The Queen's Bed: An Intimate History of Elizabeth's Court (5 page)

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Not a Morning Person

When Elizabeth left Hatfield to begin her journey to London, she ordered that her best bed with its gilded bedstead, six yards square and carved with ‘eight beasts’, be delivered to Whitehall. It was undoubtedly a bed fit for a queen. The valance of purple velvet laced with gold and ‘garnished with a thin fringe of Venice gold’, was surrounded by thirty-four silk tassels hanging down from curtains of purple damask with a bedhead of purple velvet to match.
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It became the very heart of Elizabeth’s new court and a stage upon which her life and reign would be played out.

The palace at Whitehall, the Queen’s chief London residence, covered a site of twenty-three acres. The hall and chapel, the royal lodgings, galleries and privy garden stood on the east side and were connected with the river by a flight of privy stairs. To the west were many extra lodgings grouped around a cockpit, tiltyard and tennis court. The palace was a labyrinth of narrow, winding corridors and some two thousand rooms. It had been built by Cardinal Wolsey and then extended by Henry VIII and altered to receive Anne Boleyn as Queen in 1533. When in residence, Elizabeth occupied what had formerly been the King’s lodgings and left vacant the rooms intended for a consort.
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All the rooms were furnished with great splendour, with a multitude of statues and pictures, including a bust of Attila, King of the Huns, a genealogical table of the Kings of England, a sundial in the form of a monkey, an astrolabe that calculated the rising and setting of the sun, and many fine instruments.

Elizabeth’s Bedchamber overlooked the Thames. The room was very dark and, with only one window, had little fresh air. The walls were hung with rich tapestries for warmth, comfort and decoration, and the ceiling was painted gold.
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The Queen’s day began with the great curtains of her bed being drawn back by her ladies. Elizabeth was not, as she said of herself, a ‘morning person’.
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Sometimes she rose early in order to be ready to grant an audience at eight o’clock, but more usually she was still in bed while the rest of her household went about their duties, lighting fires and sweeping the chambers. The Bedchamber would have been draughty and so its fire had to be stoked to entice the Queen from her bed. Elizabeth rarely dressed immediately but, clothed in her ‘night stuff’, would be served breakfast in her Bedchamber – manchet bread, meat, pottage, ale or wine – before taking a fast walk in her privy garden.
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She was an ‘inveterate walker’ whatever the weather. She generally walked with a ‘stately gait’, unless she wanted to ‘catch a heat in the cold morning’ or wander through her gardens for pleasure and recreation.
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Sometimes she might walk accompanied by her ladies, but very often she preferred to be alone, with her guards at a careful distance. On other occasions she would begin the day sitting in her nightgown, reading by the window in her Bedchamber.
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One morning a carter remarked how he had seen her only partly dressed at her window and now ‘knew the Queen was a woman’. Elizabeth sent him an angel (ten shillings) to ‘shut his mouth’.
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When the Queen was ready, her ladies would help her as she washed, assist as she dressed, brush her hair and apply her make-up. It was, even in the Queen’s youth, a time-consuming process. Most commonly Elizabeth would wash from a basin of water with face cloths and Castile soap made of olive oil, shipped in great quantities direct from Spain.
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She kept her ivory forehead virtually wrinkle-free for many years by cleansing it with posset curd. Her long golden hair was washed with lye, a compound of wood ash and water, and then rubbed with a warm coarse cloth to remove grease and dandruff before being combed. Toothbrushes were unknown, but toothpicks would be regularly used and are recorded in the lists of gifts Elizabeth received each year. She also had numerous Holland ‘tooth cloths’ which were also used for teeth-cleaning together with a mixture of white wine and vinegar boiled with honey.
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Despite such efforts, Elizabeth’s teeth in middle-age would be yellow, badly decayed and foul smelling, eventually becoming black, due to her love of sweetmeats such as marzipan and candied fruit.
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She attempted to mask her bad breath with mouthwashes of rosemary, myrrh, mastic and cinnamon.
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Once washed, Elizabeth would be made-up. She relied on cosmetics to produce her famous ivory complexion. A meringue-like concoction of eggwhite, powdered eggshell, alum, borax and poppy seeds mixed with mill water and beaten until a froth stood on it three fingers deep was applied to her skin.
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The mixture would apparently keep for a year and be used three times a week to whiten, smooth and soften the skin – in fact it served only to blanch it. There were many other whiteners: mercury sublimate might also be used or ‘liquid pearl’ to give a translucent glow. Elizabeth would also use rouge and lip salves, the main ingredient of which was ceruse, a white solid mix of lead carbonate and lead hydroxide which was made by exposing plates of metal to the vapour of vinegar. Crayons or ‘pencils’ (the word
lipstick
was not used then) were made by grinding down alabaster calcinate or plaster of Paris into a powder, which was then coloured, mixed into a paste, rolled into shape and dried in the sun. Face powder could be similarly obtained from ground alabaster. The pounding and grinding of ingredients for cosmetics, face washes, tooth powders and remedies was a daily labour for her ladies, and one involving great trust, given fears that poison hidden in cosmetics could be absorbed through the Queen’s skin to fatal effect.

