Kate and Cally are going on a who's-who tour of the Tudor court. In this episode, they’re discussing all the people who, behind the scenes, did the work to make our queens’ lives possible: the household staff.
How was a Tudor queen’s household organized? What was the social hierarchy like? Did the “everyday people” at court gain any political power or advantages? How do we know about their lives at all? And what examples of diversity, even in small amounts, can we see on display at court?
Click above to listen now, or find us on your favorite podcast app.
About the episode
This was a fun one, just because we never seem to talk about the “everyday people” who made life for the nobility possible. It’s partly because we just know more about the people in power—the people whose names make it into the historical record. But we do know some things about the people who lived and labored within the households of our six queens.
The household staff at court was divided under the jurisdiction of two head honchos: the Lord Steward and the Lord Chamberlain. The Lord Steward oversaw all of the household servants: the maids, laundresses, kitchen staff, etc. The Lord Chamberlain’s acted as the quasi-governor of court, overseeing all of the staff who held more enviable positions and came into direct contact with the royal family. It’s not an easy distinction to understand, but we’ll walk you through it.
The queen had her own household staff at court, separate from that of the King and her stepchildren. These staff members took care of all the “dirty work” that ladies-in-waiting wouldn’t want to deal with. These staff members were local to whatever residence the court was occupying, so our queens could get used to seeing familiar maids whenever they traveled to a new castle or palace.
Despite these people’s perceived lack of importance, though, they actually gained some political power through their close proximity to the monarchs. For our queens, whose lives revolved so heavily around their health and fertility, the knowledge of their bodily functions (known intimately by the maids and laundresses who cleaned up after them) was valuable information. Our queens existed in a world where they may not even be able to trust the people entrusted with their care.
A queen’s household also included skilled laborers like physicians, secretaries, accountants, and entertainers. We take the time to discuss some of the well-known fools at the Tudor court, including two women employed by Katherine Parr. There are also examples of racial diversity at court—Katharine of Aragon employed Black servants and entertainers who traveled with her from her native Spain.
This episode gives us a rare chance to talk about that diversity in a little more detail—economic, physical, and racial diversity that makes court seem just a bit bigger and more interesting.
Bibliography and Further Reading
A collection of ordinances and regulations for the government of the royal household, made in divers reigns. From King Edward III to King William and Queen Mary. Also receipts in ancient cookery (Printed for the Society of Antiquaries by J. Nichols, 1790), 109-214
Sydney Anglo, “The Court Festivals of Henry VII: A Study Based on the Account Books of John Heron, Treasurer of the Chamber,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 43 (1960), 12-45
Nathen Amin, Henry VII and The Tudor Pretenders: Simnel, Warbeck and Warwick (Amberley Publishing: 2022)
Michelle L. Beer, Queenship at the Renaissance courts of Britain: Catherine of Aragon and Margaret Tudor 1503-1533 (Royal Historical Society: 2018)
David Bindman, “The Black Presence in British Art: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Image of the Black in Western Art: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, ed. David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates, Jr (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: 2010)
Tracy Borman, The Private Lives of the Tudors (Grove Press: 2016)
Theodore Dumitrescu, The Early Tudor Court and International Musical Relations (Ashgate: 1998)
Antonia Fraser, The Six Wives of Henry VIII (Weidenfield & Nicolson: 1993)
John Guy, Tudor England (Oxford University Press: 1990)
Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Blackwell Publishing: 2005)
Miranda Kauffman, Black Tudors: The Untold Story (Oneworld Publications: 2017)
David Loades, The Tudor Court (Headstart History: 1992)
J.L. McIntosh, From Heads of Household to Heads of State: The Preaccession Households of Mary and Elizabeth Tudor, 1516-1558 (http://www.gutenberg-e.org/mcintosh/chapter1.html)
David Starkey, The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics (Vintage Books: 1985)
Alison Weir, Henry VIII: The King and His Court (Ballantine Books: 2001)
Bonus Content
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Six Queens to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.