TRACY BORMAN: The Tudors are the most famous royal family
in English history.
The five Tudor monarchs ruled in England for nearly 120 years,
and they made the country
one of the most powerful sovereign states of the age.
Each of the Tudor kings and queens
had their own individual public personas,
the ones they wanted their subjects to see...
But what went on behind these closed doors?
We'll show you how they lived, loved and died.
We'll take a peek into the corridors of power, the grand courts,
the Royal bedchambers and even the kitchens to see how they ate,
had sex, dressed,
and, yes, even how they used the royal toilets.
Welcome to The Private Lives of the Tudors.
Hampton Court is a palace steeped in the history
of England's kings and queens,
but almost 50 year before this magnificent building
become a royal residence,
the foundations of the Tudor dynasty
were being laid at the Battle of Bosworth Field.
The Battle of Bosworth was the last significant battle
of the Wars of the Roses -
the civil war between the Houses of Lancaster and York
that raged across England in the latter half of the 15th century.
Fought on the 22nd of August, 1485,
the battle was won by the Lancastrians.
Their leader, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond,
by his victory became the first Tudor Monarch of England.
WOMAN: Henry VII was something of a rank outsider.
He had been in exile for 14 years in France
during the conclusion of the Wars of the Roses
and the reign of Edward IV.
No-one really expected him to become king,
and at The Battle of Bosworth, he surprisingly become the victor
in circumstances almost against the odds.
WOMAN: Well, Henry VII - or the Duke of Richmond as he then was -
won The Battle of Bosworth against Richard III,
the last of the Yorkist Kings.
And he then was elected, effectively, King of England
because he really wasn't the true king according to bloodline.
MAN: The dynasty is born at Bosworth field,
in so far as they bring the crown from the corpse of Richard III
and hand it to the king.
But that is taken as token of his coronation.
He's won the crown, as it were, by feat of arms,
which was one of the medieval ways of recognising kingship.
One of Henry VII's first acts as king was to marry Elizabeth of York,
the niece of his dead enemy Richard III.
It was a political marriage,
designed to unite the houses of Lancaster and York
and to put a stop to the civil wars
that had plagued the country for so many years.
But to guarantee peace and stability, Henry needed to father a male heir -
a boy of both Yorkist and Lancastrian blood.
Even though Henry VII
has been seen as a dower and conservative king,
it's probable that he got his wife pregnant before the marriage.
Maybe he wanted to see if she was fertile,
but it's also possible that he believed if he bedded Elizabeth early
she was more likely to conceive than on the wedding day itself.
The Catholic church also played a major role
in people's bedroom habits.
Sex was to be strictly confined to marriage,
and for the sole purpose of reproduction.
Among their many rules, the Church strictly forbid sex
during Lent, Advent, feast days, fast days,
Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
But despite the many restrictions placed upon married couples,
it was also considered imperative
that the woman found the experience an enjoyable one.
LICENSE: There were a good number of early medieval texts that survive
containing recipes and information about conception and child birth,
but there was a major one that was introduced during Tudor times
and translated into English.
This contains diagrams of foetuses and the womb
and also information about pregnancy,
including the idea that the seed
mingled in the womb from the man and the woman
and that there were different methods
of conceiving boys and girls,
such as lying on the left-hand side for a boy
and on the right-hand side for a girl.
WOMAN: The thing about sex in Tudor England
was that you were supposed to enjoy it
if you wanted to get the woman pregnant.
So, that's good news for women.
The bad news was that when you got married,
you had to promise to be bonaire and buxom in bed,
which basically meant you were supposed to be up for it
every time your husband fancied it.
If there was an issue that the woman was uncomfortable
or unhappy during sex, then they did believe
that it was less likely that she was able to conceive.
Female enjoyment seemed to be the seat of conception to them
and so it does strike us as being a fairly modern concept
that pleasure was important,
but actually, at the time, Tudor men understood
that if they wanted to make a woman pregnant
then they did need to attend to her needs.
