Original subtitles

(ambient music)

What does it take to make a house?

One of history's greatest homes,

whether they're warm and cozy or grand and drafted.

When you're building your home,

you're creating your own universe,

and the most celebrated homes in history

stood the test of time.

This is Hampton Court Palace,

it was a place for fun,

and above all, as you can see of magnificence,

this is a spectacular palace even today.

We often describe it as an architectural autobiography,

and so at (indistinct), you get a true sense of a man.

I think that the point was to be ostentatious,

this was the statement that they were trying to make,

that they had made it,

and they were going to let the world know

that they were important.

(speaking in foreign language)

You can imagine coming into this room

in the evening, or any time of day,

and everybody who was anybody who's here.

(crow cawing)

(upbeat music)

The homes of royalty are often grand,

luxurious and imposing,

but only the greatest have history,

and when that history is steeped in power,

pleasure, blood and scandal,

you have a home for the ages.

On the outskirts of greater London,

standing by the banks of the River Thames,

one such home was owned by one of Britain's most important

and infamous monarchs,

Henry the VIII, Hampton Court Palace.

This used to be the home of Henry the VIII,

at least one of his many homes,

and this was a place where he came to enjoy himself,

this is his palace of pleasure.

Historian, Susanna Lipscomb

is a former curator of Hampton Court Palace.

It's like coming home (chuckles),

not that my home is like this,

but it's a place I spent a lot of time,

and it is always astoundingly beautiful,

it's always so magnificent.

I don't know if you can listen to the sound

of this gatehouse, it's wonderful,

and then we get through,

and

this amazing base court, this first courtyard is revealed

and it's just spectacular.

It's a home befitting,

a larger than life figure,

a man who died almost five centuries ago,

but whose life still fascinates today.

We have this image of Henry the VIII,

later in his life was, hands on hips,

a massive obese man by the end of his life.

Six wives, breaking with the Roman Catholic Church,

but actually he is a more complex character than that,

when he started his reign, he was just about to turn 18,

he was considered to be very good looking at the time,

he was 6.2 feet,

when the average height of a man was 5.7 feet,

he was athletic,

and he was incredibly fashionable.

So this is a man of many accomplishments,

and it's fitting that he wanted to be at home

in a place that was the height of renaissance achievement.

It was a place for fun,

and above all, as you can see, of magnificence,

this is a spectacular palace even today.

King Henry the VIII,

was a man of great appetites,

for pleasure and power, love and legacy.

All these desires were satisfied in his most beloved home.

Henry the VIII had many houses,

by the end of his life, he had 50 or 60,

but this is one of his favorite,

and it was a place that was used to project power,

to impress those who visited.

From the intricate brickwork,

to the 241 chimneys,

to the kings beasts lining visitors entrance

to the gate house,

Hampton Court is a vision of Tudor splendor.

This palace is an example

of the finest Tudor architecture,

brick work was modern and exciting

in the early 16th century,

and it has this beautiful brick work,

the diaconal work,

the patterns the diamonds made out in the brick work.

The crenelations that were designed to look medieval

like a castle,

this is made to look impressive and magnificent.

Hampton Court is architecturally unique.

There's a moat,

but in actual fact it would never have been a place

that was used as a fortress,

it was just used for pleasure.

One of the things you probably immediately noticed

is the chimneys, the place is covered with them,

and the thing about Hampton Court,

is that it was a place of luxury for people to stay,

because they could come and stay in rooms,

each of which had their own fireplace,

this might not sound like a big thing,

but if you've ever experienced the cold

of an English winter,

and it was much colder in the 16th century,

then you'll know that you want to have your own fireplace.

The point is that this whole thing is supposed to impress,

so that if Henry the VIII arrives here

and he has ambassadors visiting him,

they see this and think,

yes, this is a king to be reckoned with.

This was not mere grandstanding,

even those who knew the king well,

struggled to reckon with him.

Henry was married to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon

for 15 years,

and she bore him three and three daughters,

but only his daughter Mary survived,

and that would not do.

