Notes

[1] All references in what follows to the Chamber Books are to this online edition: The Chamber Books of Henry VII and Henry VIII, 1485-1521, eds. M.M. Condon, S.P. Harper, L. Liddy, and S. Cunningham and J. Ross, www.tudorchamberbooks.org

[2] For a recent discussion see S.J. Gunn, ‘Henry VII in Context: Problems and Possibilities’, History, 92 (2007), 301-17

[3] F.G. Dietz, English Government Finance, 1485-1558 (Illnois, 1920); W.C. Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration, 1485-1547 (Baton Rouge, 1952); M.M. Condon, ‘An Anachronism with Intent? Henry VII’s Council Ordinances of 1491/2’, in R.A. Griffiths and J. Sherbourne, ed., Kings and Nobles in the Later Middle Ages. A Tribute to Charles Ross (Gloucester, 1986), 228-53.

[4] S.B. Chrimes, Henry VII (London, 1972; 2^nd edn, New Haven and London, 1999).

[5] Notably S. Cunningham, Henry VII (Abingdon, 2007); T. Penn, Winter King. The Dawn of Tudor England (London, 2011)

[6] For examples see S. Anglo, ‘The Court Festivals of Henry VII’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 43 (1960–1), 27–45; M.M. Condon, ‘Ruling Elites in the Reign of Henry VII’ in Patronage, Pedigree and Power in Later Medieval England, ed. C.D. Ross (Gloucester, 1979), 109-42; A. Goodman, ‘Henry VII and Christian Renewal’, Studies in Church History, 17 (1981), 115-25; S.J. Gunn, S.J., ‘The Courtiers of Henry VII’, English Historical Review, 108 (1993), 23-49; T.B. Pugh, ‘Henry VII and the English Nobility’ in G.W. Bernard, ed., The Tudor Nobility (Manchester, 1992), 49-110. The classic ‘Rapacity and Remorse’ debate covered both politics (to a point) and financial policy: G.R. Elton, ‘Henry VII: Rapacity and Remorse’, Historical Journal, 1 (1958), 21-39; idem, ‘Henry VII: a Restatement’, Historical Journal, 4 (1961), 1-29; J.P. Cooper, ‘Henry VII’s Last Years Reconsidered’, HJ, 2 (1959), 103-29.

[7] P.R. Cavill, The English Parliaments of Henry VII 1485-1504 (Oxford, 2009); S.J. Gunn, Henry VII’s New Men and the Making of Tudor England (Oxford, 2016); ‘Who was Henry VII?’, ed. M.R. Horowitz, Historical Research, 82:217 (2009), a special edition of the journal contains articles by a number of scholars on diplomacy, Household and chamber officials, urban policy, recognizances and loyalty and policy and prosecution among others.

[8] With some exceptions. notably including D. Starkey, Henry: Virtuous Prince (London, 2008).

[9] There is no work on Henry VIII between 1510 and 1530 to match the monumental study of Wolsey by Peter Gwyn: The King’s Cardinal. The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (London, 1990), nor the recent in-depth study by Diarmuid McCulloch, Thomas Cromwell. A Life (London, 2018). See also the recent G. Richardson, Wolsey (London, 2020) 

[10] For the wars of the first two decades see in particular S.J. Gunn, The English People at War in the Age of Henry VIII (Oxford, 2018), and for failed peace-making: G. Richardson, The Field of the Cloth of Gold (London and New Haven, 2013). For a selection of the scholarship on the problems of the second half of the 1520s and after, see G.W. Bernard, War, Taxation and Rebellion in Early Tudor England. Henry VIII, Wolsey and the Amicable Grant of 1525 (Brighton, 1986); idem, The King’s Reformation. Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church (London, 2005). It is worth noting for example that Kevin Sharpe’s Selling the Tudor Monarchy (London, 2009) does not deal with Henry VIII’s reign in detail until after the Reformation.

[11] A point made by C. Carpenter, ‘Henry VII and the English Polity’, in B. Thompson, ed., The Reign of Henry VII (Stamford, 1995), 12-13 and Gunn, ‘Henry VII in Context’, 302-3.

[12] Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. J.S. Brewer, J. Gairdner and R.S. Brodie (22 vols. in 35, London, 1862-1932); Memorials of King Henry VII, ed. J. Gairdner (Rolls Series, 10, 1858); Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Reign of Richard III and Henry VII, ed. J. Gairdner (2 vols., Rolls Series, 24, 1861-3); Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, ed. W. Campbell (2 vols., Rolls Series, 60, 1873-7); A. F. Pollard, The Reign of Henry VII from Contemporary Sources (3 vols, London, 1913-14),

[13] There has been little detailed analysis of the records of the Chamber. Chrimes, Henry VII, 332 summarises the surviving books known to him at that date and sets out a very brief description; Cunningham, Henry VII, 142-4 gives an overview of the Chamber system and books; Dietz, English Government Finance, chaps 3 & 4 and Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration, chapters 3 & 4 describe the system but not the documents in great detail. Cf also  B.P. Wolffe, ‘Henry VII’s Land Revenue and Chamber Finance’, English Historical Review, 79 (1964), 225-64. 

[14] For example, recurrent, if occasional, marginalia include a heavy cross.  Signifying mortuus est – he is dead. The inferred action required was to stop paying, or to find another way to recover a debt.

[15] Quote from Agnes Conway, Henry VII’s Relations with Scotland and Ireland, 1485-1498 (Cambridge, 1932), referring to her own ‘dry book’.

[16] Household Books is an elastic term, but its most common meaning is to ledgers that record daily expenditure on diet – food and drink – and other quotidian services essential to the smooth running of the aristocratic, clerical or gentry household.  See particularly C. M. Woolgar, ed., Household Accounts from Medieval England (2 vols., Records of Social and Economic History, New Series, XVII-XVIII, British Academy vols., 1992-3); C. M. Woolgar, The Great Household in Late Medieval England (London, 1999).  The British Library still uses the term ‘Household Books’ in its description of the Chamber manuscripts.

