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Royal Journeys in Early
Modern Europe

Authored by a unique combination of university academics and heritage

professionals, this book offers new perspectives on journeys made by Henry VIII
and other monarchs, their political and social impact and the logistics required in
undertaking such trips. It explores the performance of kingship and queenship by
itinerant monarchs, investigating how, by a variety of means, they engaged and
interacted with their subjects, and the practical and symbolic functions associated
with these activities. Moving beyond the purely English experience, it provides
a European dimension by comparing progresses in England and France. Royal
marriage and the royal progress share common features which are considered
through an analysis of the trans-European journeys made by future spouses,
notably Anne of Cleves. Also, the book reveals the significance of the art and
architecture of houses and palaces, and how the celebrated meeting of English and
French kings at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520 was part of a wider diplomatic
performance full of symbolism including the exchange of gifts and socialising
between the two royal courts.
Drawing on contemporary art, material culture and surviving buildings,
the book will be of interest to all who enjoy the intrigue and splendour of­
sixteenth-century courts.

Anthony Musson is Head of Research at Historic Royal Palaces and currently

leading an AHRC-funded research project: ‘Henry VIII on Tour: Tudor Palaces
and Royal Progresses’. He was previously Professor of Legal History and Director
of the Bracton Centre for Legal History Research at the University of Exeter. He
has published extensively in the fields of political culture in medieval and early
modern England as well as legal iconography and the legal profession.

J. P. D. Cooper is Reader in Early Modern History at the University of York and

Director of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He is Co-Investigator of the
‘Henry VIII on Tour’ network. He has published books on Tudor royal propaganda
and the Elizabethan statesman Sir Francis Walsingham, and edited volumes on
Henry VIII’s arms and armour and the architectural and political culture of the
Palace of Westminster. He was Principal Investigator of the ‘St Stephen’s Chapel,
Westminster’ and ‘Listening to the Commons’ AHRC-funded projects.
Routledge Research in Early Modern History

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Germano Maifreda

A Genlis Education and Enlightenment Values

Mrs Chinnery (1766–1840) and her Children
Denise Yim

Anti-Jacobitism and the English People, 1714–1746

Jonathan Oates

The Eye of the Crown

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Kristin M.S. Bezio

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Edited by Alexander Lee and Brian Jeffrey Maxson

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Royal Journeys in Early Modern Europe

Progresses, Palaces and Panache
Edited by Anthony Musson and J. P. D. Cooper

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Rout

ledge-Research-in-Early-Modern-History/book-series/RREMH
Royal Journeys in Early
Modern Europe
Progresses, Palaces and Panache

Edited by Anthony Musson

and J. P. D. Cooper
First published 2023
by Routledge
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© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Anthony Musson and J. P. D.
Cooper; individual chapters, the contributors
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Musson, Anthony, 1966– editor, writer of introduction. |
Cooper, J. P. D. (John P. D.), editor, author.
Title: Royal journeys in early modern Europe : progresses, palaces and
panache / edited by Anthony Musson and J.P.D. Cooper.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2023. | Series: Routledge research in
early modern history | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022023955 (print) | LCCN 2022023956 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032255972 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032255989 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003284154 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Great Britain—Kings and rulers—Travel—History—
16th century. | France—Kings and rulers—Travel—History—16th
century. | Henry VIII, King of England, 1491–1547—Travel. | Field
of Cloth of Gold, France, 1520. | Marriages of royalty and nobility—
Europe—History—16th century. | Great Britain—Court and courtiers—
History—16th century. | France—Court and courtiers—History—16th
century.
Classification: LCC DA28.1 .R6775 2023 (print) | LCC DA28.1 (ebook) |
DDC 929.7/1—dc23/eng/20220623
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022023955
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022023956
ISBN: 978-1-032-25597-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-25598-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-28415-4 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Figure 0.1 The Field of Cloth of Gold, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1520–50. Oil on canvas, 168.9 × 347.3cm, twentieth-century Tudor-style
frame. RCIN 405794.
Source: Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.
Contents

List of Figures ix
List of Abbreviations xi
List of Contributors xii

Reconstructing Royal Journeys in Early Modern Europe 1

ANTHONY MUSSON AND J. P. D. COOPER

Royal Itineraries 9

1 The Court on the Move: Problems and Perspectives 11

SIMON THURLEY

2 Progresses and Personal Monarchy in the Reign of Henry VIII 21

J. P. D. COOPER AND KEELY HAYES-DAVIES

3 The French Kings on the Road: The Court’s Journeys in

Renaissance France 33
ETIENNE FAISANT

The Logistics of Progresses 51

4 Preparing to Progress: The Great Wardrobe and the Royal

Progresses of Henry VIII 53
SEBASTIAN EDWARDS

5 On Display: The Role of Clothing and Livery on Henry

VIII’s Progresses 70
MARIA HAYWARD
viii Contents
6 Monastic Lodgings: Housing the King Before and After the
Reformation 84
MAURICE HOWARD

7 Anne of Cleves: Bound for England 98

VALERIE SCHUTTE

The Spectacle and Symbolism of Progresses 111

8 Travelling Grooms: A Royal Progress or A Wedding Journey? 113

PATRIK PASTRNAK

9 ‘Pleasaunt Pastime’ or Drunken Diplomacy? Ladies and

Gentlewomen at the Field of Cloth of Gold 127
JAMES TAFFE

10 Magnificence on the Move 139

TIMOTHY SCHRODER

The Political Culture of Progresses 155

11 Justice on Progress in Early Tudor England 157

LAURA FLANNIGAN

12 Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures: The Field

of Cloth of Gold and Tudor History Painting 170
BRETT DOLMAN

13 Performing Power and Theatricalisation at the Field

of Cloth of Gold 194
LESLEY MICKEL

14 ‘These Princes were Mortal and Mutable’: Context and

Consequences of the Field of Cloth of Gold 207
GLENN RICHARDSON

Index 223
Figures

0.1 The Field of Cloth of Gold, Anglo-Netherlandish School,

c.1520–50 v
1.1 Map showing Henry VIII’s progress of 1526 13
1.2 Map showing Queen Elizabeth I’s progress of 1575 14
3.1 Places where the presence of Francis I is attested in France
during his reign 34
3.2 Journey of the court from Paris to Fontainebleau
(11–27 March 1546) 37
3.3 Antoine Caron, The Court Leaving the Château of Anet, c.1570 40
3.4 Journey of the court from Fontainebleau to Bordeaux
(15 December 1529–8 June 1530) 41
3.5 Catherine de’ Medici on her litter, detail of The Court Leaving
the Château of Anet 43
4.1 King Henry VIII’s arrival at the Westminster Tournament of 1511 55
4.2 ‘Ralph Agas’ or Civitas Londinium map of London, 1561 56
4.3 The Family of Henry VII with St George and the Dragon,
c.1503–9 61
4.4 Portable writing desk, with the royal arms and decoration
attributed to Lucas Horenbout (c.1490–1544) 63
4.5 Marriage bed made for Duc Antoine de Lorraine and Renée
de Bourbon, 1515 shown in a digital reconstruction with its
documented upholstery of 1532 64
4.6 Drawing of a ‘chariot’ from the book of drawings of Queen
Elizabeth I’s coronation in 1559, second half of the sixteenth
century 66
5.1 Henry VIII on horseback, a detail from The Field of Cloth of
Gold, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1520–50 71
6.1 Dartford Priory and cloister, with church, temp. Henry VIII 85
6.2 The fifteenth-century cloister of Lacock Abbey turned into the
courtyard house for Sir William Sharington after 1540, with a
new upper floor and mid-century windows 89
6.3 The surviving range of the Dartford Priory gatehouse at the
south-western end of the nuns’ cloister, built for Henry VIII 92
x Figures
  6.4 The north- and east-facing façades of the surviving fragment of
Dartford Priory 93
  6.5 Details of the remains of Dartford Priory showing the use of
both ashlar and rubble from Barking Abbey and fragments of flint 94
  7.1 Queen Anne of Cleves, head and shoulders, in a rococo
medallion; below, putti seated next to a crown 100
  8.1 The portrait of Maximilian II by William Scrots, c.1544 119
  8.2 The portrait of Maximilian I by Joos van Cleve, c.1508–09 121
  9.1 Ladies and gentlewomen in a tent, a detail from The Field of
Cloth of Gold, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1520–50 128
10.1 The cloth of gold tent, detail from The Field of Cloth of Gold,
Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1520–50 141
10.2 Cope, c.1509, bequeathed by Henry VII to Westminster Abbey
(now at Stonyhurst College) 142
10.3 A royal tent with buffet of plate, from The Story of King David,
tapestry, Brussels, c.1520 144
10.4 The St Michael cup (Antwerp, 1532), gold, enamel, pearls and
precious stones 146
10.5 Tent design said to be for the Field of Cloth of Gold, c.1520 151
12.1 The Embarkation at Dover, Anglo-Netherlandish School,
c.1520–50 171
12.2 The Siege of Boulogne (1544), engraved by James Basire for
the Society of Antiquaries of London, and published in 1783 175
12.3 The Meeting of Henry VIII and Maximilian I, Anglo-
Netherlandish School, c.1513 176
12.4 The Battle of the Spurs, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1513 177
12.5 Proposal for a new harbour at Dover, attributed to Vincenzo
Vulpe, 1532 180
12.6 The Field of Cloth of Gold (detail, infra-red reflectography) 181
12.7 The Banquet of Abraham, engraved by Etienne Delaune,
c.1550–72 182
12.8 The Field of Cloth of Gold (detail, infra-red reflectography) 184
12.9 The Meeting of Charles V and the Bey of Tunis, Niccoló
dell’Abate, c.1546–50 187
13.1 Henry VIII and Francis I seemingly engaged in a wrestling
match, a detail in The Field of Cloth of Gold, Anglo-
Netherlandish School, c.1520–50 199
13.2 François Ier, Roi de France by the school of Jean Clouet
(1475/1485–1540) 200
14.1 Francis I, King of France, after Joos van Cleve, c.1530 210
14.2 Henry VIII by Joos van Cleve, c.1530–35 211
Abbreviations