Obsessed with producing a male heir,

to a degree extreme even among royalty,

this goal would change the course of history,

and it all happened here.

As regal, as it appears today,

Hampton Court started as a modest Manor house

in the 12th century.

In the 16th century,

it became the elaborate home of Lord chancellor,

and chief advisor to the king, Cardinal Wolsey.

When the king took up an affair with Anne Boleyn,

he demanded Wolsey secure an annulment

of his marriage to Catherine from the Catholic church.

This scandalous and unprecedented request

set off a series of events,

that resulted in Henry breaking from the church,

and Hampton Court, gaining a new owner.

It didn't become Henry the VIII himself until 1529,

which is when Wolsey fell from grace,

he had failed to achieve the annulment,

what we know as a divorce,

of Henry the VIII marriage to Catherine of Aragon,

and as a result, he was accused of treason,

and so he was stripped of all his assets,

including his houses,

which then moved into the king's possession,

so it became Henry's Hampton Court.

The Playboy king had some ambitious plans

for his newly acquired pleasure palace,

and they didn't come cheap.

Henry the VIII then spent a lot of money,

60,000 pounds at the time,

which is something around 20 million pounds today,

building extra kitchens, building a new great hall,

adding a new chapel,

chamber upon chamber

to make this into a palace fit for a king.

But the price tag would have been worth it,

for a boisterous and ambitious king.

This would have been a place of activities,

so it's all quiet now,

but you're gonna have to use your imagination.

(ambient music) (indistinct chatter)

This as a home had two kind of roles,

one is that role of being magnificent and impressive,

and the other is being a place to have fun,

so there was a bowling alley here, tennis courts,

he could hunt on land from here to Windsor.

So it's a home that is used for his comfort

and for entertainment.

After a day of play,

the king could continue the entertainment

in the castle courtyard.

So here we have a fountain,

and it's not just an ordinary fountain,

because not only does it run with water,

but it runs with wine,

which is why it says on it,

make good cheer who wishes,

and at the top, you've got Backers or Dionysus,

who sat on a barrel of wine

and showing the unique after effects of drinking too much.

So this is a replica of a Tudor fountain.

But Hampton Court

was more than just a place of fun and frivolity,

this Tudor palace,

dominated political life in the 1500's.

At the center of it all,

was Henry's greatest architectural gift to the world.

(soft ambient music)

Well, this spectacular room

is the great hall at Hampton Court,

and it is the largest and greatest tour

that Henry the VIII ever built.

One of the last royal halls built in England,

this room recalls a bygone era of power and majesty.

It is intended to impress as it still does.

Would have been the biggest room

that most people had been in at the time that it was built,

so they would have been wowed by that,

and they would have been wowed by the architecture,

by the decoration, by the design, by the color.

This would have been a place that made them stop and think

that Henry the VIII was the man with all the money.

Not only was it large,

in it's time, every element of this room would have dazzled.

I mean looking up,

we've got this incredible hammer beam ceiling,

which would have been painted gold and red and blue

at the time,

and is still decorated where these fine call balls

and eavesdroppers.

Underneath there that we've got these tapestries

the Abraham tapestries,

these are commissioned by Henry the VIII,

they're made in 1543,

from the workshop of a man called William de to company

in Brussels,

and they are incredibly expensive,

so there are 10 of them,

and the total cost is the same as a great warship.

Now we see tapestries

and we think of them they're faded and dull,

but they would have been absolutely neon.

And they were made with cloth of gold,

which is a thread of gold through which silk is threaded,

and so they would have glinted in the candle light.

So you have to imagine this place

filled with beautifully dressed, courtyards,

candle lit, bright tapestries, the bright ceiling,

and then green and white tiles on the floor.

So it would have been this total, sort of color

when you walked in.

The riches and splendor festooning every wall,

would have made quite an impression.

Through each and every design detail,

Henry was shaping his legend.