And a few books referenced this,
suggesting the way in which a man should arouse a woman,
touching her in certain ways
so that she was receptive and would enjoy the process.
Here at Hever Castle in the English county of Kent
is a very special and unique piece of furniture.
This beautifully ornate four-poster bed
was recently discovered during the renovation of a hotel
in the historic English city of Chester.
Research and DNA analysis appears to confirm
that this long-lost treasure was once Henry VII's bed.
The carvings depict Henry and his wife Elizabeth
as Adam and Eve, along with medieval fertility symbols
such as acorns and grapes.
Henry had this bed specially made, and at great expense.
That's because it wasn't just he and his wife who would see it,
but the entire court.
It was customary in Tudor times for a royal couple
to go through what was known as a bedding ceremony.
All of their courtiers would accompany them to the bedroom
and put them to bed.
They wanted to make sure that the marriage would be consummated.
MAN: Almighty God, bless the union of this royal couple,
Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York.
Bring them forth issue that will keep this nation safe,
from now until the ending of the earth.
Praise be to God.
Marriage, to be considered valid, had to be the exchange of oaths
and the consummation of the marriage.
And so it was vital that everyone realised
that the consummation of the marriage had taken place.
And one way of doing that was through the ritual
of the bedding ceremony.
After the banquets which had taken place,
after the ceremony, the couple would be accompanied by witnesses -
in the case of a King, by courtiers -
and there would be a procession of singing, sometimes trumpet playing,
that would accompany the young couple to the bedchamber.
When they were in the bedchamber,
the bed and themselves would be blessed by a priest
and the curtains would be drawn,
and then the witnesses would wait outside,
hoping to hear sounds
that meant that the consummation of the marriage had taken place.
But just in case this still wasn't proof enough,
they had an even more public and graphic way
to show that the deal had been sealed.
LICENSE: The phrase we have, "airing the dirty linen,"
actually came from this idea
of showing the dirty bed sheets the morning after the wedding,
and they might have been stained by the blood of the bride
who had lost her virginity on the night of the wedding,
and made public so people knew
that this act of consummation had taken place
and, therefore, the marriage was a valid one.
Elizabeth of York went on to have seven children,
which is a lot by modern standards but average in Tudor times.
But childbirth for any woman was fraught with dangers,
and it's sobering to think
that life expectancy for a woman at the time was just 35 years.
Giving birth in Tudor times was an event fraught with danger.
As many as one in three women would die in the process.
But how would a woman even know that she was pregnant at all?
Well, as today, the key indicator was her urine,
and doctors would take a sample of an expectant mother's urine
and they would examine it closely,
because what they were looking out for
was a change in it's normal colour.
If it was paler than normal,
then that was a possible indication of pregnancy.
But there was a rather more bizarre test for pregnancy.
This is involved taking a needle,
and this needle would be cast into the sample of urine
and left overnight.
Then the following morning,
the doctor would examine the state of the needle,
and to quote from the contemporary manual,
"If it be coloured with red spots, she hath conceived,
"but if it be black or rusty, then she hath not."
Well, unsurprisingly with tests as unreliable as these,
most women found it really difficult to tell if they were really pregnant,
and they had to wait for the physical manifestations of pregnancy,
such as putting on weight or feeling the child move,
which was known as quickening.
But there was no way for them
then to monitor the health of their unborn child,
so they had to rely on the knowledge of altogether more experienced women.
Midwives were often there to supervise during a woman's labor.
They were usually vastly knowledgeable
and hugely experienced in helping mothers give birth,
and in dealing with the complications that sometimes arose.
But even they, on occasions, got it wrong.
SIM: One of the things a midwife would do
would be to try and manually dilate a woman.
That, I suppose, looked like a good idea -
in theory, you were speeding things up.
But really, the early stages of childbirth need to be left alone.
And so, you could damage a woman doing that.