[17] Summary account in David Starkey, ‘Intimacy and Innovation: the rise of the Privy Chamber 1485-1547’, in David Starkey, The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (London, 1987), pp. 92-8.

[18] The National Archives [TNA], E101/413/2/2, front cover; similarly E101/413/2/3; E36/214, f. 1r, E36/215, f. 1r; E36/216 f. 1r.

[19] The locus classicus for this is T. F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England (6 vols, Manchester, 1920-1933), especially vol. 2.

[20] A. R. Myers, ed. The Household of Edward IV: the Black Book and the Ordinance of 1478 (Manchester, 1959), pp. 22-3, 121-3, 291.

[21] TNA, LC2/1, f. 67v.  The clerk was John Atrees.  Chamber Books of the 1490s yield the names of other junior clerks.

[22] TNA, LC2/1, f. 141r. The named clerks were John Trees or Atrees ‘yeoman’, Richard aLee ‘yeoman’, John Porthe, Thomas Alester, Richard Atrees, Robert Fowler, and John Jenyns ‘yeoman’.  John Daunce had by this date moved into the Exchequer as a teller, but retained a close connection with the Chamber office.

[23] For a recent example see Margaret M. Condon and Evan T. Jones, ‘William Weston, early voyager to the New World’, Historical Research, vol. 91 (2018), pp. 630-31.

[24] Although dated, and for all its many flaws, the summary account in Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration, pp. 236-248, remains useful as an overview.

[25] TNA, E36/210.

[26] Heron seems to have acted as Lovell’s deputy, taking on the whole business of the office, although ultimate responsibility would have remained with Lovell. Traditionally Heron is said to have become treasurer in 1492, based on Lovell’s supposed promotion to be treasurer of the household.  There is no evidence for either, and Lovell became treasurer of the household only in 1502 or 1503 after a long vacancy in which the cofferer had assumed the duties of the office.  Heron’s quarterly wages increased from 50s in 1491 to 66s 8d in 1495, remaining at that level until the end of September 1502. They leapt to £10 a quarter in December 1502: TNA, E101/413/2/2, f. 103v; E101/414/6, f. 12r; E101/415/3, f. 104r; British Library [BL], Add. MS 59899, f. 8r. By Michaelmas 1509 those wages had been raised to the very substantial sum of £25 a quarter, BL, Add. MS 21481, f. 13v, a level commanded by subsequent treasurers until at least mid-century.  For the argument for the 1492 date, A. P. Newton, The King’s Chamber under the early Tudors’, The English Historical Review, vol. 32 (1917), p. 355; cf. Steven Gunn, ‘Sir Thomas Lovell (c.1449-1524): a new man in a new Monarchy?’ in John L. Watts, ed., The End of the Middle Ages? (Stroud, 1998), pp. 129-131.

[27] TNA, E101/413/2/1, f. 31A.  The scraps were discovered in the course of the Winchester Project.

[28] TNA, E101/413/2/1, f. 1r.   This seems the most likely reading, although ‘boke’ could also refer to an audited summary account.

[29] They include lands forfeited for treason, the Queen’s lands after her death in 1503, and lands fallen in for failure of heirs.

[30] The literature on bonds and recognisances is extensive but see, for example, S. Cunningham, ‘Loyalty and the usurper: recognizances, the council and allegiance under Henry VII’, Historical Research,vol. 82 (2009), pp. 459-81; C. J. Harrison, ‘The Petition of Edmund Dudley’, English Historical Review, Vol. 87 (1972), pp. 82-99; Gunn, Henry VII’s New Men, pp. 77-83; Mark R. Horowitz, ‘Policy and prosecution in the reign of Henry VII’, Historical Research,vol. 82 (2009), pp. 412-58.

[31] The signatures appear to be batched. However, on at least one occasion Heron had to format an entry around the king’s sprawling sign manual already written in the book: TNA, E101/413/2/3, f. 17v. 

[32] TNA, E101/413/2/3, ff. 1r-2v.  The king’s eldest daughter, Margaret, married James IV by proxy on 25 January 1503 and in person on 8 August 1503.  Similar entries were made in the now lost book for 1505-1509: cf. British Library [BL], Add. MS 21481, ff. 348r, v.

[33] See David Grummitt, ‘Henry VII, Chamber Finance and the “New Monarchy”: some new Evidence’, Historical Research, vol. 72 (1999), pp. 229-43.  Grummitt does not, however, mention that Heron must also have used the original bills held in the Office – even allowing for the substitution of English for the Latin of the clerks’ accounts, there is some variation in the detail provided by Heron to the king.  Grummitt’s account was convincingly modified by David Starkey in a paper delivered at the Chamber Book Conference held at the University of Winchester 28-30 August 2018: hereafter cited as Starkey, ‘King, Court and Chamber’. The authors thank Dr. Starkey for sharing a text version of his presentation.

[34] For example, J. S. Brewer’s Introduction to the first edition of Letters and Papers tabulated calculations made from the tellers rolls of the Exchequer of transfers of money to the Chamber 1509-1514.  Reprinted  2^nd edn., Vol. 1 pt 3, pp. lxxii-iv.

[35] TNA, E36/215, p. 577; BL, Add. MS 21481, f. 288r.  The following book, for 1518-21, does not include a final balance, possibly a consequence of John Heron’s failing health.

[36] See Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration,pp. 228-9, 478-83; Statutes of the Realm , vol. 3, p. 2 (1 Hen. 8 c.3); pp. 68-73  (4 Hen. 8 c.18).  The act of 1512, which established the Court of General Surveyors, included a clause that formally appointed Heron as Treasurer of the Chamber.  See also the long list of statutes in Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration, pp. 517-22, although these cover a wider range of topics. Dietz, English Government Finance, pp. 82-4, essayed a detailed breakdown of receipts for 1504-5,

[37] TNA, E36/216, f. 132r.  The two pages of payments following are of regular monthly payments of wages, plus a substantial transfer in gold of £2,500 to the king.