BL The British Library, London

CSP Ven R. Brown et al. (ed.), Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 38 vols
(London, 1864–90)
EHR English Historical Review
HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission
LP J. S. Brewer, J. Gairdner, and R. H. Brodie (eds.), Letters and
Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 21 vols
(1862–1910)
ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online)
OED Oxford English Dictionary (online)
REED Records of Early English Drama
TNA The National Archives, Kew
Contributors

J. P. D. Cooper (University of York)

Brett Dolman (Historic Royal Palaces)
Sebastian Edwards (Historic Royal Palaces)
Etienne Faisant (Université Paris Nanterre)
Laura Flannigan (St John’s College, Oxford)
Keely Hayes-Davies (University of York)
Maria Hayward (University of Southampton)
Maurice Howard (University of Sussex)
Lesley Mickel (University of the Highlands and Islands)
Anthony Musson (Historic Royal Palaces)
Patrik Pastrnak (Palacký University, Olomouc)
Glenn Richardson (St Mary’s University, Twickenham)
Timothy Schroder (Independent Scholar)
Valerie Schutte (Independent Scholar)
James Taffe (Durham University)
Simon Thurley (Institute of Historical Research/Gresham College)
Reconstructing Royal Journeys in
Early Modern Europe
Anthony Musson and J. P. D. Cooper

In the early summer of 1522, 500 years before this book was completed, King
Henry VIII and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V undertook a spectacular
joint tour around the south of England. The sight of early modern royalty leaving
their palaces and travelling with an extensive entourage through the countryside
or approaching a city would doubtless have been astonishing to behold and a
memorable experience for those who witnessed it in person. Such royal journeys
were captured in various contemporary drawings and paintings, as well as in the
dramatic accounts of observers, who often describe events in elaborate and pictur-
esque detail. Perhaps, the most well-known artistic impression is that commemo-
rating the diplomatic meeting of the kings of England and France at the Field of
Cloth of Gold outside Calais in June 1520, a dual royal progress on the grandest
scale (see frontispiece).
The movement of the court according to season and circumstance remained a
fundamental feature of the Renaissance monarchies of England, France and the
Habsburg territories, articulating a common diplomatic language of pageantry,
religious ritual and the exchange of gifts. But if the display and panache can look
strikingly similar, the purpose of royal journeys and progresses differed markedly
between the princely states of Europe. The government of sixteenth-century Eng-
land was increasingly focused on London and Westminster, with a corresponding
reduction in the range of royal tours by comparison with those undertaken by later
medieval kings; Henry VIII travelled to York just once, Elizabeth I not at all, and
neither contemplated visiting Cornwall or Cheshire or Ireland, as their forebears
had done. The rulers of France and the Holy Roman Empire, by contrast, were
more fundamentally peripatetic. As Etienne Faisant points out in his contribution
to this volume, the English concept of a summer ‘progress’ is effectively untrans-
latable into French, even if the pursuit of hunting was essential to both Francis
I and Henry VIII. Such distinctions of meaning made encounters like those of
1520 and 1522, when European monarchs travelled to meet each other or toured
in tandem, all the more significant as moments of political and cultural exchange.
This book examines how early modern royal journeys and progresses were per-
ceived and defined, the purposes for which they were undertaken and aspects of
their logistical and material history. Chapters are grouped into sections addressing
royal itineraries in England and France, the administrative and spatial dimensions

DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-1
2 Anthony Musson and J. P. D. Cooper
of progresses, questions of spectacle and symbolism and the political culture of
royal journeys in terms of theatricalisation memory and the performance of jus-
tice. Recurring themes throughout the book include the importance of gender as
a category of analysis (the exercise of queenship on progress, the masculinity
implicit in the royal hunt); elements of unpredictability and royal agency; the
challenges of reading source materials (financial accounts, architecture, descrip-
tions of ceremony and etiquette) to recover what actually took place on royal
journeys; and how historians of different specialisms can establish a common set
of approaches to a diverse topic spanning multiple territories and cultures. While
defining a royal journey may seem like semantics, there were perceptual and
logistical differences (so John Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies argue) between
what English contemporaries regarded as a ‘removing’ and a ‘progress’, which
go some way towards explaining how the scope and intention of royal journeys
were changing during the first half of the sixteenth century. Aside from the geo-
graphical extent of a progress, some difference is also discernible (Maria Hay-
ward observes) in what Henry VIII chose to wear – a distinction which would
have been immediately evident to those involved but has been less noticed by
historians. The precise nature of a removing or progress determined how much
baggage, and what particular possessions, the king took with him. For instance,
the practice of royal piety continued on progress but took a different form as the
king’s riding chapel separated from the main body of the chapel royal and tem-
porarily took in local singers to sustain the liturgy surrounding the monarch – a
practice that continues in Britain to this day.
Of what benefit were progresses to the monarch and the monarchy? As the
chapters collected here demonstrate, there could be a spectrum of reasons for
embarking on a royal journey, but they normally comprised a mixture of business
and pleasure and were linked to particular seasons in the year. Sport and other
leisure pastimes (especially hunting) figured largely on the agenda, notably for
Henry VIII and Francis I but also for the Stuart kings. However, royal journeys
were undertaken for distinct ends in themselves, whether for military purposes
or as part of a diplomatic mission (to prevent war), on pilgrimage to religious
shrines, in light of impending nuptials or to nip potential rebellion in the bud.
They could also offer a means of escape: from the stench of London or unsavoury
politics, even (in the case of marriage journeys) to start a new life. While the royal
party’s location and schedule were often proclaimed in advance, the duration and
venues on the king’s itinerary were nevertheless subject to the mood and whims
of the royal person, be it a preference for following the deer, a decision to meet a
particular host or a sudden change of plan to avoid the plague.
Royal journeys were extremely complex enterprises involving hundreds, some-
times thousands of people. Organisation was thus key to their implementation,
requiring close communication between the court and the localities on the ven-
ues to be visited, purveyance of supplies, accommodation arrangements and per-
formed activities (whether hunting parties, liturgies, plays and tournaments or
dispensing royal justice). The logistics of ensuring that the monarch got from A to
B, safely and with everything that he and his entourage needed, was dependent
 Reconstructing Royal Journeys 3
upon careful arrangements made by officials to prepare for the king’s arrival (har-
bingers in England, fourriers in France) and physically to transport the personnel
of the royal household, their servants and a vast accumulation of baggage. As
Sebastian Edwards demonstrates, to maintain levels of splendour the king needed
either to buy or to bring along many of his own necessaries rather than rely wholly
on his hosts, even when staying with members of the nobility. The role of the royal
Wardrobes is remarkable in this respect, in the carriage and protection of precious
items as also in the repair and replacement of commonplace and more valuable
objects, from various grades of royal bed and ornate tapestries to carved desks and
delicate musical instruments.
Accounts of royal journeys, both contemporary and modern, naturally tend to
emphasise the power and the glory. For the royal party itself, however, travel
could be wearisome and dangerous, with risk of disease or inclement weather –
especially if voyaging by sea. For brides in particular, the trials of the journey
could be offset by the opportunity to study and acclimatise to new roles, lan-
guages and customs. As Valerie Schutte demonstrates, Anne of Cleves used her
protracted progress towards England to acquire knowledge of English speech and
card games enjoyed by her intended husband Henry VIII and to learn a little of
English politics. The logistics of a royal progress themselves could have gendered
aspects. On a bridal journey, as James Taffe notes, a princess would be accom-
panied by a whole court of women. She may nevertheless have lacked choice or
discretion as to who it was that accompanied her, it being a matter for her parents
or royal officials. This leads to important questions, only some of which can cur-
rently be answered, about the presence and role of women on progress: among the
royal entourage when queen consort Katherine of Aragon undertook a religious
pilgrimage, for instance, or attending Mary I when she travelled to wed Philip of
Spain at Winchester.
What made royal journeys special or exciting to observe and experience?
Progresses and royal tours were performances and at times were actively cho-
reographed, especially during formal entries into cities. Their visual impact was
increased by the procession of household officers on horseback, accompanied
by the royal baggage carts (in Henry VIII’s case painted with a gilded livery of
royal shields, Garter, imperial crowns and supporters), wending their way through
the countryside and led by heraldic banners of St George. The theatricality of a
progress was further enhanced by the clothing worn by participants, including
brightly coloured liveries (usually scarlet, for those meeting the king and queen)
and chains of office. Both king’s and queen’s costumes were carefully coordinated
and intended to show off their masculinity and femininity respectively, while
changes of clothes were similarly stage-managed. As Taffe indicates, the attention
to detail and extravagance in dressing the queen and her ladies for a diplomatic
encounter provided a gendered form of competition, contrasting with the mascu-
line physical competition of wrestling and jousting. Clothing could also form the
substance of a wedding gift; as Patrik Pastrnak points out, some continental brides
controlled their prospective husband’s appearance by sending him a series of dif-
ferent robes or forms of attire each day as a prelude to their nuptials.
4 Anthony Musson and J. P. D. Cooper
Performance equally involved cultural display that was integral to a Renais-
sance ruler’s self-fashioning. In addition to the sight of gold gowns (as worn,
for example, on a journey by Princess Mary, Henry VIII’s sister), audiences at
progress events witnessed a public spectacle of opulence in the form of the king’s
jewels and plate. As Timothy Schroder explains, it was not just at banquets that
such treasures were revealed: chapel services and tournaments equally provided
stages for these arrays of gold and silver plate. Considerable human ingenuity
and labour was required to create such magnificent displays. Portable palaces and
tents erected as temporary accommodation for the court provided sleeping quar-
ters for the household, but some also functioned as receiving areas for the king. As
Glenn Richardson contends, the wooden palace at Guînes, with its monumental
gateway and huge scallop-shell pediment flanked by English roses, though purely
a temporary structure (later dismantled, stored and repurposed), was in itself an
exhibition of English bravura in the style and talent of the workmanship on show.
It was testimony, on the one hand, to its own magnificence (analogous to the Crys-
tal Palace of 1851) but also in a broader vein a reflection of Henry VIII’s personal
prestige and the glory of England.
A performance requires an audience. It is important to consider to what extent
responses to royal journeys were also crafted, and what the impact would have
been on ordinary people who participated in or simply observed the occasion.
Many local people watched or took part in civic entries. The journeys of royal
brides and grooms deliberately incorporated a number of staging points, so that
festivities could take place at various towns along the way. This enabled public
celebration of the dynastic union but also (by including ordinary people in fes-
tivities) the engendering of goodwill for the future. Civic entries also enabled
the local elite or nobility to position themselves within social hierarchies and to
promote their communal and individual causes with the crown. Royal journeys
were equally an auditory experience, a soundscape that included the pealing of
church bells and musicians playing as well as cheering crowds. The procession
of Anne of Cleves, for example, was announced by the sound of trumpets and the
firing of cannon.
Royal journeys were above all displays of kingship and queenship, intended
to enhance public perceptions of the monarch and to project an image of power
beyond the principal palaces such as Hampton Court and Fontainebleau. It follows
that a progress was not simply about being seen; it was also about engaging with
nobles and courtiers in their home regions, as well as the civic and ecclesiastical
authorities who hosted or met with the royal party. In this respect, both hunting
and feasting were significant ways of bringing people together, combining pleas-
ure with business (‘soft power’), elements of competition and physical prowess
mixed in with conversation and communal dining. As part of ‘functioning’ queen-
ship both English and French consorts had formal roles on state occasions but also
provided informal support by their presence at tournaments and hunting parties.
As Taffe argues, the drinking and carousing by their gentlewomen attendants at
the 1520 joust was very much part of the diplomatic endeavour.
 Reconstructing Royal Journeys 5
If progresses were an opportunity to dispense and display good kingship, court-
ing regional elites and making monarchy temporarily visible to the population
outside the royal capital, one of the significant implications of being on tour was
that it brought sovereign and people together face to face. This was not only true
through the hosting of the monarch by subjects in their own houses, but also (as
Laura Flannigan reveals) an opportunity for litigants following the royal train to
seek redress of grievances by presenting a petition directly to the king. The public-
facing and performative nature of progresses, and the hosting of the sovereign by
subjects outside the domain of one of his own houses, raised issues not only about
security but to what extent conventional royal etiquette was adapted, compromised
or even subverted while on progress. The daily rituals and ceremony normally
surrounding monarchs could not be maintained in the same degree and were often
curtailed or diminished. As Cooper and Hayes-Davies indicate, there were deliber-
ate attempts to provide a degree of privacy by mimicking the separate king’s and
queen’s royal apartments at the new wing of Acton Court and elsewhere when
Henry VIII was on tour. However, as Richardson remarks, a ruler’s very presence
beyond the confines of a royal palace meant they were more accessible to their
subjects; to the nobles they visited or hunted with; and to the people more gener-
ally with whom they could interact, notably through the medium of gift-giving.
Royal progresses could be enlivened by unscripted moments. In breach of pro-
tocol, the monarch occasionally deliberately evaded foreign ambassadors, his
own officials and the public gaze. Henry VIII may have visited Bristol incognito
in 1535, when plague disrupted plans for more conventional celebrations; four
years later he went in disguise to view his new bride Anne of Cleves. Undercover
assignations, unscripted visits and concealed identities were, as Lesley Mickel
argues, a feature of the game of one-upmanship enacted in private by Henry VIII
and Francis I at the Field of Cloth of Gold in June 1520, complementing the more
public diplomatic stance adopted by the two kings. Francis’s impromptu visit,
which found Henry VIII in a state of undress, was mirrored 18 years later when
Francis came aboard Charles V’s moored galley while he was taking a siesta.
These reveal a hidden side to the monarch’s travels: not only boldness in the
breaking of protocol but also unexpected intimacy and forcible gift-giving to
achieve a breakthrough in relations that ordinary diplomacy would not permit.
What did royal progresses achieve? This is a difficult question to answer and,
as Richardson points out, depends upon whether you are looking at the short-
or longer term. The ephemerality of such ostentatious displays is symbolically
brought home by the weather wreaking havoc on French tents at the close of the
Field of Cloth of Gold. In addition to the social, political and diplomatic goals
they might have met, there were cultural achievements in the form of paintings,
textile and metalwork craftsmanship, literature, poetry and music produced for
progresses. That Henry VIII himself felt the need to justify or validate his achieve-
ments on progress is, as Brett Dolman argues, borne out by the spectacle of mili-
tary and diplomatic journeys commemorated in so-called history paintings,
which formed murals and decorations in the royal palaces. This self-conscious
6 Anthony Musson and J. P. D. Cooper
chronicling in art was envisaged not just in the form of the Guînes paintings (as
they have come down to us) but on a more extravagant scale, involving large teams
of painters and commissions from Netherlandish and Italian artists in particular.
Beyond their logistics and aesthetics, royal journeys had ramifications for a
nation’s economy and infrastructure as well as a significant impact on the land-
scape and built environment. The socioeconomic effect of this influx benefitted
the regions by bringing ordinary and high-status consumers and much-needed
employment to an area, albeit on a temporary basis. As Hayward points out, royal
servants could be sent out shopping while on progress, and quality materials (such
as silks and lace) were sometimes purchased to supplement the royal wardrobe.
Innkeepers and shopkeepers but also those who provided services, from farriers
and water boatmen to laundresses and musicians, could profit from the presence
of the royal court. Enterprising merchants and traders (to say nothing of pick-
pockets and conmen) may also have followed the household train in the hope
of taking advantage of the throng of people. Repairs to royal residences, or the
remodelling of aristocratic houses, in advance of the court’s visit assisted stone
masons, carpenters, painters, glaziers and others involved in the crafts necessary
to adorn a country house. There was a knock-on effect on the national highway
system and waterways as arterial routes were improved, as well as some amen-
ity to towns visited where the civic authorities ordered roads to be mended and
houses painted. The royal visit to York, in 1541, was particularly noteworthy in
this respect. The influx may have been good for some economically while the
royal party was there, but the sheer numbers may also have strained suppliers of
food, ale and other commodities. When the king altered his route at the last min-
ute, a community may have regretted the investment made in advance of a royal
visit. What the underclass of a town, the homeless and poverty-stricken swept
from the streets lest they create trouble or a bad impression, thought of a royal
visit can only be guessed.
The monarch’s own building plans in advance of a progress and subsequently
had an enormous impact on the landscape. In England, this was linked particularly
to the insatiable appetite of Henry VIII for new properties, but the preferences of
later monarchs who favoured new residences (or abandoned old ones, on grounds
of economy or taste) also need to be taken into consideration. The extraordinary
expansion in the number of royal houses during Henry’s reign was partly down to
the crown’s acquisition of forfeited aristocratic estates but even more significantly
a consequence of the reallocation of land and franchisal rights resulting from the
dissolution of the monasteries. As Maurice Howard demonstrates, while no for-
mer monastery became a ‘standing’ palace, nor was anything long-term in their
use necessarily envisaged, the king’s architects and builders created temporary
timber lodgings at monastic sites and reconfigured former ecclesiastical buildings
to provide domestic living quarters that were comfortable and secure.
Both Howard’s and Thurley’s contributions prompt us to think about the dif-
ferent purposes and logistics of royal palaces within a monarch’s domain. The
decline of castles as residences and the removal of the monasteries as convenient
accommodation affected the route of a royal progress but so too did their expense
 Reconstructing Royal Journeys 7
and inconvenience. It appears that the choice of venue was exceedingly personal,
in France as well as in England. While there might be some logistical reasons for
using a certain residence (such as its convenient geography), the king’s decision
could also verge on the capricious. A greater willingness to visit the houses of
courtiers, as demonstrated by Henry VIII and taken further by his daughter Eliza-
beth I, represented a simultaneous need to shift the burden of expense away from
the royal purse while making a visit appear a positive thing.
Collectively, the chapters in this volume demonstrate how the visibility of
a ruler was paramount to personal monarchy, how royal journeys affected the
socioeconomic environment and interaction with regional communities and how
government and royal display functioned on tour. The evidence and arguments
presented here underline the value of royal progresses and civic entries as offering
a window on state and society in early modern Europe, providing an opportunity
to consider not only what has been lost in terms of cultural heritage but also what
might have been if historical accident had not intervened. As Thurley laments,
Charles II’s death occurred before a magnificent palace in Winchester could be
constructed by Christopher Wren while the great fire that destroyed Whitehall
Palace shifted the balance of royal accommodation in the English capital.
Sharing the findings of research by scholars from both the academic and pro-
fessional curatorial worlds, this book also raises important questions that have
yet to be answered and highlight the need for further investigation. Future work
will need to continue the careful examination of archival and printed sources that
underpins the chapters presented here, but also to embrace digital technologies and
explore what the close study of architecture, archaeology and material culture can
tell us about royal journeys. Considering Tudor and Stuart royal progresses, there
is a need to evaluate which venues were reclaimed by the crown and courtiers after
the dissolution of the monasteries, how the architectural works carried out mir-
rored what the king was doing elsewhere and the extent to which these buildings
with their extensive lands became more accessible to communities. In a broader
European context, this book moreover pinpoints the need for greater understand-
ing of the political and performative roles played by queen’s consort and other
members of the royal family on progress, to evaluate contrasting approaches to
royal publicity and privacy during royal journeys and to connect these and other
questions to the political cultures of rival Renaissance monarchies. Above all,
this book emphasises the value of a comparative approach within (and potentially
beyond) early modern European states and between the disciplinary studies of
history, ritual and performance, art and architecture and archaeology.
Royal Itineraries
1 The Court on the Move
Problems and Perspectives
Simon Thurley

