Dan Snow's History Hit - Henry VIII's Tudor Christmas

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Tudor Christmas was a time for revelry and fun. Henry VIII and his court celebrated the full 12 days of Christmas in excess, with tables ladened with roast swan, suckling pig and venison pasties, among other delights. It's believed one Christmas, the King spent the equivalent of £13 million on the celebrations. He loved to dress up and tease his wives as well as take part in festive games.Dan travels to what was once the heart of Henry's court, Hampton Court Palace, to meet with Historic Royal Palaces chief curator Tracy Borman and Richard Fitch, of the Historic Kitchens Team, to discover how the Tudors celebrated and what of their traditions we still have today.This is episode 2 of our 'Origins of Christmas' series. Every Wednesday in December, Dan explores the history behind our Christmas traditions—from extravagant Tudor feasts and carolling to midwinter Solstice celebrations, the bawdy entertainment of the Georgians, and the family-focused customs of the Victorians.Produced and edited by Mariana Des ForgesMusic by Epidemic Sounds & All3Media Music LibraryDan Snow's History Hit is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  

Welcome everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Today we're going to be exploring a version of Christmas that you're going to recognise, that we're still very familiar with here in the UK. A Christmas of carol singing and mince pies and celebrating the 12 days, all of which really took shape in Tudor Britain. And what better place to come to discover the origins of excessive Christmas overindulgence, merrymaking, than the HQ of the King of Excess himself, Henry VIII.

I'm standing now in the place where he wined and dined the great and the good, Europe's royalty, over several days in the festive period. It's the Camelot, it's the Mar-a-Lago of Henry VIII's court. It is Hampton Court Palace. I'm here on a beautiful crisp winter's day. The skies are blue above me, there's frost on the lawn. My long-suffering producer mariana and i are waiting to be allowed in so we're doing some recording in the freezing cold courtyard in front of hampton court one of the greatest heritage sites in the uk it feels like at any moment henry's staff are going to come scuttling across this courtyard the palace a hive of activity over the

christmas period stable doors windows opening, people bustling here and there. Tradesmen carrying great mounds of fruit and vegetables, meat, pies, greenery into the palace, into the kitchens. Some of it to be eaten, some to deck the halls and give it a festive feel. A chewed-up Christmas at Hampton Court Palace would have been a sensory delight. Decorations, entertainment,

ooh, and the rich aroma of England's best cooking. So here to find out more about Tudor Christmas and how it still influences our celebrations today. I'm going to head inside when it opens, I'm going to defrost my little fingers and toes and I'm going to meet with the very brilliant chief curator here, Tracey Borman, also Richard Fitch, who's worked at Hampton Court Palace's historic kitchens team for the last 32 years. They're the best possible people to take me through the delights of a Tudor Christmas at Hampton Court.

Tracey, good to see you. Nice to see you, Dan, and welcome to Hampton Court. Yeah, it's so nice having the pod so many times, but I don't think I've ever done one in situ with you in your place of work. And, you know, you can't beat it, actually, because the topic we're going to be talking about, it absolutely suits this palace. It does, and we're lucky because the weather does.

It feels Christmassy. It does. There's definitely a nip in the air and we've got our decks up already. Before we get into Christmas let's quickly just get over to the Wilhelmsen Court, not originally a royal palace. No actually it was built by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Henry VIII's right-hand man and this is the best bit really to introduce Wolsey's Palace. We're standing in base court, this would be the first thing that visitors to Wolsey would have experienced. It's kind of like a hotel because all around us would have been courtiers' lodgings. It was the grandest palace, really, in England, which Henry VIII didn't particularly like. So he later acquired, was given, stole Hampton Court from Wolsey.

It's very, very grand for a cardinal. What was he thinking? Well, and also a cardinal made good. He was just the son of a butcher from Ipswich and yet he rose to become the most powerful man in England. And he loved to kind of cover up his humble origins by spending big. And of course, that's why he built Hampton Court.