[38] A less comprehensive series of entries was recorded in the back of the book, but the Project’s editor of that manuscript reports that it contains no additional material. A second notebook, now BL, Add. MS 7100, contains similar transcripts from the reign of Henry VIII.

[39] Apart from Ord’s obvious and not-so-obvious errors, he failed to understand the dating of entries in the books. Unless written as a sequence of dates these are, for the reign of Henry VII, most usually dated by week (or part of week) ending, not week beginning.

[40] TNA, E101/413/2/1 f. 28r, E101/413/2/2 f. 1r.  Receipts were totalled and charged only to 12 September 1489.

[41] E101/413/2/2, [unnumbered] f. 103v.  Modern foliation remarks folio 93 as the end of the book, and does not number the blank pages following.  The list is noticed by Frederick Dietz, but without document reference or discussion, other than the total and that the payments included ‘Espies’: Dietz, English Government Finance 1485-1558, p. 84.

[42] The process was explored in depth in by David Starkey in his paper, ‘King, Court and Chamber’ delivered to the 2018 Chamber Book Conference.

[43] The Privy Purse Expenses of Henry the Eighth, ed. Nicholas Harris Nicolas (London, 1827), now BL, Add. MS 20030;  abstracted in Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, vol. 5., pp. 747-62.David Starkey has shown that this is an account of Henry Norris, the Groom of the Stool and not, as Richardson believed, of the treasurer of the Chamber: Starkey, ‘Intimacy and innovation’, pp.94-5. Former owners of the manuscript include Sir Orlando Bridgeman (1606-1674), who obtained it ‘by chance’, Peter Le Neve (1661-1729), and a Chancery Lane bookseller, William Pickering (1796-1854).

[44] BL, Add. MS 21480.  The source books are TNA, E101/415/3 and BL, Add. MS 59899.

[45] TNA, E36/214-216.  E36/215 is the copy ledger from BL Add. MS 21481.  The editors on the Winchester project discussed, and thought it possible, that the copies were created by dictation from the master ledger.  There is no proof either way.  For an annotation by Henry VII, TNA, E36/214, f. 191v (p. 394).

[46] TNA, E36/215.

[47] TNA, E36/214, E36/216.

[48] The latest marginalia concerning payments made are for February 1507.  It may be coincidence, but this is just before the king’s serious illness of March 1507.

[49] In the 1490s Heron may have travelled with the king, although periodic changes in handwriting in the books suggest that at times a clerk travelled in his place.  On the absences and progresses of 1500, 1501 and 1502 daily expenditure was recorded in riding books, which have not survived, but were audited en bloc at the same time as the ledgers.  The Books of Payments record only the weekly totals.  One of Heron’s servants regularly served as a clerk at court, and was supplied from the Jewel House treasury with sufficient cash to meet casual payments authorised by the king.

[50] Craven Ord, in his notebook, forlornly noticed ‘No more books’ after his last entry for 27 September 1505: BL, Add. MS 7099, p. 96.   Perhaps fortunately, he seems to have been unaware of the volume then in the custody of the Chamberlains of the Exchequer of Receipt, and now TNA, E36/214. 

[51] TNA, E36/214.

[52] The term used by the clerks was ‘labells’.  The Payments section, always at the beginning, did not require a label.

[53] E.g. TNA, E101/414/6, f. 131r; E101/414/16, ff. 117r, 124r.

[54] The section order has been homogenised for purposes of comparison.  All the books, however, place the payments first.

[55] Both obligations and recognisances were bonds. Mark Horowitz distinguished the latter as ‘an obligation of record’ entered into before a court or record or authorised official: Horowitz, ‘Policy and Prosecution’, p. 414. This slightly puts the cart before the horse although a number of the recognisances in the Chamber Books were indeed enrolled in Chancery to be ‘of record’. Horowitz acknowledges that there are other definitions.  It would be unwise to be dogmatic, and his extended descriptions, with examples, are helpful.

[56] S. J. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk 1484-1545 (Oxford, 1988), pp. 35-8, 59-62.  Although mostly concerned with a slightly later date, R. B. Outhwaite, ‘The Trials of Foreign Borrowing: the English Crown and the Antwerp Money Market in the Mid-Sixteenth Century’, Economic History Review (1966), pp. 289-305 is useful, as is the short section dealing with Richard Gresham, the father of Thomas Gresham, in John Guy, Gresham’s Law: the Life and World of Queen Elizabeth I”s Banker (London, 2019), pp. 8-11; for Italian merchants, M. E. Bratchel, ‘Italian Merchant Organization and Business Relationships in Early Tudor London’, The Journal of European Economic History, vol. 7 (1978), pp. 5-32.  For Henry VII and the alum trade, Penn, Winter King, pp. 201-4, 250-2.

[57] TNA, E36/212-3, passim. 

[58] For a preliminary survey of the cancellation of bonds and recognisances, Horowitz, ‘Policy and prosecution’, pp. 450-58.

[59] For the signatures for Tallies and Debts written in 1509 at the bottom of the designated initial section leaves as a direction to insert a bookmark tag, BL, MS Add. 21481, ff. 272r, 282r.

[60] TNA, E36/215 p. 293.

[61] BL, Add. MS 21481, ff. 146v-147r.  This manuscript has been rebound at least twice in library bindings, and the gatherings are now mounted on paper guards.

[62] Once a sum due under the terms of an obligation had been paid in full, the written instrument should have been returned to the debtor.  If the deed had also been enrolled on the Close Rolls of Chancery, then the Master of the Rolls was informed, and that copy of the instrument cancelled.

[63] For the rebellions of 1497, Ian Arthurson, The Perkin Warbeck Conspiracy  1491-1499 (Stroud, 1994).

[64] TNA, E101/414/16, f. 80v(3); E101/415/3, f. 141r; indenture enrolled on the Close Rolls of Chancery: Calendar of Close Rolls 1485-1500, pp. 321-2.