In February 1593, Queen Elizabeth I was in her new gallery at Windsor Castle
and could not decide what to do. Should she move from the castle or not? One of
the earl of Essex’s men, Anthony Standen, described the chaotic scene caused by the
royal indecision as relayed to him by one of the carters who was loading up the
Wardrobe carts with the royal baggage:

Three times he had been at Windsor with his cart to carry away, upon sum-
mons of a remove, some part of the stuff of her majesty’s wardrobe; and when
he had repaired there once, twice and the third time, [and heard] that the
remove held not, clapping his hand to his thigh said these words ‘Now I see’
said the carter, ‘that the queen is a woman as well as my wife’. Which words
being overheard by her majesty, who then stood at a window, she said, ‘what
villain is this’ and so sent him three angels [gold coins] to stop his mouth.1

Over the last twenty years or so, historians have become acutely aware of the
value of studying the royal itinerary – again and again it has proved to be a key
tool in first understanding and then explaining events. Scholars working on the
Tudor and Stuart period have come to realise that you can’t get anywhere without
knowing where the court was, who was with it and why they were there. This
applies to both the winter itinerant court and the court on formal summer progress.
There are still gaps in our knowledge, and none of the Tudor or Stuart royal itin-
eraries have yet been published. There are two scholarly itineraries of Henry VII’s
reign, a quite old one for Henry VIII’s and several incomplete but serviceable ones
for Elizabeth. We have Emily Cole’s superb scholarly itinerary for King James
and the present writer has compiled itineraries, mainly from published sources,
for Charles I and Henrietta Maria. Anna Keay has produced a scholarly itinerary
for Charles II, and for William and Mary there is one from the newspapers. This is
enough to give a general picture of the movements of the court, but other than for
Henry VII and James I it is normally necessary to go to The National Archives to
confirm the precise movements of the court.2
This chapter takes a view of the court on the move over the course of the Tudor
and Stuart period from 1485 to 1703. The purpose is twofold: first to catalogue
the geographical and architectural shifts of the monarchy, the skeleton of the royal

DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-3
12 Simon Thurley
itinerary; and second, to draw out some of the themes that are raised by a summary
of a hundred years of royal movements suggesting avenues of future research.
Apart from a couple of hours spent at Westminster Palace as a teenager in 1470,
when he became king Henry VII had never been in an English royal palace, let
alone lived in one. His schooling in the ways of the English monarchy was at the
hands of his wife and mother, veterans of the court and palaces. His court, like
that of his predecessors, was peripatetic and in the fifteen years up to 1500, Henry
probably moved location around a thousand times. His most favoured place was
Westminster, easily, and his average length of stay there was longer than any-
where else. Although there were lots of short stays in the winter, he could be in
residence for a month before he had to move on to allow the palace to be cleaned.
Then came Sheen, where he would stay on average for around ten days, rarely for
longer. Third was Greenwich, and fourth was Windsor. These residences formed
the spine of his existence.
Outside London, Henry VII owned perhaps as many as eighteen other resi-
dences. The largest and most splendid, like Woodstock and Kenilworth, would be
visited regularly; perhaps ten times in fifteen years, staying for a total of 100–120
nights in each. Other royal houses like Nottingham or Pontefract might only be
visited a handful of times for a few nights. Most of the summer progress was made
up of visits to the houses of courtiers, bishops and abbots.3
This pattern of royal movements hardly changed in the early years of Henry
VIII despite the acquisition of a small number of new houses, such as New Hall
in Essex. Henry’s itinerary, like his father’s, was initially reliant on houses owned
by bishops and abbots. After 1530, it was radically redrawn because of the acqui-
sition of Wolsey’s former houses, especially York Place and Hampton Court, but
also, gradually, of most of the monastic houses that he had used before the dis-
solution. This meant that while, before 1530, around 65 per cent of the moves
Henry VIII made were to houses he owned, after 1530, the figure was 91 per cent.4
The annual round of Elizabeth’s life was not materially different from her
father’s. During the winter months the court was itinerant, oscillating between the
standing houses in the Thames valley, although unlike her father she mainly trav-
elled by coach between them. Whitehall was her most popular residence followed,
in order, by Greenwich, Richmond and Hampton Court. If the queen was staying
at these, she would choose to reside either in the west or the east; rarely would
she travel from Hampton Court or Richmond directly to Greenwich or vice versa.
Visits to Hampton Court, which were mainly autumnal, would often be combined
with trips to Windsor or Oatlands.
On twenty-three summers the queen made a progress. These, like her father’s,
typically started in July and ended in late September lasting around fifty days. Her
travels took her as far west as Bristol, east to Norwich, and as far north as Staf-
fordshire. Yet most of her time was spent in the south, and in half of her progresses
she barely moved out of a fifty-mile radius of London.
Much of this was also the case with Henry VIII, but the key difference was
that after 1530, Henry, on progress, stayed in his own houses most of the time;
in contrast, Elizabeth preferred to stay with her courtiers – around 80 per cent
of nights on progress she was somebody’s guest. So, for example, in 1561, the
 The Court on the Move 13

Figure 1.1 Map showing Henry VIII’s progress of 1526, starting at Windsor and proceed-
ing through Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Buckingham-
shire and Bedfordshire, in all a journey of over 300 miles.
14 Simon Thurley
royal progress into Essex, Suffolk and Hertfordshire lasted sixty-eight days, dur-
ing which Elizabeth visited eighteen private houses and two towns but stayed only
at four royal houses. Although there was a hard core of Privy Councillors with
whom she stayed regularly, in all some 420 of her subjects hosted their monarch
for a night or more over the reign.5
In 1603, Sir Robert Cecil, with Henry Howard and his nephew Thomas, Lord
Howard hoped that they could simply substitute one monarch for another and
everything would carry on under James VI of Scotland more or less as before.
But James was thirty-seven, and had been a king all his life. It was far too late to
change the way he was. James was a profoundly different sort of monarch to his
predecessor. The magisterial dignity of Elizabeth, built on an obsessively culti-
vated mystique and expressed in magnificent surroundings and pervasive pan-
egyric, had no attraction for James. His style was homely, informal, anti-urban
and private, a way of life developed in his long years in Scotland.