Another thing a midwife might do
would be actually pressing down on the woman's abdomen
to try and help push the baby out.
Again, that can do a lot more harm than good.
If things really get bad
and you realise you're not going to be able to get the baby out
just with the woman pushing,
they didn't have forceps at this time -
they hadn't been developed yet -
so the only option was to put hooks into the baby and just pull.
That obviously killed the baby
and often tore the women inside as well,
and even if that in itself didn't kill the woman,
you were very, very likely to get infections as a result.
So you would almost certainly die then.
Despite the many risks,
there was still huge pressure on women to keep bearing children.
It was a responsibility of aristocratic and royal women
to bear as many children as possible.
And so we end up with families from anything between eight,
up to 13 or 14 children.
However, this did mean that women were out of action for a while.
So, amongst aristocratic circles,
babies were given out to wet nurses and they were fed by these nurses,
suckled in order for the woman to get her fertility back more quickly.
She'd therefore be able to conceive again more quickly
and also able to resume her duties.
Henry and Elizabeth did produce a male heir
in the form of their eldest son, the often forgotten Prince Arthur.
In 1501, at the tender age of 15,
Arthur was married to Catherine of Aragon,
daughter of the mighty Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella.
And it would be the controversy of what happened on their wedding night
that would tear England apart
during the reign of Arthur's brother, Henry VIII.
But in 1502, with the royal nursery filled with heirs
and Henry at last beginning to feel more secure on his throne,
disaster struck.
Prince Arthur suddenly died,
just months after marrying Catherine of Aragon.
Some said that the exertions of the marriage bed
had taken their toll on this sickly young man,
but it's more likely that he had fallen prey to the sweating sickness.
DORAN: The sweats, or the sweating sickness,
used to be thought of as the 16th century form of influenza.
But historians are now beginning to think that
there were two possible pathogens that were rather different.
The first is that it could have been anthrax,
and the second - which I think is more interesting and more likely -
is that it was part of the Hantavirus
which was transmitted through the inhalation of the excrement of rats.
SIM: It very likely was a virulent form of flu,
and it did go for people who were young and healthy.
The symptoms of the sweating sickness are very similar to flu -
so, high temperature, sweaty, sore throat, all that kind of thing.
It did kill very quickly.
They said you could be merry at breakfast and dead at supper.
This mysterious and deadly illness
struck fear into the hearts of Tudor society.
Mere rumor that a case of the sweats had been discovered
was enough to panic people into fleeing their homes for safety.
But for Prince Arthur, there was no escape.
The loss of Prince Arthur was a terrible blow to the royal family.
He was given so much attention
as the royal prince who would succeed his father.
I don't think Henry VII thought a great deal of his second son,
Henry VIII to be,
and once Arthur died, all the hopes of the Tudor succession
was on this one child.
So it was a dreadful thing for the royal family,
both in personal terms and in political terms.
MURPHY: The scale of the public mourning,
the scale of the funeral,
are indicative that this has been a serious trauma.
But equally, they still have a male heir,
and on that alone, the dynasty can feel secure.
After Arthur's untimely death,
his younger brother Henry became first in line to the crown.
And when his father died in 1509,
he duly succeeded to the throne of England.
He was handsome, charismatic, and athletic.
When Henry VIII burst onto the scene,
he presented a dramatic and very welcome contrast
to his dour, old father.
Henry was instantly loved by the people.
He was the king they had always wanted.
Your Majesty, I am your humble servant.
DORAN: Henry VIII, Duke of York, was the spare tyre, as it were.
So of course, he had a very fine education, a princely education,
but there was no expectation until the death of Arthur
that he would be the king.
LICENSE: Once his father had died,
he knew that he would one day become king.
And that's when the serious business really started -
the question of his marriage and also looking to his education,
expanding that so he would be prepared as a future king.
MAN: Henry's the epitome of the Renaissance prince.
He idolises Maximilion I, the Holy Roman Emperor,
who's a bit older than him but is an accomplished rider,
statesman, warrior, and that's what Henry wants to be -
he wants to be seen to be a man of action.