[65] TNA, E101/414/6, fos 91(3)v-92v (Memoranda); fos 100v-97r (Obligations).  The reason for the bizarre numbering is that the modern foliation of the books ignored blank pages.  An earlier, but still nineteenth or twentieth century, foliation correctly included them, but has since largely been erased, contrary to then accepted Public Record Office practice.  It has not proved possible to re-foliate.  Such evidence of earlier foliation as is visible, or can safely be inferred, has been preserved in the transcripts.

[66] One example of early archival use is a search by one of John Heron’s clerks for evidence of payment for land acquired for the Richmond friars.  The clerk left behind his note to himself, and it remains interleaved in the Book of Payments for 1497-99, TNA, E101/414/16, fo 80r(4); cf. TNA, E101/415/3, f. 95v, which is the ‘wrong’ date but would match the description of the query.  Building works, this time at Greenwich, also attracted the attention of a later researcher, who drew a manicule (a printer’s finger) as a Nota bene against two entries referring to building work done at Greenwich.  It is undatable, but evidence of later use, TNA, E101/415/3, ff. 13v, 23v.

[67]  TNA, E36/214, f. 85v, cited Simon Thurley, Houses of Power (London, 2017) p. 85 but with an incorrect reference; John Bayley, the History and Antiquities of the Tower of London (2 vols, 1821), vol. 1, p. xxxiii.

[68] It was not a foolproof system.  As already noted, both the 1505-9 and the 1518-21 books were not fully updated.  Office files might have supplied the deficiency, but it would have been a painful process.

[69] The location was explored in David Starkey’s 2018 conference paper, ‘King, Court and Chamber’.

[70] BL, Add. MS 21481, ff. 4v, 6r.

[71] G. R. Elton, Star Chamber Stories (London, 1958), pp. 114-146; Starkey, ‘King, Court and Chamber’; TNA, SP1/121, f. 211.

[72] Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration, p. 161.

[73] Fig. 1 and TNA, E101/413/2/2.  In the Books of Payments the indexes are written on blank leaves within the books; that for the Book of Receipts is now a supplementary pamphlet.

[74] TNA, E36/214-6, E36/123. That other of the clerks’ rough accounts are classed as records of the King’s Remembrancer is not significant.  The record class E101 is an artificial creation, including, if often unrecognised, records properly belonging to other departments of the Exchequer, including the Treasury of the Exchequer of Receipt. By and large it is doubly miscellaneous- a class of ‘Miscellaneous Accounts’ created from the ‘Ancient Miscellanea’ of the Exchequer.

[75] See for example Elizabeth M. Hallam, ‘Problems with record keeping in early eighteenth century London: some pictorial representations of the state paper office, 1705-1706’, Journal of the Society of Archivists, Vol. 6 (1979), pp. 219-22; Neville Williams, ‘The work of Peter Le Neve at the Chapter House, Westminster, Journal. Soc. Archivists vol. 1 (1957), pp. 125-31; M. M. Condon and Elizabeth M. Hallam, ‘Government Printing of the Public Records in the eighteenth century’, Journal. Soc. Archivists vol. 7 (1984), pp. 352-7, 364-6.

[76] George Chalmers, An Apology for the Believers in the Shakespeare Papers (London, 1797), Appendix III, pp. 616-7; N. W. Bawcutt, ‘Craven Ord Transcripts of Sir Henry Herbert’s Office Book in the Folger Shakespeare Library’, English Literary Renaissance, vol. 14 (1984), p. 85.  All the entries cited by Chalmers can be found in BL Add. MS 7099.

[77] Robert Henry, The History of Great Britain (3^rd edn, 12 vols.), vol. 12, pp. 465-8, 483.

[78] For Astle, Nigel Ramsay, ‘Astle, Thomas (1735-1803), ODNB. Henry VII’s will was one of several royal wills stored in the Treasury of the Receipt.

[79] For Savernake, E36/216, ff. 24r, 27v; Henry, History, p. 465.

[80] Henry, History, pp. 465, 466. Under the pandemic restraints of 2020, it has not been possible to check for the list in the two notebooks now in the British Library, BL, Add. MSS 7099, 7100. 

[81] The Public Advantages of entrusting the records of the Exchequer….to the Irresponsible Custody of the King’s Remembrancer, determined by the present condition of that Officer’s own Records.  In a letter addressed to the Secretary of the Record Commission.  By a Member of the Temple (Henry Butterworth, London, 1834).  The pamphlet usefully quotes extracts from the various reports of the Record Commissioners – which were then weaponised to further the author’s arguments.

[82] Public Advantages, passim; Select Committee on the Management and Affairs of the Record Commission, ed. Charles Buller (House of Commons Report, 1836).

[83] Frank Milne, ‘Some Exchequer Officials of the XVIIIth century’, Home Counties Magazine, vol 3 (1901), pp. 278, 280; Royal Kalendar and Court Register (an annual series); for the Exchequer Office in the eighteenth century, R. M. Ball, ‘The King’s Remembrancer’s Office in the eighteenth century’, The Journal of Legal History, vol. 11 (1990), pp. 90-113.  G. H. Martin, ‘Ord, Craven (bap. 1755, d. 1832), ODNB, ignores Ord’s Exchequer career.

[84] BL, Add. MS 21480, 21481.

[85] Nigel Ramsay, ‘The Tomb of Richard III’, The Ricardian, vol. 29 (2019).  BL, Add. MS 59900, which includes another paste-down naming Martin, would also be important for comparative purposes and is less physically compromised than BL, Add. MSS 21480 and 21481.  Blank folios were removed from all three books before they were bound in hard covers.

[86] The editors of the Tudor volumes of the History of the Kings Works were given rare permission.

[87] BL, Add. MSS 59899, 59900.

[88] General Report from the Commissioners on Public Records (1837), p. 158.

[89] BL, Add. MSS 7099, 7100.

[90] Samuel Bentley, ed. ‘Extracts from the Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry the Seventh, from December Anno 7, 1491, to March Anno 20, 1505’, Excerpta Historica, or Illustrations of English History (London, 1833), pp. 85-133;Pollard, Reign of Henry VII from Contemporary Sources, vol. 2, pp. 227-32.