Figure 1.2 Map showing Queen Elizabeth I’s progress of 1575, one of her most ambitious
summer progresses lasting some 139 days with 44 overnight locations.
 The Court on the Move 15
This had a huge impact on the king’s houses, his itinerary and way of life. He
didn’t like Kent, where he thought the hunting poor, and the former Tudor houses
at Dartford, Canterbury and Charing were given away. The large house at Wok-
ing was also granted away, presumably as he already had several big houses in
Surrey. His most acquisitive period were the four years between 1605 and 1609,
when he bought houses in Newmarket and Royston, the mansions of Theobalds,
and Holdenby, and a house in Thetford.
In 1605, in a letter specifying the requirements for a new hunting lodge at
Ampthill in Bedfordshire, James I drew a distinction between palaces of neces-
sity, where he was accompanied by only those who were necessary for his imme-
diate needs, and palaces of state where the full court would attend. This distinction
between state and necessity existed informally under Henry VIII, who would
visit smaller houses for hunting and pleasure with his riding household. Such an
arrangement did not appeal to Elizabeth, but James I revived it both architectur-
ally and institutionally. The new houses at Royston, Newmarket and Thetford
were houses of necessity while Whitehall, Hampton Court and Theobalds were
houses of state for pomp and gravity. Royston and Newmarket were a new kind of
royal residence. Here James would stay for long periods transacting state affairs as
necessary, but there was no state ceremonial; they revolved round the informality
of royal life.6
While James loathed London, Charles I found it magnetic. Whitehall was by far
and away his most favoured, and frequently visited, residence. In contrast to his
father, Charles would move to Whitehall whenever he had the opportunity and the
winter court season was extended at both ends to become a four- or (in the 1630s)
five-month continuous residence. Like his father, during the summer months, he
was there only for business, but then most of the aristocracy and the whole of
fashionable society were in the country.
Charles made a summer progress every year of his reign up to 1640. Since
1603, of course, the pattern of Stuart itinerance was Britain and not just England.
Yet his itinerary was more restricted and conservative than James I’s, visiting a
relatively small number of places on multiple occasions and these mostly close to
London. It was again hunting that drove his summer’s activities and took him to
both his own parks and those of his courtiers.
The logistics of the Caroline progresses were no less formidable than those of
the Tudors: the king travelled with some 400 carts, guarded by 100 yeomen of the
guard and accompanied by more than 1,000 household officers from kitchen scul-
lions to the noblest aristocrats. On an average two-month progress there would be
ten to fifteen moves, and on the two extended progresses to Scotland in 1633 and
1639, there were three times that many.7
Protector Cromwell was entirely London-focussed and all the provincial pal-
aces and hunting grounds were disposed of. Apart from Hampton Court and
Whitehall, only Windsor Castle was in an even vaguely usable state in 1660. But
in the first five years of the Restoration, this did not matter as Charles II barely left
Whitehall. In fact, his was the longest more-or-less continuous stay at Whitehall
of any monarch ever.
16 Simon Thurley
What changed things was the plague. In June 1665, there was a general remove
to Hampton Court and, from then on until February 1666, the court was on the
hoof, strategically relocating to avoid infection. The seven months that Charles
spent on the road highlighted the fact that, other than Hampton Court and Wind-
sor, the crown no longer had any habitable domestic residences outside London.
The following spring, determined to rectify this, Charles made a trip eastward to
Saffron Walden and purchased Audley End, a house that had been designed from
the first to host royalty, with matching king’s and queen’s sides round an inner
court.
Like many a spur-of-the-moment purchase, Audley End did not live up to real-
ity. The court visited a handful of times but not at all towards the end of the reign.
In the end, like his grandfather, he bought a site in nearby Newmarket on which
he built a new house. Unlike its predecessor, that had deliberately been a house of
necessity, Charles’s new house had much greater architectural presence and even
some modest grandeur.8
The second factor that forced Charles II to redraw the royal itinerary was the
exclusion crisis. In 1673, after the passing of the Test Act and the acknowledge-
ment of the Duke of York’s Catholic conversion, Charles decided to move the
court out of London, which was racked with political tension and unrest. They
went to Windsor where the king resolved to make the castle his usual summer res-
idence, commissioning Hugh May to undertake a thoroughgoing modernisation.
Completed for the summer of 1678, the new Windsor was a residence entirely
devoted to pleasure – when the council met, it did so at Hampton Court, as there
was no council chamber at Windsor.
Although the medieval curtain walls of Windsor kept the court secure from the
disorder of London, rocked by the Popish Plot, it could not replace Whitehall.
The political turmoil of the three exclusion parliaments, culminating in its meet-
ing in Oxford, convinced Charles to move the court even further from the capital
and it settled, in 1682, in Winchester. There he ordered Sir Christopher Wren to
build a vast new residence: not just a hunting lodge but a fully equipped royal
palace. It was the first entirely new palace built since the time of Henry VIII, and
it encapsulated all the refinements in palace planning that had taken place over the
past 150 years. The king’s death and James II’s disinclination to finish the palace
robbed history of the opportunity to understand how it would have changed the
royal itinerary and possibly remapped the political geography of England. Win-
chester was potentially an alternative capital, with the new palace invested with
the history and infrastructure necessary for rule.9
James II was entirely focussed on Whitehall as the base for his crusade to bring
about the re-conversion of England to Roman Catholicism. But his daughter
Mary, and her Dutch husband William, came to the throne, like James I, with
firmly developed personal tastes and preferences. Arriving in London, William
disliked Whitehall and was eager get out to the countryside as quickly as possible.
Orders were given for the court to remove from Whitehall to Hampton Court.
The decision was met with horror. Keeping the court out of London was bad
for the city’s economy and dreadful for the sanity of his ministers, all of whom
 The Court on the Move 17
lived in or near Westminster. So, the king was persuaded to look for somewhere
closer to Whitehall and quickly settled on the second earl of Nottingham’s house
in Kensington. Just a month after the coronation of William and Mary, the Office
of Works was busy rebuilding two royal houses for the joint monarchs.
It was in this way that King William, within a matter of months of his acces-
sion, again redrew the pattern of royal habitation. Whitehall was now to be princi-
pally the centre of the national bureaucracy while Kensington was to be William
and Mary’s normal town residence and Hampton Court the palace of state. This
arrangement replicated their pattern of existence in the Dutch Republic and was
also much more like that of James I than that of Elizabeth I or Charles II.10 The
new pattern, like James I’s, might have been a temporary recasting of royal move-
ments if it had not been for the fact that in 1698, a massive fire destroyed the state
apartments at Whitehall, leaving the central offices of state camping in the former
recreation complex in St James’s Park.
The loss of Whitehall as the architectural and geographical nexus between
monarch, court and ministers must have been felt by Queen Anne, who had seen
first-hand how Charles II had bound the sinews of state together in the chambers
and galleries of the great palace. But there was no way that she could afford to
rebuild it. Anne used Hampton Court and Windsor as her country retreats, and in
London she preferred the newer and more private metropolitan palace at Kensing-
ton to the official seat of power at St James’s. In short, St James’s and Hampton
Court were for business, Kensington and Windsor for pleasure.11
Just over a century of court life in England saw a variety of personal pref-
erences and a range of pragmatic solutions to practical and political problems,
each of which affected the royal itinerary. The summary presented here is one-
dimensional because, apart from the reign of Elizabeth, there were the comple-
mentary and overlapping itineraries of members of the royal family who had their
own houses and estates. The changes in preference and in geography were as
significant for them as for the sovereign. We should also bear in mind the decline
of the formal progress: Charles II went on a few summer tours early in his reign,
William III went on one and Anne not at all.
Yet the picture is clear enough to begin to ask what can be learnt from all this.
What are some of the issues that need to be confronted in understanding the court
on the move? The first must be the economic impact. Contemporaries were keen
to complain about royal presence in their vicinity. Elizabeth I, who spent more
than 40 per cent of the nights in her reign in Surrey, received a complaint from its
residents that though it was the ‘least and most barren’ of counties ‘it is charged
with continual removes and carriage of coals, wood and other provisions to the
court . . . also by my lord treasurer for the repair of her majesties houses’. In the
following reign, the residents of Royston tied a note to the neck of one of James
I’s hunting dogs saying ‘please his majesty to go back to London, for else the
country will be undone; all our provision is spent already, and we are not able to
entertain him any longer’.12
It is certainly true that royal prerogatives of cart-taking, purveyance and
impressment and the activities of the harbingers could be vexatious and costly. Yet
18 Simon Thurley
the scorecard was not so one-sided: the Corporation of Winchester bribed Charles
II to come to their city and build his palace with lavish gifts of land, materials
and plate, much to the dismay of the people of Newmarket who lost the economic
benefits of the court staying. In the 1640s, there was despair amongst the luxury
trades in Westminster as the court left London.13
It has been estimated that the expenditure of the court increased by £1,000
during progress time. Benefits to craftspeople and shopkeepers are worth a more
detailed interrogation. The innkeepers, blacksmiths and brewers were major bene-
ficiaries, as were suppliers of luxury goods, firewood and fodder. Questions about
the growth and economic development of towns in the orbit of the royal itinerary
are interesting to consider.
More attention has been given to the political implications of itinerancy: the
court did not travel alone, and the huge entourage frequently contained many
of the Privy Council, various administrators and the occasional ambassador. The
overlapping itineraries of royal ministers have been studied for Henry VIII’s reign
but not for later reigns; they are crucial to the anatomy of power and the aristo-
cratic geography of England. The earl of Arlington built his country house at Eus-
ton to be close to Charles II at Newmarket. A few years later leading aristocrats
bought and built town houses in Windsor. Town house purchases and country
house building both in their location and format were profoundly influenced by
the royal itinerary.14
Government continued with the court on the move and instructions had to be
issued, leading to the development of the post system between the king and White-
hall and between Whitehall and the south coast and Scotland. For Charles I’s pro-
gress in 1636, 150 horses were requisitioned for the royal messengers alone. This
is one example of how, in considering the development of departments of state
and administration, the peripatetic nature of the executive is an important force.15
The landscape legacy of royal movements is enormous. The infrastructure for
hunting was immense: emparkment still defines much of the countryside today.
Hare warrens at Royston and Newmarket kept royal coursing supplied, and rabbit
warrens supplied royal tables. Restrictions on local people were fiercely policed,
and those living round Royston were told to flatten their plough furrows to make
it easier for the royal horses.
During Elizabeth’s reign there was a revolution in royal transport with the
widespread introduction of carriages which led to a drastic improvement in the
road network around London and soon further afield. Winchester was only a pos-
sibility for Charles II because of the good road and excellent stabling in the city.
Regular royal routes created arteries of rapid travel for others generating corridors
of access and economic opportunity. A town like Guildford, a royal centre, and
a staging post to Portsmouth, benefitted enormously from the frequent passage
of the court.16 The hundreds of carts required by the court on the move were ini-
tially pulled by oxen, but when replaced by the horse put a huge strain on equine
infrastructure, the studs and agriculture. On Edward VI’s first and only progress
half his entourage had to be sent home after the first week because there was not
enough fodder to sustain the 1,000 horses he had brought with him.17
 The Court on the Move 19
Obviously, construction projects also had a huge impact, especially during peri-
ods of new build. We know quite a bit about the development of the brick and tile
trade in Surrey, but domestic glass manufacture and lead production, both cru-
cial after the 1580s, were also stimulated by royal building and fashions. Certain
towns flourished due to the building trades. The growth of Reigate, for instance,
must have owed much to the stone quarries so essential to the construction of the
royal houses.18
Neither progress time or itinerancy was exclusively rural, and the mobile court
had a big impact on towns. The progress of 1634 included a visit to Leicester. The
town gates were repainted, while householders were required to paint the outside
of their houses and pave the streets in front. The roads were laid with sand and
gravel and the streets were strewn with rushes. New liveries were made for the
mayor and aldermen and golden bowls with pictures of the king and queen were
fashioned as gifts. The earl of Huntingdon, the Lord Lieutenant, was sent ahead
to ensure that St Martin’s Church was properly arranged for the Sunday when the
king would attend divine service.19 Impacts both short-lived and more sustained
were stimulated by royal visits.
All this is to say that the monarch and court moving round the country had
important, deep-seated and long-lasting implications. Whether they were staying
in their own residences or in those of their subjects, the sovereign presence made
impacts, some of which were long-lasting and important. Many of these are yet
barely investigated, but importantly they demonstrate that the study of royal itin-
eraries is not just an antiquarian pastime; it is a very important tool in understand-
ing economy, landscape, politics, architecture and urban development of England.