He's also phenomenally wealthy.
He is, by all accounts, very, very handsome.
So he's the true Renaissance prince,
and he really throws himself into the role.
He seems to have bridled against some of the restrictions
that Henry VII placed upon him,
and we see some of that exuberance coming out
following his father's death,
when he finally did become king at the age of 17.
Henry VII's frugal reign meant that English coffers were overflowing.
But to the young Henry VIII,
there was no point in having money unless you spent it.
One of his many extravagancies was the royal wardrobe.
He spent lavishly on clothes
made from the finest materials from all around the world.
But naturally, as king, Henry never dressed himself.
There were others to do that for him.
Mark Griffin is a historical consultant
and specialist interpreter of Tudor period dress.
Well, the king, of course, had a lot of servants.
But his most trusted
were the grooms of the body, the grooms of his wardrobe -
those are the people that are dressing him.
And if you're helping Henry dress, then you have his ear,
you can influence your family's advancement,
you can talk about policy,
so it's actually an incredibly coveted position to be in.
The Grooms - or Esquires - of the body
were often the sons of prominent noblemen and the gentry,
personally selected by the king himself.
The role was highly sought-after because those who held it
often rose to prominent and influential positions.
Put simply, it was their job
to make sure King Henry looked his very best every day.
The king was known for changing his clothes very regularly.
One ambassador calls him the King of a Thousand Slippers.
He's always showing off.
And, of course, the king is wearing
the most expensive clothing in Europe.
He's wanting to show people that he can afford the best,
he can afford lots of the best.
So take this jacket here -
this is silk velvet that has come all the way from China.
It's gold thread, there's taffeta on here -
which has actually got metallic gold thread woven into it as well.
And he's got loads and loads
of different clothes of different colours,
all sorts of different materials for different occasions,
and he's got to be seen to look as fantastic as possible.
DORAN: Men were also expected to portray their masculinity
through their physical appearance,
and this would mean that they wore beards -
beards were seen as being very manly in the 16th century -
had broad shoulders, so if they didn't naturally
have broad shoulders, they would pad them out,
and also, they would have enlarged cod pieces
that expressed their virility
and was a marker that they were fertile and productive and manly.
Each change of clothing
is going to take the king 20-30 minutes at least,
depending on what he is doing and where he is,
so servants would constantly be on hand
to make sure he was looking as good as possible.
The Tudors realised how important propaganda was
and creating this image, this fantastic look
that we see in all the Tudor portraits, did take some time.
Not only is it all the cloth and the fine embroidery -
this jacket in fact has got jewels hanging off of it as well,
and that all adds to the time
but eventually the prestige and look of the monarch.
(APPLAUSE)
The rise in the number of wealthy merchants
and an increasingly affluent middle class
made it more and more difficult
for Henry to tell them and the aristocracy apart.
To remedy this, he decided to introduce laws
whereby class and privilege dictated what people could wear.
These were known as Statutes of Apparel or Sumptuary Laws.
One of the main reasons for the Sumptuary Laws
was to reinforce the strict pecking order in Tudor society.
It simply wouldn't do for a member of the lower orders
to be dressed better than their superiors.
So, Henry passed an act against the wearing of costly apparel.
Now, this act set out a number of different rules
according to your class.
If you're a member of the royal family,
then you could wear purple.
Dukes were allowed to have cloth of gold woven into their coats.
You had to be an earl to wear sable fur.
And if you were a knight or a lord, you could wear imported wool.
But the punishment for dressing above your social rank
could be severe - on the one hand, you could be fined
or have your property confiscated,
but on the other, you might even face death.
It's surprising perhaps
that few items of clothing belonging to Henry survive today.
Luxury cloth and imported fabric were so expensive
that they were often reused and recycled over the years
to keep up with changing fashions.
