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THE TIMBER LODGINGS OF KING HENRY VIII: EPHEMERAL ARCHITECTURE AT WAR IN THE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2020

Alden Gregory
Alden Gregory*
Affiliation:
Apt 25 Hampton Court Palace, East Molesey, SurreyKT8 9AU, UK. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

A forgotten aspect of Henry viii’s architectural patronage and of the panoply of early modern European warfare is that of the timber lodging. Through two key case studies, this paper explores King Henry viii’s timber lodgings and demonstrates that not only did they form an important class of ephemeral architecture that successfully employed innovative technologies to make such structures portable for military campaigns, they were also used in conjunction with the royal tents to provide comfortable and secure battlefield accommodation for the king. The paper recreates their construction, functions, symbolism and elaborate appearance, revealing that the earlier timber lodging comprised a two-chambered wooden building which was painted externally to resemble brickwork and which was used at the sieges of Thérouanne and Tournai in 1513, while the later timber lodging was used at the siege of Boulogne in 1544. Through a close analysis of the surviving accounts for the making of the 1544 structure, the article demonstrates that it was an extravagant and architecturally pretentious building that combined the martial imagery of late medieval Gothic with refined touches of classicism. The paper also shows that the lodging used in 1544 is both recorded in the posthumous 1547 inventory of Henry viii’s possessions and appears in the engravings of the Cowdray House murals, held by the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Keywords

Tudorarchitectural historyearly modern warfareHenry VIIIRenaissanceephemeral architecture
Type
Research paper
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 100 , September 2020 , pp. 304 - 323
Copyright
© The Society of Antiquaries of London, 2020

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Groos, G W (trans and ed) 1981. The Diary of Baron Waldstein: a traveller in Elizabethan England, Thames and Hudson, London Google Scholar
Morgan, H L S 2017. Beds and Chambers in Late Medieval England: reading, representations and realities, York Medieval Press, York Google Scholar
Nicolussi, K 2005. ‘Das Goldene Dachl in Innsbruck. Ein Beispiel für die Bedeutung dendrochronologischer in historischen Kontroversen’, in Frick, M and Neumann, G (eds), Beachten und Bewahren. Caramellen zur Denkmalpflege, Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte Tirols, 229–34, BDA, Innsbruck Google Scholar
Potter, D 2011. Henry VIII and Francis I: the final conflict, 1540–1547, Brill, Leiden CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawlinson, K 2017. ‘Giovanni da Maiano: on the English career of a Florentine sculptor (c 1520–42)’, Sculpture J, 26 (1), 37–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, G 2013. The Field of Cloth of Gold, Yale University Press, New Haven and London Google Scholar
Salzman, L F 1992. Building in England Down to 1540, Clarendon Press, Oxford Google Scholar
Starkey, D (ed) 1998. The Inventory of Henry VIII: the transcript, Society of Antiquaries of London, London Google Scholar
Streitberger, W R 1994a. Court Revels, 1485–1559, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Buffalo and London CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streitberger, W R 1994b. ‘Records of royal banqueting houses and Henry VIII’s timber lodging, 1543–59’, J Soc Archivists, 15 (2), 187–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thurley, S 1993. The Royal Palaces of Tudor England: architecture and court life 1460–1547, Yale University Press, New Haven and London Google Scholar
Thurley, S 2003. Hampton Court: a social and architectural history, Yale University Press, New Haven and London Google Scholar
Von Bülow, G and Powell, W (trans and eds) 1892. ‘Diary of the journey of Philip Julius, Duke of Stettin-Pomerania, through England in the year 1602’, Trans Roy Hist Soc, 6, 1–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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