And whilst here, he insisted on being served on golden platters. And pewter wasn't good enough for him. But this great style soon courted some enemies. The sort of nobleman who came here thought, what is this butcher's son doing in a palace like this? And even Henry himself became a bit jealous, I think. And then you'll know this better than anybody, the weird thing about English and British kings and queens

is they could never quite settle on a palace that they actually liked living in, could they? But this becomes almost like the English Versailles, does it? Yes. A palace outside London for the royal family for generations. This is the countryside, and what was brilliant about Hampton Court in Henry's eyes is the hunting grounds.

It's surrounded by magnificent parkland, and of course Henry loved to hunt, particularly in his early reign. He did nothing but hunt. He would be out all day. And so, yeah, this was lovely. It was right by the Thames. The Thames in the Tudor period was really like the M25. That's how you travelled. It would have been absolutely filled to bursting with barges carrying the king, his courtiers, messengers, and of course, goods here. And that's part of the reason why the court had to keep moving because after about two or three months they'd literally exhausted the supplies around here they'd eaten everything and it kind of needed fumigating as well I have to say after three months with a

thousand people in residence. That makes me so happy to think of the Thames like that so going to Whitehall Palace going to the Tower all of that it would have been the great artery. Henry would have spent a lot of time on the water. It's no coincidence that the great Tudor palaces were all built next to the Thames. Does Henry just move in or does he make it even grander? Well, believe it or not, we don't know exactly what happened with the changeover from Wolsey to Henry.

It's likely, I think, that Wolsey gifted Hampton Court to Henry because he knew he was starting to lose favour. Late 1520s, Henry wants his annulment from Catherine. Wolsey isn't able to get it for him. So have Hampton Court as a kind of consolation prize. Henry takes up residence here very quickly. And of course, typical Henry, what do you do when inheriting

one of the biggest palaces in England? You enlarge it. And he particularly pays attention to the kitchens. He's very interested in feasting. And also the sports facilities, installing tennis courts, bowling greens, all of it. This is his pleasure palace. And he also has it in mind for Anne Boleyn,

of course, the scandalous second queen. And he starts decorating it with her emblems even before she becomes queen. They survived her? Some of them, yeah. Henry did his best to take them down after her fall but we're standing right by Anne Boleyn's archway, so named because you can see the intertwined A and H carved into the ceiling just there before we go up into the Great Hall. Well you mentioned the feasting there, you mentioned decoration. Was Christmas special here? Christmas was the big event in the Tudor calendar. Everybody celebrated, rich and poor alike.

Hampton Court would have been adorned with magnificent decorations and lots of greenery, as you might imagine. Holly, ivy, as per the carol, and most important of all, a huge yule log so this was the centerpiece really of the Tudor decorations they they bring in the the yule log and it's lit and it stays lit for all 12 days of Christmas but let's go up now and I can show you the great hall because that really was the heart of the Tudor Christmas let's do it we're climbing these wonderful stairs here

through Anne Boleyn's archway. Yes. And what's this suite of buildings we're going to go into now? So we're about to enter the Tudor State Apartments and we're starting with the biggest and the best of the rooms. So I'll just let us in here.

Here we are, the absolute show-off. Great Hall. Incredible. Isn't it? Even today, it just takes your breath away. And that was Henry's intention. So he built this Great Hall onto Wolsey's Palace and he wanted it to be bigger and better than any other Great Hall,

not just in the kingdom, but in the world. And it's still one of the best examples, if not the best, of a Tudor Great Hall. This must have been mind-blowing for people 500 years ago. Yeah, and just the craftsmanship, the engineering that went into this is quite remarkable. It's still got the original hammer beam ceiling there, decorated with Anne Boleyn's emblems

because the Great Hall was all about Anne Boleyn. He had her falcon emblem everywhere. Now, when she fell from grace, those that could be reached were quickly removed, but they couldn't quite get to the ones in the ceiling. And you might see, Dan, just looking down on us, those little faces in the eaves there. There are little faces peering down at us.