But here at Hampton Court Palace,
I've come to meet Collections Curator Eleri Lynn,
who's agreed to show me a very rare and special item
that's held in their stores.
So, these stores contain 10,000 items.
10,000 items? I had no idea it was that many.
Absolutely - well, they vary from accessories,
all the way up to whole ensembles and gowns,
but each of them tells the story of our palaces
and the people who lived in them.
I can't wait to see it.
I have a feeling it's going to be something quite special.
It's one of Historic Royal Palaces treasures,
but we're going to need gloves.
Absolutely.
Now, I'm getting very excited for the big reveal
because of course we're talking about the Tudors.
Now, Tudor items of clothing are exceptionally rare.
They are. So do you have something Tudor for me?
I do - not only is it a Tudor object,
but it may very well have been worn by Henry VIII himself.
That makes it incredibly rare, doesn't it?
One of only one or two objects in the world
that has got an association with Henry VIII himself.
That is astonishing. What a thing of beauty.
It is a beautiful hat, and the survival is incredible.
We have had it scientifically dated,
and it dates correctly to that period -
so, the wool stuffs and the dye stuffs
all date to the sort of late medieval
and early modern period, which is fantastic.
And can I hold it? Yeah, of course.
Obviously very carefully.
So, I am holding in my hands
what may well have been worn by our most famous king, Henry VIII.
And what a survival, because am I right in thinking
we don't actually have many of Henry's clothes?
He had thousands of clothes,
and yet this is one of the only examples to survive.
It's sort of exploded a myth for me
because the typical portraits of Henry,
he's wearing, you know, a black beret, it looks like.
It's a bit dowdy.
This is something else, isn't it?
It's a bright kind of pink colour, lovely green ostrich feather.
You'd have seen him coming in this.
It's really unexpected, because the portraiture
is full of these sort of black velvet berets.
You know, as embellished as they are, they all look fairly similar.
But we know from written records
that they were wearing many more colours than just the black velvet.
They were wearing scarlet and green and yellow,
and they were all highly embellished with gold and jewels
and feathers of all different colours.
So, this is a typical sort of survival of that period.
So, would this have had jewels on it as well?
It would, it would absolutely.
So, you can see on the ostrich feather
there's a sort of small, silver braid button here
which would have really shone and sparkled.
But also, around the edge here
are evenly positioned holes which have been punched through,
which were probably for attaching gems and jewels
and hat badges and pins and that sort of thing,
so it would have looked even more colourful and extravagant.
Well, what a treasure and actually what a privilege
to literally be getting my hands on Henry VIII in this way.
But for Henry, there was a more pressing need
than simply looking good.
He had to produce a legitimate male heir.
But to do that, he first needed to take a wife.
It was decided that he would marry his brother's widow,
Catherine of Aragon.
Henry was very fond of Catherine
and he wrote to his future father-in-law,
assuring him that he thought so highly of her
that even if he was still free, he would chose her above all others.
LICENSE: They were suited on so many levels -
intellectually, culturally.
They were both raised to be king and queen,
and they were very affectionate towards each other.
And they lived in this world of chivalry
in which Henry was Sir Loyal Heart
and would joust, carrying her favours in the lists.
DORAN: The early marriage seems to have been a great success.
She was crowned alongside him.
They obviously slept regularly together,
because she became pregnant.
He treated her with great respect,
he treated her, in chivalric terms,
as the lady who inspired him at tournaments and in court spectacles,
so there is no evidence at all that they had a strained relationship.
Over the next 10 to 15 years, their marriage seemed to be a happy one.
But a tragic series of miscarriages and stillbirths
had left Henry without a male heir.
MURPHY: He is used to having what he wants,
and the fact that everybody gives him what he wants
and he can't have this thing,
he therefore looks around like a child does, an angry child,
to blame somebody, because it can't be anything to do with him -
it couldn't possibly be anything to do with him.
He is constantly being told and believes
that he is the perfect king,
so I think not having a son is a disappointment.