[91] Extracts from the books and warrants were, however, utilised in the Introduction to the first edition. This was reprinted in Vol. 1 part 3 of the second: Letters and Papers, vol. 1 pt. 3, pp. lvi, lxv.

[92] Henry Harrisse, John Cabot, the Discoverer of North-America, and Sebastian his Son (London, 1896), pp. 152, 399.

[93] A. P. Newton, ‘The King’s Chamber under the Early Tudors’, English Historical Review, vol. 32 (1917), pp. 348-72; Dietz, English Government Finance, Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration.

[94] Historical Research, Vol. 82, August 2009, guest edited Mark R. Horowitz.

[95] TNA, E36/210.

[96] In June 1503 he was reappointed as receiver-general of the lands previously held by the deceased queen: Calendar of Patent Rolls 1494-1509, p. 312.

[97] All four books were among those repaired and rebound under the direction of John Caley and the Record Commissioners 1819-1832: General Report from the Commissioners on Public Records (London, 1837), pp. 12–14.  It is assumed that the account described as being 15 Henry VIII is actually the account for Elizabeth of York 17-18 Henry VII.  A general list includes also a number of other documents described as Household Books: a description too vague to be useful: General Report (1837), pp. 19-24.

[98] Nicholas Harris Nicolas, ed., Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York (London, 1830). The publication is not noticed in Colin Lee, ‘Nicolas, Sir Nicholas Harris (1799-1848), ODNB. The published volume included also a partial transcript of the text of Piers Curteys’s Great Wardrobe Account for Easter to Michaelmas 1480, Bl, Harleian MS 4780.  Nicolas explained in his Introduction his reason for omitting parts of the Wardrobe manuscript, as well as drawing attention to some of the details that he found interesting.  The manuscript original was, of course, yet another escapee from official custody. For the bookseller and antiquarian publisher of Nicolas’s work, Bernard Warrington, ‘Pickering, William (1796-1854)’, ODNB.

[99] Bentley, ed. Excerpta Historica, pp. 85-133.  Nicolas seems to have attempted to access the original books.  But although he correctly inferred that they were likely to be in the custody of the King’s Remembrancer, he reported that the books were ‘not to be found’: Nicholas Harris Nicholas, Observations on the State of Historical Literature (London, 1830),p. 7.  Bentley’s un-named editor of the Henry VII text too, tried to trace the original books, but concluded that they were likely to be ‘in some of the numerous bags that are lying unarranged in Westminster Hall’.  It seems a reasonable guess that the editor was Nicolas.

[100] Published Frederick Muller, London, 1972.

[101] Among the various revenues listed, ‘Aurum Reginae’, Queen’s Gold, may need further explanation, although in 1502-3 it was a nil return.  It was a 10% duty supplementary to and charged on voluntary fines paid to the king for matters of privilege, such as sales of wards, or fines for not receiving the order of knighthood.  Both those revenues had, under Henry VII, been taken into the Chamber, and there are thus very few writs surviving for levy of the tax: see TNA, E5/566 and, for a history of the levy, William Prynne, Aurum Reginae (London, 1668).   After a long discourse on the levy as enjoyed by Elizabeth Woodville, queen of Edward IV, Prynne reported that he could find ‘little of moment’ for the reign of Henry VII, transcribing only the letters patent for the appointment of the first of Elizabeth of York’s receivers, Edmund Chaderton, in 1488: Prynne, Aurum Reginae, p. 120.

[102] Nicolas, Privy Purse Expenses, pp. 107-111.  It is not clear whether Nicolas was given direct access to the manuscript book.  His trenchant criticism of the practices of the various record offices was published in the same year, 1830: although he allowed that a man known to the Keeper of the Chapter House records might be permitted limited access rather than being obliged to pay a clerk for copies: Nicolas, Observations, pp. 8-12, 44-70.

[103] The gutter and the margins of the book are badly damaged throughout – by water, clumsy repair, and trimming by the binder.  The marginalia are often barely visible to the naked eye, and were not initially noticed.

[104] There are several examples for earlier queens in the record class TNA, E101.

[105] The one notation that may need explanation is ‘forinseca’, ‘foreign’ expenses seen as tangential to the household or the immediate needs of the queen.  They include costs of the maintenance and repair of means of transport, including carts and the queen’s barge, and clothes made for the young sons of the queen’s sister, Katharine, the wife of William Courtenay.

[106] The household included Elizabeth’s bastard half-brother Arthur, the future lord Lisle: TNA, E36/210, p. 92.

[107] The substantial payment of £333 6s 8d to John Heron recorded in the queen’s book is a part repayment on one such loan, dated by the king’s books to 5 December 1502: TNA, E36/210, p. 75; E101/413/2/3, f. 13v; BL, Add. MS 59899, f. 185r.  The volume that goes by Bentley’s name was actually the work of several scholars, and was issued initially in parts.

[108] For the king’s Itinerary, M. M. Condon, ‘Itinerary of Henry VII 1485-1509’ (in preparation).

[109] This audit was explored in depth in David Starkey, in his 2018 Winchester presentation, ‘King, Court and Chamber’.

[110] TNA, E36/210, pp. 29-54.  She continued to sign individual bills in order to authorise them for payment.

[111] TNA, E36/210, p. 54.  John Grice was also the king’s apothecary.  Three days later Grice’s servant, who had presumably brought the potions, was rewarded with 16s ‘towardes his wedding gowne’: TNA, E36/210, p. 55

[112] TNA, E101/415/3, f. 103r.  It would have been a round journey of little more than ten miles.

[113] A valor of the lands was drawn up in preparation after the queen’s death.  The king’s books show that on 4 April Decons paid over to John Heron the small balance remaining on his accounts: TNA, E101/413/2/3, f. 26v.   Subsequent declared accounts of the ‘Revenues of Lands’ include the lands of the Queen: TNA, E36/212, 213.

[114] TNA, E36/210, p. 14.

[115] TNA, E101/415/3, ff. 93r, 249v-250r.