And they were there deliberately to remind everybody who was being entertained below that the king was listening to everything. So they are called eavesdroppers and that's where the name comes from. Hey! Love it. So, so astonishing. And you'll see, lining the walls, these magnificent tapestries which Henry VIII himself commissioned and, of course, they faded over the years, but when you look at the walls, these magnificent tapestries, which Henry VIII himself commissioned.

And of course, they faded over the years. But when you look at the reverse, then the original kind of golds and reds and blues, they really pop and they tell the story of Abraham. This is a PR stunt on Henry's part because Abraham in the Bible sort of needs a son. And so, you know, this helps to justify Henry's annulment from Catherine of Aragon.

It's funny when every single interior design decision is political. It's fascinating, isn't it? Nothing is accidental in the Tudor court. So here in the Great Hall, it is spectacular, but it was also kind of a staff canteen, really. You tend to think of these great feasts with Henry there and his wife on the top table.

But actually, he didn't eat in here all that often, really special occasions like Christmas or Easter. Otherwise, it's where the kind of courtiers came twice a day. So typically they ate twice a day. And so, yes, you have to imagine it as a staff canteen, but also as a bedroom. So it was crowded at Hampton Court when the king was in residence. Are these just people who are very posh who just come and live with the king? Are they invited? Have they got jobs?

Or do they just go, I'm the Earl of someone, I'm just going to come and hang out? They're friends of the king. They have titles. And positions at court become almost hereditary. So the Duke of Norfolk's position will be inherited by his son or his nephew. And so it's a very tight knit circle, the Tudor court. They might have positions, but really, you know, they have a title.

They don't really have to work very hard if they are high ranking. Of course, the lower ranking servants, they really do have to put in the hours in order to serve at the Tudor court. But yes. But if you get sort of get yourself invited to court, then that's just a gravy. You just you just cruise around with Henry and it's like Christmas. What are you doing? Oh, we're just having our big Christmas party. You're just you're just at court enjoying Christmas here. You're there because, of course, it's where all the riches, the luxury and the power are.

And it's where you can get promotions, where you can get lands and titles. But there are risks. Personally, I wouldn't have come anywhere near the court because, of course, if you fly too close to the flame that is Henry VIII, then quite a few people discovered that it would be their downfall. So you mentioned special occasions. Henry would have been sitting right up there on that platform enjoying Christmas in this room.

Yes, he would. What form would it take? Would it be recognisable to us? There's lots that's recognisable in a Tudor Christmas. We tend to think that most of our Christmas derives from the Victorians, but actually the Tudor links are very strong. For example, singing carols, the mistletoe,

and some of the food like turkey, mince pies, even Brussels sprouts all go back to the Tudor period. And Father Christmas was there too, except the Tudors called him Captain Christmas. There was revelries as well. And of course, a religious heart to the Christmas. So we would definitely recognise it, but I think what we wouldn't recognise is just the scale of it and the stamina, because for us, it's all about Christmas Day, really, and maybe a few leftovers on Boxing Day. The Tudors celebrated all 12 days of Christmas

with equal revelry. Like, there was no stinting. There was no sense of, OK, we've done Christmas Day now. We can relax a bit. It was the same level on each of the 12 days. And would they fast or prepare themselves for it? Was there a sort of lean period leading up to it? There certainly was.

So Advent was a time for fasting. So of course, everybody was really ready for a party and a good feast by the time that Christmas came round. Isn't that strange that we completely inverted that today? Advent, December, with Christmas parties and work parties, all crazy. And then we all go on no-booze diets the minute Boxing Day's finished. I know. There was no such thing as dry January for the Tudors because they carried on celebrating all the way up to Epiphany

on the 6th of January and it kind of went out with a bang. You know, that was one of the biggest feasts. So, yeah, they would have had much more stamina, much bigger stomachs, I think, than us today. Given what came in the next century and the criticisms of Christmas, a sort of pagan, you know, influenced festival, when you're talking about Yule logs and greenery,

does it feel like a very religious moment or does this feel like when there's a bit of a deeper past that's been connected with here as well? Absolutely, for centuries there had been a sort of mid-winter festival, if you like, and even back to Roman times they celebrated the 25th of December in particular, and so Christmas was sort of later adopted obviously by the Christian church and they absorbed all of those traditions and they made it a celebration of Christ's birth. So it was both really. It was still quite a pagan festival, but it was deeply, deeply religious for the Tudors. And Henry was a religious man. He certainly was. Okay, paint me a picture,

