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With Richard III gone the Plantagenet age was at an
end and the Tudor age began. The Tudor four poster
bed was absolutely enormous – the richly carved posts
might be 18 inches in diameter in order to support the
huge weight of the wooden panelled tester as well as
the elaborate decorated drapes, tapestries and maybe
even the family coat of arms in metal work. Decoration
was rather busy and ranged from grotesque carvings
of griffins and other fabled monsters to the popular
mediaeval fantasy of damsels in distress.
A Tudor traveller would be expected to share a bed
with complete strangers when they stayed at inns or
hostels – and might even find themselves turfed out
if a richer guest arrived. Shakespeare refers to bed
sharing in
The Tempest
when he writes:
"Misery
acquaints a man with strange bedfellows."
In
Twelfth
Night
the Bard refers one of the largest and most
famous beds in the world. A bed made for twelve in
about 1590 for the express purpose of sharing at an inn
in Hertfordshire was The Great Bed of Ware (below).
It measures 10.7 feet wide and 11.1 feet long. It was
probably also intended to be something of a tourist
attraction drawing pilgrims en route from Canterbury
and London to Walsingham in Norfolk. It is said that
26 butchers and their wives once spent the night in the
bed for a bet. Imagine that - 26 butchers in one town!
The bed will soon be back on display at The Victoria
& Albert Museum following a year back in Ware.
In a creative April Fool prank
the Hertfordshire
Mercury claimed that Prince William had put in a
request to the Victoria & Albert Museum to borrow
the Great Bed of Ware for his wedding night.
Pillows Are For Girls
The luxury of soft pillows seem to have rankled
some Tudors. In 1509 Henry VIII actually outlawed
them for all but pregnant women and seventy years
later a clergyman called William Harrison in time
honoured fashion was grumbling about the new and
self-indulgent generation, all molly-coddled with
their feathers and pillows. In his day said the Rev:
"If in seven years after marriage a man could buy
a mattress and a sack of chaff to rest his head on,
he thought himself as well lodged as a lord. Pillows
were thought meet only for sick women. As for
servants, they were lucky if they had a sheet over
them, for there was nothing under them to keep
the straw from pricking their hardened hides’.
Alas All For Show
Of all of the Tudors, Elizabeth I was the Queen of
beds. Not only did she travel extensively, with
innumerable properties, towns and villages claiming
that
Queen Elizabeth slept here,
but she also owned
the ultimate bed. A wardrobe warrant of 1581
describes the Queen's bedstead made from walnut,
richly carved, painted and gilded with cloth of silver
for the tester and valance, elaborate tapestry curtains
– the seams and borders laid with silver lace and
buttons of bullion. For the head piece crimson satin
from Bruges was decorated with six ample plumes
made up from 80 dyed ostrich feathers garnished
with golden spangles and the counterpoint was
embroidered with Venice gold and silver. Beautiful
bed, but perhaps a bit distracting for alas for the
Virgin Queen it was all somewhat in vain.