[116] Mary Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest (6 vols, 1849-55, reissued London, 1857), vols. 3-4; Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest (new edn. in 6 vols), vol. 2 (George Bell, 1909), pp. 82-3 [vol iv and p. 48 in the 1857 edition].

[117] S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII (London, 1972); H. M. Colvin et al, History of the King’s Works, vol. IV (London, 1982), pp. 50-2.  Remedied for Baynards Castle in Thurley, Houses of Power, pp. 55-6, but without detail.

[118] David MacGibbon cited the book in his 1938 biography of Elizabeth Woodville, the queen’s mother (d. 1492). He also found much of direct interest in the account of Elizabeth Woodville’s receiver general, John Forster, for 6-7 Edward IV: TNA, E36/207.

[119] Under the constraints of the pandemic year 2020 it has not proved possible to consult individual publications for the use of the Queen’s Book.  Retha Warnicke, ‘Queenship: Politics and Gender in Tudor England’ History Compass,vol. 4 (2006), pp. 203-27 is a useful general survey covering some of the main tropes and literature prior to 2006.   There have been further contributions since including Arlene Okerlund, Elizabeth of York (Basingstoke, 2009).  Okerlund compiled an itinerary 1502-3 based on the Queen’s Book, noted Thurley, Houses of Power, p. 422.

[120] For instance, TNA, E101/414/16, ff.18v-22r, 58r – 60v; E101/415/3, ff.44r-49v; 85v – 89v; BL. Add. Ms. 59899, ff.14r-19r.

[121] TNA, E36/214, ff. 73v, 123r, 162, 165v; E36/215, ff.114, 175, 238, 303, 305, 367, 511; BL. Add. Ms. 21481, ff.88r, 151r, 152r, 183r; J.B. Trapp, ‘Colet, John’, ODNB

[122] Lisa Liddy, ‘The Maundy Coins of Henry VII and Henry VIII’, blog (published April 2017), The Maundy Coins of Henry VII and Henry VIII – Tudor Chamber Books

[123] TNA, E101/414/6, f.25r.

[124] TNA, E101/414/6, ff.23r, 66r; E101/414/16, ff.23v, 60v-61r; E101/415/3, 19v etc.

[125] For instance, TNA, E36/210, f. 82; Thurley, Houses of Power, p.70

[126] BL. Add. Ms. 59899, ff. 7v, 40r, 41v; Thurley, Houses of Power,p.71.

[127] A Handbook of Dates, ed. C.R.Cheney and Michael Jones (Cambridge, 1945, revised 2000), pp.98-99.

[128] It is likely that care was taken to avoid Lent because of the ecclesiastical prohibition on the taking of oaths during this period: Handbook of Dates, p.99.

[129] Handbook of Dates, p.99.

[130] This increased to 13s. 4d. at Christmas and Easter (though not habitually other feast days), e.g. TNA, E101/414/6, ff.26v, 65r; E101/415/3, f.39v; E36/215, f.372. There were odd exceptions to this, such as the 33s 4d offered on ‘twelft day’ in 1496 (TNA, E101/414/6, f.15r), but these are rare. The five principal feast days (Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Whitsun and All Saints) would have been occasions where the king and queen wore their crowns and robes of state in the Chapel Royal. Fiona Kisby, ‘Courtiers in the Community: the Musicians of the Royal Household Chapel in Early Tudor Westminster’, in Thompson, ed. The Reign of Henry VII, p.239.

[131] As opposed to daily Mass, which he heard in his Privy Closet: Fiona Kisby, ‘Courtiers in the Community’, p.238

[132] Kisby, ‘Courtiers in the Community’, p.234. An usher would also have made offerings for the king at churches visited on progress, for example see 1498: TNA, E101/414/16, f.24v.

[133] TNA, E36/214, ff.143v-150v.

[134] J. Hughes, ‘Charles Somerset, 1^st Earl of Worcester’, ODNB

[135] Memorials, pp.126-8.

[136] In 1496 along the king gave rewards and alms to a number of friars from the continent (TNA, E101/414/6, ff.14v, 18r, 31v, 41r, 42r, 45v, 51r, 56r. In addition, 2 friars from India received 40s (TNA, E101/414/6, ff.4r.

[137] TNA, E101/414/6, f.29, 70v, 74r; E101/414/16, f.29r; BL, Add Ms. 59899, f.4r. St George’s is in the queen’s book also – E36/210, f.32, and also received occasional payments from Henry VIII of the same amount, E36/215, f.512; E36/216, f.132r.

[138] TNA, E101/415/3, f.23v, 55v; BL, Add MS. 59899, f.92r; TNA, E36/214, ff.43v, 86v, 136r

[139] TNA, E101/414/6, f.42r; E101/415/3, f.39r; BL, Add Ms. 21481, f.197r ‘to the fraternite of saint Dunstance in the west in London upon a warraunt dormaunte at the fest of advincula sancti Petri’. For the king’s relationship with the Goldsmiths’ Company see S. Harper, ‘London and the Crown in the Reign of Henry VII’ (unpublished PhD thesis, London, 2015), pp.136-148.

[140] TNA, E101/414/6, 50r; E101/415/3, f.34v. The queen also favoured the fraternity of Christ Church at St. Sepulchre: E36/210, f.33.

[141] BL, Add Ms. 59899, f.4v

[142] E.g. BL. Add. Ms. 59899, f.13r.

[143] For instance, TNA, E101/414/6, ff.51r, 66r, 70v, 75r, 84r; E101/414/16, ff.4v, 24v, 25v, 44r, 56v; Thurley, Houses of Power, pp. 66-67.

[144] TNA, E101/415/3, f.76r, 94v, 101r; BL. Add. Ms. 59899, ff.13v, 35v, 39r. The works came to a close in 1506: TNA, E36/214, f.28r.

[145] TNA, E36/214, ff.74v, 88r, 123r, 164r.

[146] TNA, E36/214, f.123v, 162r,163r.