Tracy, of what was going on in this room on Christmas, one of those nights of Christmas. Okay, so non-stop entertainment really. So plays would be performed, masks. And what I love is this particular person who was very instrumental at Christmas called the Master of Revels. And really, the idea was that everything was inverted at Christmas. So the whole social order would be turned on its head. So you get boy bishops, you know,

young boys who then go about wearing bishops' hats and tell the actual bishops what to do. And the Lord of Misrule, the master of revels, he would actually be able to command the king himself. And one particular lord early in Henry's reign cheekily asked the king if he could have five pounds towards his expenses. And luckily, Henry VIII saw the joke and he was happy to give him the money and to be commanded by him. So they liked playing with the social order when it came to Christmas.

And there would be disguisings. Henry VIII particularly loved to don a disguise. Famously, Robin Hood on one occasion when he was forever bursting into the chamber of his wives and saying, you know, guess who I am today? Catherine of Aragon certainly loved it and she played along, as of course did his courtiers, pretending not to know that this is the king. And the revelries would continue long into the night. And of course, it was also here in the Great Hall that what is for us one of the highlights, gift giving.

Now, this happened on New Year's Day, not on Christmas Day. And like everything else in the Tudor court, it's all about rank. Now, Elizabeth I, my favourite of the Tudor monarchs, she didn't want a chance getting any rubbish gifts. So she actually set down on paper, parchment, what people had to give, the value of their gift according to their rank. So you couldn't turn up with something substandard. You had to give, you know, X amount of gold or whatever it might be. And the presents ranged from gifts of animals. Henry VIII was often given animals, to bejeweled toothpicks. You get a lot of sugar coming in in Elizabeth's reign, so people had tooth problems, tooth decay,

and even a rather risqué fountain given by Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII in 1533, which had three naked ladies around the outside. I must say, if I was the Lord of Misrule, you'd have morning after night before anxiety, you'd wake up on your pillow and think, did I push it a bit far with Henry VIII last night? Because today he's back in charge.

Yes, exactly. You'd worry, wouldn't you? That would not be a job that I'd want anything to do with. No. It probably won't surprise you that Henry VIII did not stint on expenditure for Christmas. In his first Christmas, 1509, he spent the equivalent of over £13 million on Christmas. So he wanted to make a statement.

His father had died being sort of notorious as a miser, justifiably or not. And so Henry VIII was going to be different to his father. Everyone was going to have the biggest party that England could remember. So obviously we associate music with Henry VIII's court and particularly with Christmas. Were there well-known Christmas songs? Well, yes, they would have had carols, some of which are still sung today.

There would have been lots of different instruments played. We're now walking through, by the way, the Great Watching Chamber. So just in that far corner there, those double doors, that's where the king would have emerged from his privy chamber. And then we're going to follow in his footsteps along the processional route because everybody would have been here to kind of wish him well, wish him the joy of the season. And music would have been played as he made his way along the processional route,

which, as you can see, we've kind of hung with Tudor-style tapestries. Just on our right here, there is the man himself. There's the famous painting. There is the famous portrait of Henry VIII. Standing in his power pose. Absolutely. And this route, sorry, so this going from his private chambers, where are we off to?

