Contrary to popular misconception, not all people in the past were smelly and dirty. Personal hygiene was as important to the Tudors and Stuarts as it is to us, but they dealt with it differently. Henry VIII (1509-47) had magnificent bathrooms installed at Whitehall Palace and at Hampton Court Palace. His daughter Elizabeth I (1558-1603) had bathing facilities at all her palaces and it was said she enjoyed baths monthly. This may sound rather infrequent to us today, but most Tudors would wash their hands and face daily and change their underwear frequently.
Most body odour problems were avoided by wearing clean linen underwear and changing this as it soiled. Royals, and rich men and women would change their linen several times a day, or after exercise. This is probably how the young Henry VIII stayed smelling sweet and looking clean. Pure white cuffs and a crisp clean ruff were status symbols, demonstrating that the wearer had not dirtied themselves with any manual labour. In addition, the rich wore perfumes and carried pomanders – small perforated holders of sweet herbs and spices to mask any unpleasant smells.
Linen underwear protected the outer garments from body odour and stains, as outerwear was often made of hard-to-wash fabrics such as silk or velvet. The laundress was in charge of cleaning all the underwear linens and so performed a crucial role in the royal household. Anne (or Agnes) Harris, laundress to Henry VIII, was rewarded with a gift of land for her services to the monarch. Elizabeth I’s trusted laundresses, Elizabeth Smith and Anne Twiste, were also rewarded with gifts and money.
Without the luxury of modern appliances, doing the laundry was a demanding job. Laundries had to be positioned outside a royal residence (with all the washerwomen toiling over dirty laundry hidden from view, naturally). They needed a supply of clean water for washing and with plenty of space for drying clothes and bedsheets, which were usually laid out on the grass. Once dry, the linens were pressed with heavy stove-heated irons, and starched to ensure they held their shape.
Linens were designed to withstand heavy washing, with perfect stitching ensuring a long-lasting garment. Some linens had detachable sleeves and cuffs so they could be washed more gently in a separate batch. The richest in society wore linens without these detachable parts to show they could afford to employ a skilled laundress.
Today we would get fabrics such as wool, silk and velvet chemically dry cleaned, but in the past this was not possible. Outer garments were maintained by a silkswoman who would store sweet-smelling powders of lavender or rose petals inside the garments, not unlike our drawer fresheners and moth repellents of today. Another Tudor tactic was to brush clothes to rid them of dust and dirt. Elizabeth I even had a member of staff in her household whose job was to be the ‘brussher of robes’. This double pronged approach of powders and brushing functioned as the Tudor equivalent to our chemical fabric fresheners, and kept clothes smelling clean.
In the past, as today, clothes moths were a constant problem. An infestation could decimate an expensive wardrobe, so drastic measures were required. The Tudors used substances such as lemon juice, ox gall and egg white, as well as alcohol to tackle these destructive pests. You may not know that vodka spray is still used today in theatres to clean costumes that cannot be wet or dry cleaned easily and so that they stay fresh between shows or when shared by actors. As a last resort, the royal tailor could ‘freshen’ outer garments by replacing soiled linings with new.
The Stuart court used a similar system to keep clothes clean. Elizabeth Atkinson was the Laundress of the Body to Queen Anne (1702-14). As a high-ranking servant, with exclusive access to the Queen, Elizabeth was probably from an aristocratic family.
Elizabeth had up to three laundry maids who did the heavy work of cleaning. All would travel with the Queen to ensure her body linen was clean at every palace she stayed in. It was a skilled role and Elizabeth received free accommodation and wages of £140 a year. She was also entitled to a livery uniform, a fine woollen gown and seven yards of silk. This was in addition to the supplies she needed to do her job, which included soap for washing, starch to keep garments in shape and fuel to heat the water for washing.