The Abraham tapestries also do something dynastic

because they tell the story of Abraham

from Genesis 12 to 24,

and how he had a son late in life,

and how he was chosen by God to lead his people,

and this is exactly how Henry the VIII sees himself,

that he has been given a son later in life,

and that he has this divine purpose,

and so these tapestries speak to that sense of who he is.

There are other relics here too,

of the king's tumultuous personal story.

Anne Boleyn had given him a daughter Elizabeth,

but when she miscarried Henry son,

her reign came to an abrupt end.

Throughout the palace,

there are markers of Henry, the ex wives,

and the one in here

speaks to who was queen,

when it was built, which is Anne Boleyn.

Most of the markers of Ann Boleyn were knocked out,

when she ceased to be queen when she was beheaded,

but we've still got one hidden here in the screen,

and H and A intertwined in a lover's knot.

When she was executed,

they had to get rid of all the symbols off,

and then putting those of Jane Seymour,

with the wife who finally did

what he wanted all the others to do,

in that she had a son,

and perhaps it's symbolic that her heart is buried here

in the chapel,

because she died here

having given birth to that very son.

Henry's elation at finally having a male heir

was swiftly followed by the devastation

of his third wife's passing.

(indistinct chatter)

As king, the tragedies and triumphs of Henry's life

were always on public display.

Henry's power hinged on projecting an image of strength

into wealth,

and what better way to do so

than to throw some Epic parties.

(dramatic orchestral music)

So halls we're above all about impressing

as places to entertain, to host foreign guests,

when the French ambassadors were visiting,

there would have been revelers and spectacles going on here,

and these things were extraordinary.

This is total a theater,

and then there's dancing, Henry the VIII loved dancing,

or masks where they put on masks and danced.

This would have been used for feasts,

so, heir marking christenings or marriages,

Henry the VIII got married here at Hampton Court,

and to Katherine Parr.

And the food was as fantastical

as the festivities.

If you were wealthy at the time,

you would eat meat in large quantities.

So for example, one of the dishes that they would serve

at a Tudor banquet was called (indistinct),

which was made of the front end of a Capon, so a chicken,

and the back-end of a pig.

So this is imaginary creature,

or you might have birds within birds

that were stuffed into each other.

And then my favorite bit of the Tudor banquets,

is the sugar subtleties.

A subtlety is a shape made out of sugar,

sugar was very, very expensive in the Tudor period,

and therefore quite rare,

and so if you had, subtlety made of sugar and you ate it,

it was like taking a drug, they were completely high,

and my favorite thing,

is that they would occasionally have a goblet made of sugar,

which you could drink wine from,

and then you could eat the goblet,

just imagine the effect both drunk and sugar high (laughs).

This historic hall,

was all public pageantry, parties and politics,

and the kings only refuge

would have been his private chambers.

Henry the VIII private apartments are no longer standing,

but behind that door is now a wall,

and they're palaces there,

but there would have been a succession of

private apartments,

so more intimate, smaller spaces

where the king preferred to spend his time.

They weren't exactly private by our standards,

because Henry was always surrounded by people,

he always had people on hand to serve him,

and infamously, one of the most privileged positions

at the court,

was the groom of the store,

groom of the store being the person who attended the king

whilst he was using the toilet,

and this was a privileged position,

a member of nobility had this position

because you were someone who had access to the king

in his most intimate moments,

and therefore had potential to get favors,

and to have promises made to you

when the king was kind of vulnerable,

so he was never absolutely private.

Wherever he resided,

the king was surrounded by the royal court,

these were high ranking members of the aristocracy

vying for patronage or influence.

(soft ambient music)

Their best chance to speak with the king was here,

in the watching chamber.

This is the great watching chamber,

so it's so called

because it was a room in which people waited

and watched for Henry the VIII to emerge

from these doors here.

So this is a place people spent a lot of time,

and in fact, we have all sorts of instructions

where they say,

please don't play games here, please don't gamble,

many of the men were told,

please don't pee against the walls,

which it tells us

that people were doing precisely those things in this room.