So where we're off to is really the key part of any Tudor Christmas, which is chapel. So there's a lot of talk today about the real meaning of Christmas being lost. The Tudors certainly didn't lose it. Religion was pivotal. And so the monarch would go to church, absolutely not just Christmas morning, but perhaps two, even three times a day. Elizabeth I spent most of Christmas in prayer. So it was absolutely integral. And of

course, the courtiers would all have to follow suit. And just here on our left, this was the entrance to the Royal Pew. So you get a bird's eye view of the Tudor Chapel from up there. So these are periods of calm amidst all the banqueting and celebrations. Absolutely. This is where Henry would come to worship and also enjoy a bit of peace from his courtiers, although he loved a good party, certainly in his earlier reign. But later on, he much preferred privacy and quiet, so he became even more dedicated to observing the religious elements of Christmas. Which is a bit strange because he's famous for upending our religious arrangements. But he,

in his own mind, he had some consistency there. He still believed he was being true to the faith. Absolutely. He remained a good Catholic throughout and always a very pious king. And particularly, as I said, in the later years of his reign, when he'd grown tired of all the revelry. Quite relatable, that Tracy, I'm afraid. Exactly, it is relatable. And he didn't want to stay up late. And also, he was in a lot of pain by then.

He was incapacitated. Can we change the subject, please? OK, so actually, the nature of courts really depends on the appetites, the enthusiasm, the energy levels of the sovereign. Yeah, absolutely. You see the nature of a Tudor Christmas change during the period, for example, when Henry's son Edward is on the throne. This is now the height of the Reformation,

and things like boy bishops definitely do not make the cut. And there's much more about religious observance. It's slightly less fun than it had been in his father's reign. This is Dan Snow's History Hit. More after this. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr Eleanor Janaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans.

Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. So, Dan, I'm going to take you down to the kitchens now, because, of course, food is and was a pivotal part of Christmas.

kitchens now because of course food is and was a pivotal part of Christmas. I can imagine while Henry's sort of praying up here or partying up here I can imagine the kitchens were at full tilt the whole time. Yes they would have been and they were described as being a veritable hell for those working in them because of course they had a thousand people to feed at least twice a day more if you're the king but people rich and poor would have enjoyed a bit of indulgence at Christmas. Everybody got the day off, which was actually quite rare, and even the poorest members of society would have enjoyed a few little luxuries, a bit more meat perhaps on Christmas Day. Is elite Christmas reflected outside? Normal people outside the walls here, are they doing similar things? Absolutely. Obviously it's within a different budget.

Yes exactly, a very different budget but it does filter down. Religion also very important and going to church crucial for all members of society but there would have been games and a richer diet than usual, even some sporting activity and, of course, music as well. But Henry clamped down on some of the more boisterous games as his reign progressed because he wanted the young men of his realm to focus on military training, even on Christmas Day. Like everything with Henry, what is just fun and what is political? What's strategic about the way Christmas is set up here? Pretty much everything is political with Henry, including Christmas. On the one hand, he wants to send out a signal to the rest of Europe that he is the most magnificent king in Christendom.

But also when you look at what happens on a particular Christmas, for example, gift giving. People are watching who's giving what to who. And one particularly awkward Christmas was when Catherine of Aragon gave Henry a very lavish gift, and I'm afraid he hadn't got anything for her. Well, here we are. We're on the outside of the Tudor kitchens

and you're in for a treat because Richard Fitch knows everything there is to know about eating in the Tudor court. Thanks you're in for a treat because Richard Fitch knows everything there is to know about eating in the Tudor court. Thanks for having me, Tracey. It's been a pleasure. Hi, Richard. Hello, Dan. This feels like a sort of palatial space as well. It's about two or three stories high, enormous, wonderful wooden roof, the biggest fireplace I've ever seen in my life. It's one of six. It's 11 meters to the top of the roof. And this is probably not the most important point but I like the way there's a camber on the floor here, there's these big flagstones and they're all on a very slight angle, is that because all of the

kitchen wastes would get scooped down and pushed into a drain in the middle? Yeah absolutely, it's the waste disposal. It's clever that. We have this image don't we of Henry as this great sort of glutton sitting there at the table with a big chicken leg he's gnawing on. Is that fair? Certainly at the end of his life, he's a big, large lad, likes some food, and so that would be fair. But it's certainly not fair to think of him for his entire life like that. He's a young, virile, the most handsome prince in the whole of Europe. He just happens to have a bad rep for liking a meal.