As Laundress of the Body, Elizabeth was in charge of cleaning Anne’s underclothes, bedsheets and pillowcases. This was a particularly intimate role that required trust and sensitivity. The royal laundress would be aware of when the Queen was menstruating, and when she was pregnant. In attempting to produce an heir, Anne was almost constantly pregnant, although sadly she suffered many miscarriages and gave birth to only five babies, all of whom died in infancy apart from her son William, Duke of Gloucester, who survived until he was 11. When Anne died in 1714 the British throne passed to a distant German relative in the line of succession, who became King George I (1714-27).
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| LEATHER JERKIN
Charles I's leather jerkin, a leather waistcoat from the mid--17th century that is supposed to have been worn and abandoned by Charles I after the Battle of Naseby in 1645 (CIVIL WAR) A leather jerkin is essentially a military utilitarian garment. It is a fashionable shape and cut from the mid--17th century. So you would see a fine jerkin or waistcoat with a similar sort of silhouette. It's got this quite high waist and these long, flaring skirts here. And that's a fashionable silhouette that you'd see in many portraits of the time. But it is a tan leather utilitarian object that you would see worn by many members of the military army at this point. The legend has it that Charles wore this. And then after the Battle of Naseby, he abandoned it, or rather left it behind. And one of his military commanders picked it up. his portraits will show him in military-style dress but of a much higher quality, beautiful armour, silks, and jewels, and fine materials. This is much more utilitarian. You may know of the stories that when Charles I was executed, clothing that he wore on the scaffold became slightly sacred. And people say they had his handkerchief and bits of linen and things like that. And those objects became venerated. In fact, a lot of people soaked up the blood on the scaffold with things of their own. it would have been laced tight to close it along the chest
The jerkin, a sleeveless leather jacket, is believed to have been left behind by Charles I at Aldenham, the family home of the Acton family after the Battle of Naseby in 1645. This was one of the decisive battles of the English Civil Wars in which Charles and his Royalists lost to the Parliamentarians.
EXECUTION OF A KING
On the 30 January 1649 Charles I (1625-49) was beheaded on a scaffold outside the Banqueting House in London. His perceived high-handed approach to matters of religion and government caused increasing friction in his kingdoms, resulting in the Bishops’ Wars in Scotland in 1638 and the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642. The two sides were known colloquially as the Cavaliers (the Royalists supports of Charles) and the Roundheads (supporters of the parliament). Many bloody battles were fought, sometimes with brother against brother as the conflict divided families. By 1648 the Royalist cause was lost and Charles was prisoner. At his trial he was found guilty of being a tyrant, a traitor and a murderer.
Earlier in his reign Charles had followed the example of his father, James VI and I (1603-25), and used courtly masques to assert his ideas of monarchy and rule. His trial and execution in 1649 was a very different kind of performance. Charles refused to recognise the authority of the court and used his manner and clothing to demonstrate this. One account says that he refused to take off his hat in the presence of the judges. Removing your hat was a sign of respect in the 17th century and Charles clearly felt that as king, he should not be showing deference to mere judges. It was also said that he wore a cloak embroidered with the emblem of the Order of the Garter, the highest chivalric order in England, another clear sign of his status. Putting the King on trial was not popular with all, however, and the head judge, John Bradshaw, was so afraid of assassination attempts that he wore a steel-lined hat. Once the King was pronounced guilty, the execution date was set. A scaffold covered with black cloth was built outside the Banqueting House. One of the grooms of the bedchamber, Sir Thomas Herbert, who was with Charles the night before he died, wrote an account of that time in his memoirs a few years later. Herbert wrote that Charles made a specific request for his clothes for his execution:
‘Let me have a Shirt on more than ordinary, said the King, by reason the season is so sharp as shall probably make me shake, which some Observers will imagine proceeds from fear. I have no such Imputation. I fear not Death! Death is not terrible to me. I bless my God I am prepar’d.’
Another account, which was also written a few years after the event, said that Charles also wore a ‘Sky-colour Satten Wastecoat’, which was seen when Charles took off his cloak. Such a waistcoat is in the collection of the Museum of London and is thought to have been the one that Charles wore. It is made of silk and is high quality, and so could have been worn by a king.
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