You had to be of the rank of baron

or above to be in this room,

and often there would have been pages waiting here,

and the point is, as Henry comes

from his private apartments to the chapel,

you have a moment to capture his attention.

You might petition him and say,

"please, could you have a look at this thing,

"please could you give a job to my aunt

"or my uncle or my nephew or whatever."

And so that's why this is such an important room.

The great hall

was the center of cultural life in court,

and the watching chamber a hub of political machinations.

But it was the room downstairs,

that was the lifeblood of the palace.

The kitchens at Hampton Court

were the largest in Tudor, England.

This is the great kitchens at Hampton Court,

and this is the other side of life at court.

Even when there wasn't dancing and banqueting

happening in the great hall,

1200 meals were being served a day

to the hungry courtiers of the king.

200 cooks, sergeants, grooms and pages,

worked day in and day out to feed the beast.

600 people a day had meals at 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.,

and someone had to make them.

This is where the magic happened,

and we're talking about huge amounts of meat,

above all that was being roasted on spits

or being boiled in (indistinct),

so whether we're talking beef or veal or mutton

or deer or venison or chickens, capons,

somebody was sitting there turning it.

It's about production on a vast scale,

so you have to imagine it was quiet now,

just a few of us in here,

but if you imagine that there were 200 people.

All under the control of the master cook,

who was the kind of chef,

Henry the VIII had a chef called Pero Doux

or Peter the Sweet.

So, you've got activity and noise and people boiling meat

and people cutting up vegetables

and just activity all the time

to prepare for those two great meals a day.

The diet of Henry and his household

was not the healthiest by today's standards.

This was a diet that for the wealthy was pretty unhealthy,

it was very, very heavy in meat,

so I'm talking four or 5,000 calories a day

in terms of food, and the range of meat,

so, add to the fact that they had white bread, manchette,

which had all the whole meal removed,

and that they didn't drink water,

it was considered to be bad for you.

So everybody was slightly drunk all the time,

because they were drinking beer all the time,

and Henry the VIII also had a lot of wine.

So it turns out that if you just have loads of meat

and loads of bread, you don't turn out to be that healthy,

So he actually had real problems with gout, and obesity,

he went from having a waist measurement of 37 inches,

to that being 54 inches later in life,

and we know that he was troubled by ulcers in his leg

he had to be moved around his palaces

in the (indistinct) equivalent

of a wheelchair later in life,

so dropsy and gout,

and all of these things that are caught

basically by eating badly.

By the end of his reign,

the one strapping king was worse for wear.

Though Hampton Court was his most beloved home,

it also housed some terrible memories for the king.

The destruction of Anne Boleyn, the death of his wife Jane,

and later the arrest of his fifth wife Catherine Howard,

who was later executed at the Tower of London

for adultery and treason.

The ghosts of Henry's past were laid bare here

in the halls of Hampton Court.

In 1547 at the age of 55, Henry the VIII died.

Henry the VIII, three children,

Edward the VI, Mary the I and Elizabeth the I in turn,

all made use of their father's palace

until they to passed it on in the Royal tradition.

In 1603, William Shakespeare's acting troupe

first performed Hamlet and Macbeth,

for the new steward king James the I.

James's son, Charles the I,

used the palace as a storage facility

for his fabulous art collection,

but was imprisoned at Hampton Court

when civil war broke out.

It wasn't until 1689,

that new life was breathed into the palace.

In the late 17th century,

the king and Queen William were married

decided they wanted to live here,

they thought that this Tudor palace is a bit old fashioned.

When William the III and Mary the II

took the throne,

they decided to do a little addition

and build an elegant new Baroque style palace.

William and Mary wanted to build the foresight of England.

From the lavish interiors to the incredible gardens,

Hampton Court was again the epitome of luxury and grandeur

for the kingdom.

Finally in 1838,

Queen Victoria opens the palace to the public.

Ever since Hampton was renamed

a magnet for millions of visitors drawn to its grandeur

and his dramatic legacy.

And through this incredible palace,

once the playground of a playboy king, history lives on.

(dramatic music)