So talk me through one of these famous Henrician feasts. How many courses? What kind of food was served? We're talking three courses, but those courses all contain what we would consider to be a mix of sweet and savoury. So your first course would have a sweet element to it as well? Has a sweet element to it. Probably the sort of thing we consider to be a condiment now, but made into a dish. So rather than apple sauce, it will be a stewed apple dish sat there for you to consume. And you can have that with whatever you choose. There's no real rules as to how you mix and match it.

Either in serve the plate of food or is it sherrys across the table? It's shared across the table. And was there etiquette around that? You're allowed to reach for things before you're seen? You're supposed to reach for the things that are closest to you, that are facing you. So if we were sat opposite each other at the table, you'd eat from your side of the serving bowl

and I'd eat from my side. You're supposed to loosen your belt before you sit down so that you're not sitting there groaning and embarrassing yourself and trying to ease some comfort in by loosening your waistline halfway through the meal. Certainly at Christmas, these meals would have been epic in proportion. They're large. They're probably not as large as we imagine. A lot of our views of historic feasting comes from film and TV. But it's about having choice.

Whereas most people in the country don't have choice of what they consume, here at court, the choice is that luxury. So it's less the volume of food, but more the number of dishes, the exoticism of those dishes. Yeah, absolutely. So as well as a stewed apple, take me through what else might they have eaten here at Christmas? So one of the commonest things on the table will be roast beef, but that will also be supplemented with just plain boiled beef. There might be a swan on the top table, suckling pig and venison pasties, sugar models, soups and stews and that sort of thing. So a huge selection compared to what normal people would be eating. And speaking of normal people outside these walls, what would have been common to those tables?

What was a seasonal dish for them? So they're going to be trying to eat as much beef as they can because it's the dish that you aspire to. It's why it's the common dish here at court, because you're showing that you can just feed your staff what normal quote unquote people are aspiring to get. But anything that you can save up. So a lot of dried foods that are then possibly rehydrated and a lot of things that you've tried to keep from the harvest that'll have just passed earlier on in the year. The urban myth about a pigeon inside another bird inside another bird

inside another bird, is that a true thing? It's a sort of true recipe, but it dates from 1747. So it's a Yorkshire Christmas pie, and it's first recorded by Hannah Glass in her recipe book of the time, so it doesn't go back much further than that. What your Tudors are after for really high status is birds, because they're not farmed. So farmed animals, anyone can really have if you've got the money, but hunted animals, so wildfowl, that's a sign of status. What about logistics? If you're feeding

the whole court who are feasting for days on end, do you have any sense of what had to be laid in to support that? It's really complicated. We're only just starting to scratch the surface of comprehending their procurement system. But essentially, people, part of the department for buying in things, get sent out all over the country with lists each and being told to bring back X amount of wheat, grain, pigs, cattle, and so on. They're then delivered at a set time, checked for quality, paid for just like everyone else does, but probably just below market value. And then they get sent back out to buy more and more and more.

So the court moves from house to house because they eat everything in the local area. There's not much long-distance shipping. There's quite a lot, but it's very small quantities. So at court, it's things like the spices, it's imported wines, it's sugars and sweet treats and things like that. And everyone's favourite tipple, we're talking wine or we're talking beer or spirits? At court, we're talking wine and beer and ale. But outside of the court, we're talking ale. Beer is really quite new in the 16th century, having hops put into it. And it's the fashionable drink of its time.

And the wine's all coming from southwest France? The wine's coming from France. It's coming from Cyprus. It's coming from Germany. It's coming from Italy. But probably not as nice as we would consider today because it's not bottled. It comes in large casks. So it's obviously jiggled and bumped about in transit and rolled along to storage.