Notes
1 T. Birch, Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, 2 vols (London, 1754), vol. I, 154–
5; E. Goldring, F. Eales, E. Clarke and J. E. Archer (eds.), J. Nichols’s The Progresses
and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth I: A New Edition of the Early Modern
Sources, 5 vols (Oxford, 2014), vol. IV, 210.
2 Henry VII’s itinerary is in L. L. Ford, ‘Conciliar Politics and Administration in the
Reign of Henry VII’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of St Andrews (2001), 205–
83; Elizabeth of York’s itinerary, compiled from her Privy Purse expenses, is in A. N.
Okerlund, Elizabeth of York (Basingstoke, 2009), 188; Henry VIII’s itinerary is in TNA
OBS1/1419 and is analysed in detail in S. J. Thurley, ‘English Royal Palaces, 1450–
1550’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 2 vols (1991), vol. I, 317–73,
vol. II, Fig. 123; the only published itinerary of Elizabeth I is in E. K. Chambers, The
Elizabethan Stage, 4 vols (Oxford, 1922), vol. IV, 75–130, an analysis based on this
and some other sources is in Mary Hill Cole, The Portable Queen. Elizabeth I and the
Politics of Ceremony (Amherst, MA, 1999), 177–236; James I’s itinerary is in E. V.
Cole, ‘The State Apartment in the Jacobean Country House 1603–1625’, DPhil thesis,
University of Sussex (2010), 365–416.
3 S. J. Thurley, Houses of Power. The Places That Shaped the Tudor World (London,
2017), 35–6.
4 Thurley, ‘English Royal Palaces’, vol. I, 317–73.
5 Thurley, Houses of Power, 350–5.
6 S. J. Thurley, Palaces of Revolution. Life Death and Art at the Stuart Court (London,
2021), 37–52.
20 Simon Thurley
7 Ibid., 159–60.
8 Ibid., 317–23.
9 Ibid., 333–9, 344–54.
10 Ibid., 386–93.
11 Ibid., 426–9.
12 S. J. Thurley, ‘The Impact of Royal Landholdings on the County of Surrey, 1509–
1649’, in J. Cotton, G. Crocker and A. Graham (eds.), Aspects of Archaeology and
History in Surrey (Guildford, 2004), 155–66; J. Nichols, The Progresses, Processions,
and Magnificent Festivities, of King James the First, his Royal Consort, Family, and
Court, 4 vols (London, 1828), vol. I, 464–5.
13 S. J. Thurley, ‘A Country Seat Fit for a King: Charles II, Greenwich and Winchester’,
in E. Cruickshanks (ed.), The Stuart Courts (Stroud, 2000), 226–8.
14 N. Samman, ‘The Henrician Court during Cardinal Wolsey’s Ascendancy c.1514–
1529’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wales (1988); A. Barclay, ‘The Court,
Civic Politics and Architecture in Windsor, 1685–88’, Court Historian, 25/1 (2020),
51–64; H. Jacobson, ‘Luxury Consumption, Cultural Politics, and the Career of the
Earl of Arlington, 1660–1685’, The Historical Journal, 52 (2009), 295–317.
15 M. Brayshay, Land Travel and Communications in Tudor and Stuart England: Achiev-
ing a Joined-up Realm (Liverpool, 2014), 247–50, 267–8, 272–304, 309–14.
16 Kingston Borough Archives KG2/3 (1567–1681), 18; KD5/1/1 (1567–1637) 195 and
185, 196; TNA E 351/3203, 3217; S. Adams (ed.), Household Accounts and Disburse-
ment Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–1561, 1584–1586, Camden
Society, 5th ser., 6 (1995), 273, 434; H. M. Colvin et al., The History of the King’s
Works, 6 vols (London, 1963–82), vol. V, 459.
17 Thurley, Houses of Power, 298–300.
18 T. Tatton-Brown, ‘The Quarrying and distribution of Reigate Stone in the Middle
Ages’, Medieval Archaeology, 45 (2001), 189–201.
19 W. Kelly, Royal Progresses and Visits to Leicester (Leicester, 1884), 382–93.
2 Progresses and Personal Monarchy
in the Reign of Henry VIII
J. P. D. Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies

Everyone here knows that the King today commences his progress, which extends
as far as York. . . . As the thing is new, nothing else is talked of. More than 200 tents
are carried, artillery is sent by sea and river to within 10 miles of York, and the
great horses are taken as if it were a question of war; all because the King, dur-
ing his reign, has never visited these places, where, for his first entry and for the
danger of the daily rebellions, he wishes to be well accompanied by men of these
parts in whom he has more trust.1