SIM: If anyone was seen as responsible,
it would have been the mother.
But then all sorts of things
were thought to affect things like miscarriages or birth defects.
So, for example, the sight of something frightening
could be seen as bringing about a birth defect in your child.
LICENSE: If you had a still birth, then the woman must have
done something wrong, eaten something wrong.
There were lots of superstitions
whereby miscarriages could be attributed,
such as a woman tiptoeing through the May dew
or looking up at the moon or eating the wrong kind of food.
DORAN: When it came to the royal family,
when a child was stillborn,
we know in the case of Henry VIII that he blamed God -
God was responsible - and the reason why he was responsible
was because Henry and Catherine had carried out this terrible sin
of going against scriptures in marrying,
when Catherine had previously been married to Prince Arthur.
From a total of six pregnancies,
only one of Henry and Catherine's children survived -
the Princess Mary.
Although she was not the son he had hoped for,
Henry doted on his daughter
and invested a great deal in her education and upbringing.
By the standards of the day, he was a good father.
But as a husband, Henry was less than faithful.
LICENSE: Henry did resort to other women,
particularly when Catherine of Aragon was pregnant.
It was a common belief at the time
that men did need to have regular sex
in order to purge the build-up of fluids, to keep them healthy.
And so while Catherine was out of action - literally -
in confinement, or during her pregnancy,
it was not thought a good idea
for her to indulge in sex with her husband,
because this could damage the foetus.
Therefore, it was a logical deduction for the Tudor mind
that a man could seek some sort of comfort elsewhere.
One affair we certainly do know about
was with a woman named Elizabeth Blount.
Known as Bessie, she was one of the Queen's Maids Of Honor,
personally selected by Catherine herself -
which must have made it all the more painful
when Catherine discovered that Bessie was pregnant with Henry's child,
a boy who would be named Fitzroy.
Blount is not disgraced, she's not pushed out of the queen's household.
She sort of retires gracefully.
But she's received by the queen
and continues to be received by the queen.
The suggestions that do pop up from time to time,
that maybe Henry Fitzroy will be married to the Princess Mary,
and therefore create a sort of Tudor descent, isn't completely ludicrous.
Far from denying the existence of his illegitimate child,
Henry gave him the name Fitzroy,
which literally means, "Son of the king."
He ensured the boy was well cared for,
given the best education, and groomed for a life of privilege.
It's even thought that Henry considered
passing the crown to Fitzroy
in the event of him not producing a legitimate son.
DORAN: If we look at royal marriages,
everyone knew that the kings had mistresses,
so there was an acceptance of that.
On the other hand, there was a deep unease about extramarital affairs.
First of all, it was a sign that a king did not have self-control.
Another problem about it was that bastards had no rights in law
and so there could always be problems
associated with bastard children,
whether they were royal children or any other children.
Over time, the royal marriage began to crumble
as it became increasingly apparent to Henry
that Catherine couldn't give him the son he so longed for.
But there were other reasons that the marriage was in trouble.
Catherine was some six years older than Henry,
and by the time she reached the age of 40, it was beginning to show.
Henry wanted someone younger, more vivacious and less pious.
But above all, he wanted a wife who would give him a son.
LICENSE: Henry probably met Anne Boleyn
a few years after his affair with her sister Mary.
She'd been away from court and returned,
and she was very fashionable -
she was the epitome of French style and culture,
and this drew his attention,
particularly in contrast with the very Spanish Catherine.
The relationship with Anne Boleyn began around the time of 1526.
We do know that their relationship was tempestuous.
We do know that they were deeply in love,
judging by his love letters to Anne
at the beginning of the relationship,
and he found her exciting and fascinating -
of that, I think there is no doubt.
We know that he sent her presents and she sent him some in return.
One in particular was a silver image of a damsel in a ship,
tossed upon stormy seas.
This might be a metaphor for her confusion,
whether she was going to accept his advances or not.