And then once you've opened it, you've got 56 gallons that are starting to turn to vinegar. So you have to consume it pretty quickly or you change the quality of it by adding syrups and sugars and water to make it how you want it or how your diners want to consume it. How many officers of the court are there? It fluctuates through Henry's reign, but there's an average of about 450 people within court, of which around 200 work within the kitchens, or what we would consider to be the kitchen. So the room that we're stood in now, where the food was produced, all the way through to storage and accountancy as well.

So 200 people doing all that? Yeah, 200 people. So it's about half of the court. So as well as cooking for the rest of the court, they're cooking their own meals as well. There's about 110 linear metres of kitchen space. It takes up about a quarter of the ground floor. It's a sizeable section to administer.

For some reason, we do just associate the Tudor court with feasting, don't we? Do you think we're right to do that? Do you think feasting was as important for a Tudor Christmas as perhaps we make out? I think it's the visible part that we can associate with, but for the Tudors, it's the religious part. That's the important thing. So Christmas Day is not a major feasting time. That's reserved for Epiphany. Christmas Day is all about going to church, chapel, listening to services, and it's about charity. It's about sharing with those less fortunate.

At court, it's about providing excess so that it can go to the poor at the gates, or by bringing in people from the surrounding areas to dine at the very bottom end of the hall. So very much a performative charity in that sense, but charity nonetheless. What's so interesting? Henry would have been probably quite surprised to learn that today visitors find the kitchens down here as exciting, if not more so, than the elite apartments up above. Yeah, absolutely. I think he'd be blown away that people cared that there was a kitchen. But for our visitors here at Hampton Court Palace, it's the relatable thing. We all eat, most of us cook, and so there's no hurdle to understanding what you're seeing in this space, whereas up in the Great Hall, it's completely divorced from our normal reality.

And people can come and get stuck in this Christmas? They can. They can come and visit us over Christmas and have a go at turning the spit and experience life at the bottom rung of the ladder. Clearly, the 12 days of Christmas in Tudor England were joyous, they were very extensive, and while wealthy households enjoyed great feasts, elaborate entertainments, it sounds like even poor households were given opportunities to join in a little bit, and they were definitely given a little bit of a break, a well-needed rest over the festive season. It was a time of religious observance, it was certainly a time of communal family fun. And you get a sense that by the end

of the 16th century Christmas was a tango of pagan and Christian and like every period, every generation there was a little bit new added in, some Tudor customs thrown into the mix. But that certainly wouldn't last. In the following century Christmas came to an abrupt end. During the mid 17th century, during the civil war, the Puritans, who became hugely influential, banned Christmas in 1647. They viewed the holiday as a distraction, as heretical, as a threat to proper religious observance, discipline. So Cromwell and the Puritans, Christmas was just a festival of drunkenness, of promiscuity, gambling. It was pagan. It was not a proper religious festival according to the good books. In the mid-17th century they passed laws. They mandated that shops and markets remain open on the 25th of December. They locked people out of

churches to prevent Christmas services. This battle on Christmas was part of a Puritan drive to eliminate what they considered frivolous celebrations. And as you can imagine, that was all pretty unpopular. People loved Christmas. They loved partying. There was unrest, there were even riots, and it drove Christmas underground. People continued celebrating, away from the watchful eyes of the puritanical government. When Charles II came to the throne in 1660, it wasn't just a restoration of the monarchy, but a restoration of Christmas as well. The public celebrated, and I think that's one of the reasons he has this reputation as the merry monarch.

Fun was allowed again. So we've heard about the ostentatious festivities of the upper echelons of the Tudor court. Now join me next Wednesday when we're going to discover what Christmas was like on the streets of Georgian London. It was raucous, it was gaudy, it was rowdy. Make sure you follow any podcast player and you'll get this episode dropped in there next Wednesday. This is my Origins of Christmas series. Thank you so much to my guests Tracy Borman and Richard Fitch at Hampton Court Palace. If you want to explore more Tudor Christmas, Hampton Court has celebrations all the way through from the 21st of December to the 5th of January. You can enjoy historical Tudor cookery and festive music.

I really recommend it, folks. There's an ice drink too. See you all next time.