[147] Margaret Condon, ‘God Save the King! Piety, Propaganda and the Perpetual Memorial’, Westminster Abbey: The Lady Chapel of Henry VII, ed. Tim Tatton Brown and Richard Mortimer (Woodbridge, 2003), pp.59-97.

[148] Ibid, p.60.

[149] TNA, E101/415/3, ff.60r, 74r, 81r, 88r, 93r.

[150] BL. Add. MS. 59899, ff.7v; Condon, ‘God Save the King!’, pp.59-97; B. Harvey, Westminster Abbey and Its Estates in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1977), 198-202, 425-7.

[151] BL. Add.Ms.59899, f.11r.

[152] Condon, ‘God Save the King’ p.60.

[153] BL.Add.Ms.59899, ff.3r, 11r, 18r.

[154] Condon, ‘’God Save the King!’, p.62.

[155] BL. Add. Ms.59899, f.62r.

[156] BL. Add. MS.59899, ff.15r, 24r. TNA, LC2/1, ff.59r-79v.

[157] BL. Add. Ms.59899, f.20v. It is to be noted that other expenses for this event were met by the Exchequer, and the total costs were likely to exceed the £650 paid by the Exchequer for the funeral of the princess Elizabeth in 1495. TNA, E404/82, warrants dated 23 and 26 October 1495.

[158] TNA, E36/215, f.105.

[159] Bl. Add. Ms. 7099, f.23; TNA, E101/415/3, f.6r.

[160] TNA, E36/215, f.253.

[161] Anglo, ‘Court Festivals of Henry VII’, pp. 12-45

[162] Haulte probably organised such events before this date, but this is the first for which we have evidence. BL Add. Ms. 7099, ff.21, 32; TNA, E101/414/6, ff.9r, 13r, 16v, 54v, 60r; E101/414/16, ff. 7r, 15r, 47r, 58r; E101/415/3, ff.12r.

[163] Calendar of Patent Rolls,1494-1509, p.109; For tennis and other activities see BL. Add. Ms. 7099, f3; TNA, E101/414/6, ff.85r, 87r; E101/415/3, ff.33r, 58r. He also oversaw the building works at Woodstock between 1494 and 1500: BL. Add. Ms.7099, 26, 27; TNA, E101/414/6, ff. 27v, 37r, 40r, 45r, 82r, 86r, 90r; E101/414/16, ff.4r, 26v, 32r, 41v, 58r, 66r.  Both of these duties appear to have ceased in 1500, and he may have been assigned other duties. After 1502 he occasionally received payment ‘opon his bille’ (E101/415/3, f.57v, 58r) and appears performing sundry duties in the Queen’s payment book in 1502 (E36/210, ff.2, 49). He was listed among the king’s esquires at the Queen’s funeral (TNA, LC 2/1, f.71r). The only payment to him thereafter was 40s in 1506 for a ‘Frenche broke [sic]’, and he is not listed as attendant at the king’s funeral, suggesting that he had withdrawn from the court, perhaps to take up in situ the stewardship of the lordship of Multon, which had been granted to him in the aforesaid Patent Roll entry upon the death of one James Harynton.

[164] TNA, E101/414/6, ff.13r, 13v, 57v, 58r

[165] TNA, E101/414/6, ff.13v, 57v.

[166] E.g. TNA, E101/414/6, ff.57v-58v.

[167] TNA, E101/415/3, f.74r; BL. Add. MS.59899, f.7v.

[168] E.g. TNA, E101/415/3, f.53, 79r; E36/214, f.75r.

[169] The Great Chronicle of London, eds. A.D. Thomas and I.H. Thornley (London, 1938), p.251.

[170] Ibid.

[171] For example, TNA, E101/414/6, ff.15v, 58r; BL. Add. Ms. 59899, f.10r.

[172] For example, in 1498 when Haunsse the falconer died, TNA, E101/414/16, f.42r.

[173] E.g. TNA, E101/414/16, ff.39v, 42r; E101/415/3, ff.31r, 32r, 33r; E36/214, ff. 52r, 53r, 103v.

[174] TNA, E36/214, f.88v

[175] TNA, E101/415/3, f.26v.

[176] TNA, E101/414/16, f.33r.

[177] TNA, E101/414/16, f.59r.

[178] E.g. TNA, E101/414/6, ff.15v, 19r, 68v, 90r; E101/414/16, 62r; E36/214, ff.44v, 47v, 48v, 151r.

[179] TNA, E101/414/6, f.31v.

[180] TNA, E101/415/3, f.85v.

[181] BL. Add. Ms. 7099, f.24; TNA, E101/414/6, f.68v; E101/415/3, f.79v.

[182] BL. Add. Ms. 7099, f.23; TNA, E101/414/6, ff.81r, 85r, 87r; E101/414/16, 14r.

[183] BL. Add. Ms. 7099, f.19; TNA, E101/414/16, f.67r.

[184] TNA, E101/414/16, f.27r.

[185] TNA, E36/216, ff.31v, 34r, 35v.; Starkey, ‘Intimacy and innovation’, pp.94-5.

[186] Most recently, in Penn, Winter King and Sean Cunningham, Prince Arthur (Stroud, 2016).

[187] Starkey, Henry: Virtuous Prince; G.W. Bernard, ‘The Rise of Sir William Compton, Early Tudor Courtier’, English Historical Review, 96 (1981), 754-77; Gunn, Charles Brandon.

[188] Ralph Griffiths and Roger Thomas, The Making of the Tudor Dynasty (Gloucester, 1985).

[189] The payments average 66s 8d per year and are paid once a term: TNA, E101/414/6, ff.15v, 36r, 64v; E101/414/16, ff.27r, 59v; E101/415/3, f.25v.

[190] TNA, E101/415/3, f.60r.

[191] TNA, E101/414/6, ff.87r; E101/414/16, ff.17r; E101/415/3, ff.7r, 13r, 72r; Bl. Add. Ms. 59899, 7v, 41v, 53r, 95r; TNA, E36/214, ff. 13r, 62r, 146v.  It is probable that it is he, not Henry Bougham, who is the godson who receives 20s and 40s in 1493 and 1497 respectively – BL. Add. Ms.7099, f.9; TNA, E101/414/6, 75r.