Not long after becoming Queen, Elizabeth steadily began to lose her hair and so John Hemingway, her apothecary, made pomades and salves to apply to her scalp. When these did not stop her hair loss, Elizabeth changed her hairstyle and wore curls to cover the bald crown of her head, each of which had to be carefully styled each day.

Regular bathing was not the norm, although Elizabeth was described as having a bath every month ‘whether she needs it or no’. Nevertheless, in a world of pungent body odour, perfumes were used greatly and considered more than simply a luxury. Many women would hang a pomander, an intricately carved metal or boxwood ball filled with a paste of aromatic spices such as cloves, nutmeg or cumin, from a cord around their waist. This was considered both a means to ward off bad smells and a preservative from infection. Her physician Dr Huick regularly presented her with a flagon of orange-flower water. The following recipe was said to have been used to prepare Elizabeth’s favourite toilet water, which was made from marjoram: ‘Take eight spoonfuls of compound water, the weight of twopence in fine powder of sugar, and boil it on hot embers and coals softly, add half an ounce of sweet marjoram dried in the sun, and the weight of twopence of the powder of Benjamin.’ The resulting toilet water was said to be ‘very sweet and good for the time’.
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‘Sweet bags’, impregnated with perfume, were sewn into dresses and gloves, and stockings and shoes were also perfumed with fragrances derived from animal sources such as ambergris, a waxy substance secreted or regurgitated by sperm whales which as it aged acquired a sweet, earthy scent; civet produced by the perineal glands of the mammal of the same name, and musk, glandular secretions from animals like the musk deer. Floral oils extracted from orange, jasmine, lily and other blossoms, as well as spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves would also be used. Perfumed gloves prepared by mixing ambergris, musk or civet with a fatty base and then smeared on the inside of the gloves to keep the skin soft, were a favourite gift item for those perhaps unsure of the Queen’s more personal tastes.
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She often wore gloves for warmth in the palaces on cold days as well as for travelling.

Having been made-up, Elizabeth was dressed. It was an elaborate ritual and took several hours as Elizabeth’s ladies painstakingly laced and pinned her into her clothes; hundreds of pins would be needed each day.
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The Queen wore fine linen shifts, as well as linen ruffs and wrist ruffs to protect her unwashable gowns from the damage caused by perspiration. Linen worn next to the skin would, it was believed, cleanse the body by absorbing excess moisture and dirt. Surprising though it may seem there is no evidence that the Queen wore knickers.
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When she was menstruating she would use a length of washable linen, which would have been used as sanitary towels; Elizabeth’s household accounts record long and short ‘vallopes of fine holland cloth [linen cloth]’ listed by the dozen with other plain linen items, and likely to have been a term for menstrual cloths. Queen Elizabeth also had three ‘girdles of black Jeane silk made on the fingers garnished with buckles hooks & eyes whipped over with silk’, which may have provided the necessary sanitary belt for use with the ‘vallopes’.
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With her shift on, a ‘pair of bodies’ or corset stiffened with whalebone, would have been laced up on top, then her petticoat, and then her stockings. In 1561, Mrs Alice Montague, the Queen’s ‘silk woman’, gave Elizabeth her first pair of knitted silk stockings. Elizabeth was delighted and asked Mrs Montague for more: ‘I like silk stockings well; they are pleasant, fine and delicate. Henceforth I will wear no more cloth stockings.’
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Elizabeth would then be pinned into her heavy gowns of velvet or satin, each covered with yards of gold braiding and myriads of little jewels and densely embroidered with images such as fish, flowers, birds and foliage. It was a slow and painstaking exercise during which Elizabeth would have plenty of time for relaxed conversation with her women. The colour, cut and style of these gowns changed over the course of her reign and reflected the fashions of France, Spain or Italy. Often Elizabeth would follow a particular style when courting a political alliance with one country or another. For the great occasions of state there were hefty robes of ermine and velvet to wear and in the winter furs and muffs of swansdown. She would then have some of the jewels and pearls for which she was famed pinned to her or placed around her neck. Many of the Queen’s gems were from her father’s coffers and had been worn by him, his six wives or her half-brother and sister. The jewels were kept in the Bedchamber in coffers covered with velvet and embroidered with gold.
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Finally Elizabeth’s shoes would be eased on to her feet with a steel shoehorn specially made by her blacksmith.
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At the beginning of her reign the Queen’s shoes were mostly made of velvet, but as she grew older, she increasingly favoured shoes of Spanish leather.
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Initially the shoes were flat but in 1595, at the age of sixty-two, the Queen ordered her first pair of ‘high heels’.
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When she was in the privy lodgings Elizabeth often wore slippers which could be slipped on and off without fastenings and allowed the Queen to rest her feet in comfort. Elizabeth usually had about a dozen pairs made in plain velvet each year.

