991, as part of the cattle herd, the person leading the tour had spent limited time in the Henry VIII portions of the palace and most of his time in the William & Mary rooms in the part of the palace that had been redone by Sir Christopher Wren. I think he favored that period. We were shown the Tudor Kitchens almost as an afterthought. So this time I decided to concentrate most of my time on Henry VIII’s apartments.

The palace was originally built by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1515. I was a large and lavish palace where the king stayed in the state rooms when he visited. In 1529, Wolsey failed to secure an annulment of the king’s marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. As a result, the Cardinal lost favor with Henry and gave his palace to him to try to regain favor. It didn’t quite work out that way and Wolsey died just two years later. But Henry had a magnificent palace that he set out to enlarge and turn into his primary residence.

Entering through the Tudor Great Gatehouse, I crossed the Base Court and entered a door in a corner to my far left.  With my map and audio guide in hand, I entered the second gatehouse, called Anne Boleyn’s Gate. Her rooms above the gate were still being worked on when she was taken to the Tower of London and executed. I then entered the palace just inside of the Clock Court and climbed the stairs.

The first room I encountered was the Great Hall. Anne Boleyn and Henry’s entwined initials were carved on the wooden screen at the end of the hall and their coats of arms on the hammerbeam ceiling (Henry was going for a medieval feel). The original tapestries that hung in the hall when Henry lived there were hanging in the hall when I was there. They are known as the Abraham Tapestries, with scenes from the life of Abraham from the Bible.

Of Henry’s six wives, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr are most associated with the palace. The Great Watching Chamber, which was where courtiers would wait to see Henry, was built to honor Jane Seymour. She was the only one of Henry’s wives to produce a male heir and died just two weeks later of complications having to do with the birth. Her heart and lungs were in a lead box behind the altar in the chapel at Hampton Court (no photography was allowed in that one room). The rest of her was buried with Henry at Windsor Castle.

Henry’s last wife, Catherine Parr, was married to him in a small room near the chapel. She survived Henry by roughly a year, dying from complications of childbirth after giving birth to a daughter by the man she married after Henry’s death.

It is Catherine Howard who is most associated with the palace because of a legend that she still haunts the place. Rumors of her having been a wild child (being only about 14 or 15 when Henry married her) reached the king when they had not been married terribly long (about a year maybe). He dismissed it at first. But then they found and tortured a few of the males reportedly involved and one confessed. He was beheaded as his reward.

Things were further complicated when it was discovered that Catherine had been carrying on an affair with Thomas Culpeper, one of Henry’s courtiers and a distance cousin of Catherine’s. Lady Rochford, who was Jane Boleyn, married to Anne Boleyn’s brother, was found to have been aiding in the affair.

Culpeper was beheaded. He and the other fella had their heads displayed on spikes on London Bridge. Lady Rochford told all upon fear of torture. She ended up being beheaded along with Catherine. They were buried together in the chapel at the Tower of London, next to Anne Boleyn (who was also Catherine’s cousin).

After she was captured and imprisoned at Hampton Court (before being sent to the Tower), Catherine broke free and ran screaming down the Long Gallery towards the Chapel, believing Henry was there and wanting to beg him for mercy. She was captured before she could reach the chapel. People sometimes see her and sometimes hear her in what has been nicknamed the Haunted Gallery. Many people experience a somewhat creepy feeling there.

The Great Watching Chamber is next to the Great Hall. After spending some time in there, I went into the Processional Gallery. I was alone and there were some benches, so I sat down to get caught up with the audio guide. I kept putting it on pause to take photos and had gotten behind.

As I was sitting there listening, I saw some interesting-looking shoes with some somewhat heavy legs wearing white stockings standing in them. “Have you seen Thomas Culpeper?” the voice belonging to the shoes, legs and stockings barked. I looked up and saw Henry VIII looking down at me. He had a couple other people with him. “No Sir,” I responded, but didn’t think to curtsy. He headed off with the other two in the direction of the Great Watching Chamber and Great Hall. This was how I discovered that they had costumed interpreters at Hampton Court Palace. Cool! This will be fun!

Shortly after he left, a woman in Tudor dress came and sat on the bench across from me. We were the only two people in gallery. I abandoned my audio guide, turning it off and putting it away. “Hello,” I said to her. I soon discovered that she was Lady Rochford (she had been Lady in Waiting to both Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard). I asked her who was queen to see where we were in history at the moment. The queen was Catherine Howard. Oh goody! Truly interesting times.

While Lady Rochford and I were talking, a gentleman came along who revealed himself to be Thomas Culpeper. I let him know that the king was looking for him. He asked which way he went and headed off in the opposite direction. He soon returned and the three of us talked about court gossip and Catherine’s naivety (didn’t learn a thing from her cousin, Anne’s experience) for a while just inside of the Haunted Gallery.

I got a photo of the lady playing Lady Rochford while we were in the Processional Gallery and took one of the gent playing Thomas Culpeper as he retreated down the Haunted Gallery. I headed down the Haunted Gallery shortly afterwards, checking out the room where Henry had married Catherine Parr and the chapel on the way. Then I proceeded down the stairs and out into the Clock Court where I photographed the exterior of the Great Hall. My next focus was the Tudor Kitchens.

To get to the Tudor Kitchens, I needed to go through an undercroft where I discovered a tea shop. Perfect timing. I used their facilities and got some refreshment before heading outside again to follow the maze of alleys to the kitchens where 200 cooks and other servants labored to create 800 meals per day for Henry and his court. The photo with the guy in the long, red coat walking down the alley ahead of me includes a doorway (third from the left) where a ghost has also been spotted.

The kitchen itself is enormous plus there are several other rooms to store plates, utensils, and serving platters and bowls; storage for beer; for wine; several larders; a butchers; a bakery; offices. I explored it all.

At the gift shop, back near where we were to meet the tour coach, I bought Christmas ornaments of Henry and all six wives. I also got an ornament of Hampton Court Palace.

A couple extras:

• Historian Lucy Worsley, who you may have seen in several shows on PBS (including a series on Henry and his wives), has her offices at Hampton Court.
• Hampton Court Palace was where the meeting took place that led to the creation of the King James Bible.

Next time – I visit the Crawleys and the Churchills at some of the Downton Abbey filming locations and Blenheim Palace

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