Henry lavished a whole host of expensive gifts on his new mistress,
including, in 1532, some three dozen pieces of jewellery
at a cost of 100 pounds -
which was worth a small fortune in today's money.
The artist Hans Holbein
also designed some pieces for the king's new love,
and Henry himself was forever raiding the royal jewel house
for the best items to present to her.
He even went so far as to demand that his wife, Catherine of Aragon,
hand over her own jewels to Anne.
Well, sadly, none of Anne's jewels have survived today -
not even her most famous piece,
the necklace made from pearls with her initials set in gold.
It's said that she passed this to her daughter Elizabeth,
and that the pearls have even survived to this day
and are set in the crown of our present queen.
The sheer number of letters and gifts showered on Anne by Henry
clearly show how infatuated he was
with the seductive and cosmopolitan young beauty.
He pursued her vigorously,
but despite his passion and the fact that he was the king,
Anne refused to allow him to fully have his way with her.
Traditionally, it's been believed
that Anne did refuse to have sex with Henry until they were married.
We're looking at a period of seven years -
do we really believe that Henry would have waited that long?
It's likely that Anne gave him some sort of encouragement.
I really don't believe that she held him off all that time.
Obviously, she didn't fall pregnant,
so they were possibly practicing some sort of contraception
or that they were being intimate but stopping short of the full act
to prevent a pregnancy outside of marriage.
But I think they must have been intimate,
there must have been something going on to keep his interest,
to keep him sustained for seven years.
Henry may have been head over heels in love with Anne,
but not everybody shared his enthusiasm.
In many quarters, Anne's relationship with Henry
was deeply unpopular.
Catherine had a lot of supporters,
and one of the arguments against the marriage
was that Henry had already had a relationship -
not just with Mary Boleyn, but with Anne's mother Elizabeth.
And over time, this accusation continued
and it was produced in print that Henry was this terrible lecher
who had slept with mother and two daughters.
Over the years,
there were many rumors concerning who Henry had been intimate with.
But there was one person at court, above all others,
who would consistently share
the king's most private and personal moments.
The groom of the stool
was the most important member of Henry VIII's privy chamber.
His job was to attend the king
when he visited the clothes stall, or toilet.
He would have to stand by until the king had finished,
waiting patiently,
and then ensure that his royal master was clean afterwards.
But it wasn't always straightforward.
Thomas Heneage, one groom of the stool,
reported that, on one occasion,
his royal master had had to have an enema,
which was made from a pig's bladder filled with salt water,
that was inserted with a metal rod and left there for two hours,
after which, Heneage reported, the king had "enjoyed a fair siege."
It might not sound very appealing being groom of the stool,
but it was actually one of the most prestigious jobs at court.
That's because they got to spend more hours alone with the king
than anyone else.
They therefore become like informal advisors
or confidents to Henry,
and it's for that reason that the groom of the stool
was the most sought after position at Henry's court.
MURPHY: The first gentlemen in the privy chamber
is an officer called the groom of the stool,
which is basically the keeper of the king's toilet.
It doesn't sound a very high function,
but, of course, he's the one person
who can go with the king absolutely everywhere.
And wherever the king goes, he needs a clothes stool,
he needs his groom, and that gentlemen then becomes
the first gentlemen of the privy chamber.
And so he is dignified with a title that hides the function -
the function is then delegated.
But the important thing is that that officer is the one
who withdraws with the king when he sits on the toilet.
And a lot of business can be transacted in that private world.
"To His Majesty - many happy years."
Henry's formative years had shaped him
into the person that he had become.
As a young man, he was bold, outgoing and energetic.
He could also be charming, generous and kind.
But all of that was about to change.
In the next episode of The Private Lives of the Tudors,
we'll look at how a near-fatal accident
seemed to change the king forever from a loveable rogue
into a cruel and paranoid tyrant,
whose Kingdom was at the mercy of his failing health
and turbulent love life.
Captions by Ericsson Access Services (c) SBS Australia 2016