Once enrobed, bejewelled, her hair dressed and styled, and with her face painted, the Queen was ready to face the public gaze of the court.

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Elizabeth would spend the greater part of day in the Privy Chamber, where she transacted government business with her secretaries, met with councillors and received ambassadors. In the evening, when the business of state was over, she would relax with her ladies and other favourites, enjoying the music of the court musicians and singers of the chapel royal, dance, read or play cards. Gambling was a popular pursuit with the Queen and her ladies, with each regularly recorded as having gambling debts owing. Elizabeth was a very accomplished musician and sometimes relaxed by playing her virginals and harpsichord. As she carried out her duties, the Queen’s women would spend many hours sewing and embroidering in the Privy Chamber making her Majesty’s shifts and nightclothes and edging and embroidering sheets and pillowcases. They would also prepare the drinks, possets and sweetmeats of which Elizabeth was particularly fond, in the privy kitchen, adjacent to the private apartments.

Elizabeth would eat most of her meals in the Privy Chamber as, apart from on feast days or at special banquets, it was thought unbecoming of the Queen’s dignity for her to be seen eating except by her ladies. Usually she ate around midday and then had supper at six in the evening, although she preferred to eat ‘when her appetite required it’ and so rarely kept exact mealtimes.
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Food would be brought from the privy kitchen by the Gentleman Ushers of the Privy Chamber, their arrival heralded by the sound of drums and trumpets. One of the ladies would then rub the gilt plates with bread and salt and give the Gentleman Ushers morsels from each dish as a precaution against poison. When the table had been laid out, the dishes would be carried by the ladies into the Queen’s Privy Chamber so she could make her choice.
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While Elizabeth would be offered countless dishes at any one sitting, she preferred chicken or game to red meat, and always sweet things, particularly rich cakes made from Corinth currants and imported especially from Greece. She was not fond of the strong beer – ‘March ale’ – commonly drunk at court and named after the month in which it was brewed and which was then left for two years before it was served. Elizabeth preferred to drink light wine, ‘mingled with water, containing three parts more in quantity than the wine itself’.
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When the Queen was hosting ambassadors or other prestigious guests, banquets would be held in the great hall. Afterwards the tables would be cleared away and there would be dancing, plays or other entertainments.

At the end of each and every day, her ladies, among them Kat Ashley, Blanche Parry, Katherine Knollys and Dorothy Stafford, would help the Queen from her gowns and out of her veils and jewels and gloves. The Queen then washed her face and feet by the light of beeswax candles, renowned for their pleasant odour and clear flame. Disrobed, Elizabeth would put on her nightgown. This was a loose, comfortable gown which was made of rich fabrics like satin, silk velvet and taffeta and trimmed with gold and silver lace and lined with shag, plush or fur.
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Elizabeth sometimes chose to wear her nightgown during the day, when she remained in her chambers among her women, and she frequently received them as New Year’s gifts.
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