[192] TNA, LC2/1, f.127v; He was awarded an annuity of 20 marks p.a. in November 1510: ‘Henry VIII: November 1510’, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 1, 1509-1514, ed. J S Brewer (London, 1920), no. 632 (41).

[193] TNA, E101/414/6, ff.43r, 90v; E101/414/16, ff.22v; E101/415/3, ff.26r, 86r; BL. Add. Ms.59899, ff.30r, 32v, 62v; E36/214, f.42r. Two years in which Herbert did not send his customary gift were 1498, when the king was on progress in August, and 1502, when the king visited Herbert on his summer progress.

[194] There is no certain evidence of Herbert’s involvement at Bosworth, though Virgil stated that Herbert was an influencing factor in Henry’s decision to land in Wales in 1485, ‘it was thought to stand with their profit if by affinity they could draw into surety of that Walter Herbert’, Polydore Vergil, Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History, ed. Henry Ellis, Camden Soc., 1^st ser., xxix (London, 1844) p.196.

[195] It is to be noted that Herbert also sent the king New Year gifts, usually something Welsh such as Methclen, Bl. Add. Ms. 59899, f.45r.

[196] Cunningham, Henry VII, p.11.

[197] TNA, E404/79.

[198] Griffiths and Thomas, Making of the Tudor Dynasty, 59.

[199] TNA, E36/210, ff.46-55; E404/84.

[200] TNA, E36/210, ff.46-55; G. Kipling, ‘The Receyt of the Lady Katheryne’, Early English Text Society, no.296 (Oxford, 1990), 81.

[201] TNA, E101/414/6, ff.29v, 33r, 36v

[202] TNA, E36/214, f.25v.

[203] E.g. TNA, E101/414/6, f.12r & E36/215, p.39.

[204] The career of John Blanke, ‘the blacke trumpet’, is instructive here. He served his probation in 1507 and graduated onto full pay in 1508: TNA, E36/214, ff.109r, 113r, 118r, 120v, 124r, 129v, 131r, 135r, 139v, 142r, 146v, 149v

[205] E.g, TNA, E36/214, ff. 30r, 42r, 58v, 85r.

[206] TNA, E101/414/6, f.12r; BL. Add. Ms. 59899, ff. 65v,88v, 91v.

[207] TNA, E101/413/2/1, f.17v; E101/413/2/2, ff. 6r, 6v, 8r, 9v, 10v, 15v, 63v 102v.

[208] TNA, E101/414/6, ff.28r, 36v, 43r, 63r; E101/415/3, f.35v; BL., Add. Ms. 59899, ff.84v, 86v; Add. Ms. 21480, f. 14r; TNA, E36/214, ff. 46v, 97r, 102v, 115v, 119v; E36/215, f. 57; BL, Add. Ms. 21481, ff.29r, 59r; TNA, E36/215, f.117; E36/216, ff.74r, 119r.   

[209] TNA, E101/414/6, f.12r.

[210] Starkey, ‘The King’s Privy Chamber’, 50.

[211] TNA, E101/414/6, ff. 9r, 16r, 28r, 37r, 45v, 53r, 58r, 74v; E101/414/16, ffs. 20r, 23r, 43r, 54r, 59v, 64r, 65v.

[212] L&P, I, no. 20, f.121.

[213] TNA, E101/414/16, f.65v; E36/215, f.26.

[214] He ended up paying £50: Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 4, 1524-1530, ed. J S Brewer (London, 1875), nos. 136, 2972. He was dismissed from his position in the Ewery not long afterwards. (no. 2060).

[215] Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 20 Part 2, August-December 1545, ed. James Gairdner and R H Brodie (London, 1907), no. 1045, f.19. 

[216] Not to be confused with the ‘Petit John’, also a Breton, who was executed 2 Feb 1495 for being part of the household plot which saw Sir William Stanley beheaded:  Great Chronicle of London, ed. Thomas and Thornley, pp.256-7. Petit John Pregeant received a total of £6 13s 2d between December 1495 and July 1496, and payments to him tend to appear within lists of household men receiving rewards. TNA, E101/414/6, ff.13r, 23v, 31v, 38v.

[217] Wulf may have been a nickname, as there is no ‘Wulf’ listed among the king’s household at the royal funerals at the end of the 1490s and early 1500s. He received a quarterly salary of 100s from January 1495 – August 1496 (though his first payment was for the entire year of 1495), more than either Barbour or Heron, who received 66s 8d each. It is possible that he was only a long term visitor to the court, as his employment ended around the same time that an embassy arrived from Denmark, and he may have returned to his native country with the ambassadors. He may have been the same Wulff that received a payment for his services as a physician in February 1499 (TNA, E101/414/16, f.56v), which might go some way towards explaining the high salary. TNA, E101/414/6, ff. 14v, 24r, 36r, 44v.  Regrettably, the Long Flemming is never named, though he receives a quarterly wage of 10s from October 1501 until March 1505. TNA, E101/415/3, ff. 70r, 79v, 82v, 89v, 99r; BL, Add. Ms. 59899, ff. 8r, 16v, 30r, 34r, 27r, 42r, 51r, 59r, 65v, 72r, 82v.

[218] For example, TNA, E101/414/6, ff. 33r, 36r, 57v.

[219] TNA, E101/415/3, f.86r; BL. Add. Ms. 59899, ff.14v, 80r. In 1505-9 an unspecified number of ‘walshemen’ received 40s on 1 March (BL. Add. Ms. 59899, f.80v; TNA, E36/214, ff.69r, 120v, 164r).

[220] TNA, E101/414/6, f.83r; E101/414/16, f.29r; E101/415/3, f.55v; Bl. Add. Ms. 59899, ff.80v, 99r.

[221] Liber Quotidianus Contrarotulatoris Garderobiae 1299-1300, ed. J. Topham et al. (London, 1787).