Henry VIII’s status as arguably the most famous, if not the most loved, king
in English history owes a lot to his skill in projecting an image of majesty. As
implied in this despatch by French ambassador Charles de Marillac, the sum-
mer progresses undertaken by Henry VIII and his retinue were a motive force
in that process, enabling the king to command the allegiance of his people and
display his sovereignty on a moving public stage. Keeping pace with Henry, but
also sometimes breaking away to conduct business on their own account, were
his successive queens consort and their households, turning progresses into vehi-
cles of queenship as well as kingship. Add in the many attendant councillors and
courtiers, plus the clerks of the royal seals and the riding chapel and every other
accoutrement necessary to government and majesty on the move, and a sixteenth-
century progress was a sophisticated undertaking, evidently deemed to be worth
the huge investment of effort, time and money. If each of Henry’s progresses was
distinct in tone and tailored to particular objectives, taken collectively they offer a
cross-section of the early Tudor regime.
And yet Henry VIII’s progresses remain an underappreciated feature of his
rule; often cited in general terms as a means of cultivating allegiance, occasion-
ally examined more closely for their relevance to broader political or religious
contexts, but never until now studied in all their elements – political, religious,
ceremonial, architectural – as one of the repeating rhythms of the reign.2 Nor
has there been a sustained effort to consolidate all the known or identifiable
­evidence – manuscripts in the State Papers and numerous other record classes,
letters and chronicles, architectural and antiquarian evidence, borough and county
archives, local memory – into a single itinerary of Henry’s progresses. That work

DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-4
22 J. P. D. Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies
is now under way, drawing on a network of researchers brought together by an
AHRC-funded project, as a means of reviewing what is known and what may yet
be discovered about this potent point of contact between court and country under
Henry VIII.3 The current chapter is literally a work in progress, aiming to define
key problems in the study of royal journeys and to comment on approaches and
sources. But it also seeks clearer definitions of what made a progress, the range of
political and religious considerations propelling Henry to travel beyond London,
and above all the significance of going on progress within a system of personal
monarchy. We also question the assumption that royal progresses were neces-
sarily well received by the communities who hosted the king. If Henry VIII was
sometimes met by uncertainty or even fear in the localities, then that needs to be
factored into the history of a ruler whom not a few of his own subjects, as well as
later generations of scholars, came to regard as a tyrant.4

Defining a Royal Progress

What constituted a progress in Henry VIII’s England? The location and com-
position of the sixteenth-century court varied with the time of year. Between
autumn and spring, the full court of up to 1,500 personnel transited between
the standing houses (those with a permanent collection of furniture, as distinct
from properties fitted out in advance of a royal visit) as need dictated, accord-
ing to the wishes of the king. The contemporary term for this was ‘removing’;
historians have also characterised this as the ‘itinerant’ court. In the summer,
the court shrank to perhaps half that size, a slimmed-down body more suited to
‘riding journeys and progresses’ (as described in the Eltham ordinances of 1526)
and less likely to overwhelm the resources of the places where the king chose
to stay.5
Henry VIII’s itinerary was significantly different from those of his royal prede-
cessors, by dint of the greater stability of the English regions and the growing pull
of a metropolitan court. The removing of the royal household or domus from one
of the king’s houses to another was a fundamental feature of the medieval English
monarchy, consistent with a crown estate centred on the royal duchies of Cornwall
and Lancaster and the earldom of Chester in addition to its power base at West-
minster. Making a regular circuit of their estates to gather rents and preside over
manorial courts was a familiar practice for any later medieval magnate. In sum-
mer 1353, for instance, Edward the Black Prince responded to reports of unrest in
Cheshire with a personal visit to redress grievances and grant a new charter, cul-
minating in a banquet at Chester castle in honour of the Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin Mary. The following year Edward received the homage of his tenants in
Cornwall, and he travelled there again with his wife Joan in 1362–3, holding court
at Restormel castle and gathering troops for his campaigns in France.6
The language of royal removing was still current two centuries later, as when
the young Edward VI noted in his chronicle that he was ‘Removing to Woking’.7
Similarly, the inventory of Henry VIII’s goods lists the contents of the ‘Removing
Guarderobe’ attendant on the king’s person ‘where the same for the tyme shall
 Progresses in the Reign of Henry VIII 23
happen to be’, including cloths of estate with the royal arms and tapestries featur-
ing Hercules and Charlemagne – the portable backdrop of Tudor kingship.8 What
was implied by ‘removing’, however, had changed a good deal as a genuinely
peripatetic medieval monarchy had become more focused on its principal resi-
dences at Westminster and around London. By Henry VIII’s day, the tenor of court
life had settled to a seasonal relocation between the standing houses along the
route of the Thames including Windsor, Hampton Court and Oatlands, Richmond,
Greenwich and Eltham, plus New Hall in Essex (renamed Beaulieu following its
purchase from the Boleyns in 1516) and Woodstock Hall in Oxfordshire.9 Several
of these were remodelled by Henry VIII, and all feature in his itinerary. The rea-
son why one house was preferred over another is not easy to detect in the records;
Simon Thurley describes the process as ‘random’.10 But it seems likely that the
liturgical year, and especially the great feasts of Easter, Christmas and Epiph-
any, influenced the king in choosing where to keep his court. Christmas 1515,
for instance, was spent at Eltham, perhaps the origin of the Saxon Kings painted
panels now in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries.11 The architectural his-
tory of properties owned by the king may be read as an index to their comparative
significance at any given point in the reign. The ‘newe buyldings and repara-
cons’ undertaken at Eltham between 1519 and 1522, including a rebuilt chapel
‘with comely wyndowes most chapellyke’ and a new withdrawing chamber for
the queen, created a space suitable for numerous further royal visits including
another stay at Christmas in 1525/6: the occasion of Wolsey’s Eltham ordinances
regulating the behaviour of the court, ostensibly on grounds of economy although
a political motive has also been detected.
What of ‘progresses’ proper? The Oxford English Dictionary gives a date of
c.1450 as the earliest usage of the word in the context of an official tour by a
monarch or person of high office; by extension, as cited in one of Archbishop
Cranmer’s letters, a ‘progress’ in Tudor English could also mean a procession.12
The language of royal progresses may be traced in Edward Hall’s Chronicle, first
published in 1548. Beginning with a reference to Henry VI’s progress into War-
wickshire ‘for his health & recreacion . . . Hawkyng and Huntynge’ – according to
Hall, a distraction manoeuvre contrived by Queen Margaret for political reasons
of her own – Hall describes several of the longer journeys made by Henry VII and
Henry VIII, including the 1486 progress to York to ‘wede, extirpate and purdge
the myndes of men spotted & contaminate with the contagious smoke of dissen-
cion, & prevy faccions’.13 Henry VIII’s early progresses were different in tone, an
opportunity for the new king to put some distance between his own regime and
the unpopular government of his father. Hall characterises a young and vigorous
Henry passing the summer of 1510 ‘exercisyng hym self dayly in shotyng, sing-
yng, daunsyng, wrastelyng, casting of the barre, plaiyng at the recorders, flute,
virginals and in setting of songes’, a pageant of feasts and festivities to contrast
with the rule of the winter king. The progress reached Shaftesbury and Corfe Cas-
tle in Dorset before concluding with jousts and tourneys at Woking, where Henry
VII had built a new hall.14 Not everything was as carefree as this might suggest:
Henry took advantage of the court’s absence from London to execute his father’s
24 J. P. D. Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies
former ministers Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley. But Hall was careful to
make clear that the king was acting in response to petitions received on progress.
In her study of Queen Elizabeth I’s travels, Mary Hill Cole reserves the term
‘progress’ for ‘those lengthy trips away from London that required, over a num-
ber of days or weeks, a series of hosts in several counties to provide hospitality
for an itinerant court’.15 The attempt to define a progress is helpful, though the
emphasis on private hosts translates less well to the reign of Henry VIII given
the astonishing number of properties that he purchased, exchanged or otherwise
acquired over the course of his reign. Henry owned more than sixty houses and
hunting lodges by the time he died, more than any king of England and (in the
judgement of Howard Colvin and John Summerson) ‘an obvious manifestation
of a tyrannical and acquisitive personality’.16 The pressure that this imposed on
the treasury was a major headache for Thomas Cromwell, who nevertheless knew
better than to question a policy that was a reflection of the king’s character as
much as a manifestation of his magnificence. If the majority of Henry’s property
portfolio was concentrated in the south-east, then he also accumulated houses
across a wider arc, including Petworth in Sussex, Ewelme in Oxfordshire, Grafton
in Northamptonshire, and (from 1539) the King’s Manor in York: formerly the
Benedictine abbey of St Mary, now ‘the Kinges Pallaice at York’ and headquarters
of the reinvigorated Council of the North.17 Henry VIII’s provincial progresses
were different from his daughter’s because he was less dependent on the hospital-
ity of others, though when he did deign to stay with one of his subjects – William
Lord Sandys at The Vyne or Sir Nicholas Carew at Beddington – it was seen to be
all the more significant.
Perhaps, the simplest definition of a royal progress is also the best: a sum-
mer journey beyond the king’s standing houses, mixing business with pleasure
in varying proportions according to circumstance (but invariably involving cer-
emony and display, redress of grievances and dialogue, hunting and gift-giving,
religious services and the distribution of alms) and requiring the court to reorder
itself into a form appropriate for extended travel. A key difference between the
two states of the court was whether the king ‘kept his hall’, enabling his retinue to
eat at the crown’s expense in a tradition of hospitality dating back to the Anglo-
Saxon kingdoms. Another marker was the chapel royal, at its full strength ‘for the
administration of dyvyne service as appertayneth’ whenever the king kept his hall
but reduced to six men, six children and the master while on progress; indeed,
Kisby sees this as the key difference between the two states of the court. The usual
repertoire of the chapel royal was cut back to a daily Lady Mass with an addi-
tional mass and anthem on Sundays and holy days, ‘for whiche purpose no great
cariage of either of vestments or bookes shall require’.18 To our core definition of
an Henrician royal progress, then, we should add the administrative and liturgical
rearrangements which the court underwent.
In the words of Susan Wabuda, Henry VIII’s progresses ‘displayed his fitness
to rule’.19 In an age when the security of the body politic depended on the wellbe-
ing of the body natural, making a play on the king’s health and strength was an
act of state as much as a mark of Henry’s own ebullient personality. Hunting was
 Progresses in the Reign of Henry VIII 25
a core activity on any summer progress: an opportunity for the king to show off
his horsemanship, to escape the press of business in the company of his closest
friends and generally to embody a model of monarchy that was already old when
it was praised by Bishop Asser in his ninth-century Life of King Alfred. Hall’s
Chronicle for 1515 describes the mix of hunting and other activities typical to
Henry VIII’s journeys out of London: ‘This Sommer the kyng tooke his progresse
Westward, & visited his tounes & castels there, & harde the complayntes of his
poore cominaltie, & ever as he roade, he hunted & liberally departed with veny-
son’.20 Royal hunting has received some scholarly discussion, though the subject
deserves closer study in terms of its ritual and material history as well as the
possibilities for access to the king that it provided.21 The chance to ride with the
king for a day granted temporary membership of the court to a wider group than
was able to participate in the jousts staged at Westminster or the procession to the
chapel royal at Hampton Court, strengthening social ties between the sovereign
and the political nation in the localities. Stag hunting yielded rich spoils that could
be shared with followers and hosts. Already a high-status food, venison hunted by
the king’s party had additional cachet, and its distribution evoked ancient ideas
of royal liberality. In August 1526, Wolsey’s chamberlain William Fitzwilliam
reported to the Cardinal on the king’s progress to Petworth, the Sussex estate still
at that point in the ownership of the earl of Northumberland:

the kinges highnes (our Lord bee thanked) is mery and in good helth . . .
entertayning such gentilmen of the contrey as reasorted unto his persone in
right famyllier maner and with good words, and also rewarded theym with
venyson accordingly.22

Fitzwilliam’s references to the king’s ‘right good passetyme’ were not as bland as
they might sound. If the king’s health was a matter of state, then his mood – as
Wolsey knew better than anyone – was a political issue. A petition for a land grant
or placement at court was likelier to succeed when Henry was full of the bonho-
mie of the hunt and a sense of obligation to his hosts.
Were all interactions with local communities as positive as these examples
imply? We should not be too quick to assume that royal journeys were success-
ful simply because they happened. Studies of Tudor royal magnificence need to
be alert to questions of audience and reception, as well as aesthetic quality and
media of transmission.23 Provincial progresses might appear to be a Tudor equiva-
lent of the more personal ‘walkabout’ style of royal tours adopted by the British
monarchy following the 1970 visit to Australia and New Zealand. But there is
a risk in imagining this kind of interaction between sovereign and public in the
deeper past. Cliff Davies sounds a note of caution about Henry VIII’s visits to
Cambridge, a ‘fairly low-key and incidental’ by-product of the king’s pilgrimages
to the pre-Reformation shrine at Walsingham rather than the ‘dynamic exercises
in royal theatre’ proposed by Wabuda.24 At times, Thurley also pictures a more
private King Henry than has usually been assumed, removing by barge from one
set of privy lodgings to another ‘without entering the public domain at all’.25 The
26 J. P. D. Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies
financial implications of entertaining the king and his retinue may also have been
a factor. Towns and courtiers welcoming Elizabeth I also fretted about the costs of
hosting a queen not known for her largesse, and the same may have been true in
Henry VIII’s reign.26 The impact of progresses on the functioning of government
also needs to be considered. The king became accessible to a wider circle of advi-
sors than would have been able to approach him in one of the royal palaces; his
repeated visits to Wolf Hall, home of Sir John Seymour (father of Henry’s third
wife Jane), are a case in point. When Henry travelled, the privy seal sometimes
remained behind.27 Did this put more emphasis on the signet, the most personal of
the instruments of Tudor government?

Sources and Interpretations

The sources for Henry VIII’s progresses are surprisingly rich, if also scattered
across a number of record classes and repositories. Historians are drawn inevi-
tably to the State Papers and Exchequer records held in The National Archives,
a familiar hunting ground for anyone interested in the functioning of the Tudor
state. A hand-written itinerary, apparently reliable where it can be compared with
other sources, may have been drawn up by the same R. H. Brodie who worked on
the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII series for the Public Record Office.28 Major
progresses were plotted and circulated in advance in the ‘gests’ that are a key
source for the king’s itinerary, though not all have survived and Henry sometimes
changed his plans once on the road; a practice also adopted by Elizabeth, one
element in her strategy of ‘dislocating the court’ through progress as argued by
Cole.29 Other relevant manuscripts include the records of the Office of the Tents
and the Wardrobe, cofferer’s and comptroller’s accounts and the twin invento-
ries of the king’s possessions in the British Library and the Society of Antiquar-
ies, making it possible to trace categories of material culture and even individual
objects. Chronicles and ambassadors’ reports supply details of what actually took
place on progress while civic records show how the king was welcomed with
ceremonial entries, religious services, drama and gifts.
Some relevant secondary studies have already been highlighted. Focusing on
the first half of Henry VIII’s reign, Samman assembles a plausible case for ‘ritual-
ised splendour’ as a factor in strengthening links between the centre and localities.
But his claim that progresses left a ‘lasting impression on contemporaries’ is more
difficult to assess: how were royal visits, intense yet ephemeral, remembered by
those who witnessed them – and who were those contemporaries?30 The impor-
tance of ritual on progress has been identified, whether the ‘liturgy of monarchy’
which (Thurley argues) was intrinsic to royal houses in this period or the more
precisely sacred liturgy and music performed by the riding chapel. Earlier Tudor
progresses are useful points of comparison, especially as a response to regional
rebellion and a means of reconciliation between the crown and local communities.
Henry VII’s progress to York in 1486 gave the city the chance to sue for the king’s
mercy given its former support for Richard III; a second visit the following year
readmitted York to royal favour following its stand against the Yorkist pretender
 Progresses in the Reign of Henry VIII 27
Lambert Simnel.31 Comparatively little is known about the provincial journeys
undertaken by Edward VI and Mary I, making it difficult to plot how the culture
of Henrician progresses changed on his death. But the rapid disposal of a number
of the king’s houses must have had a bearing, as will the mixture of social unrest,
sickness and religious persecution that afflicted the middle years of the sixteenth
century.
Building on our definition of a royal progress, we can hazard a summary of the
purposes that they served and their value within a system of personal monarchy.
At a basic level, removings and progresses freed the king and his court to find
fresh hunting and a summer at leisure while escaping the contagion of the city and
allowing for the standing houses to be scoured and cleaned. At their most sophis-
ticated, as with the joint manoeuvres with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V
or the 1535 journey westward, Henry VIII’s progresses pursued a more obviously
political agenda, whether diplomatic (temporarily successful in 1522, a failure in
1541), religious (his courting of support for church reform in 1535) or focused
on a show of power in the localities. Reviewing the fleet at anchor at Portsmouth,
or the fortified harbours at Dover and Hull, presented Henry as a defender of his
realm and the military equal of his European rivals.32 Overall, progresses were
an opportunity for ceremonial dialogue between ruler and ruled; the point being
that this was a mutual engagement, with an expectation that once Henry had been
alerted to a problem he would then do something about it.
In terms of future research, there are several priorities. The role of queens
demands to be better understood, particularly where there is evidence of inde-
pendent action as in the case of Katherine’s progresses during the 1520s. We need
to know more about local responses to royal progresses, the building projects that
they stimulated and any lasting legacies of royal visits. The material aspect of tak-
ing the court on tour is a subject offering a wealth of possibility, both for Henry
and his wives. Progresses also offer a window into the religious devotions of a
king who began his reign by going on pilgrimage and ended it by converting mon-
asteries into homes for himself. Public piety had been a dominant motif of Henry
VII’s progresses; in 1486 alone, he washed the feet of the poor at Lincoln Minster
on Maundy Thursday, held a St George’s day Garter service and crown-wearing
in York, and took part in religious processions in Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester
and Bristol.33 How did Henry VIII follow or adapt his father’s model, especially
once the Reformation had begun? We now briefly review two of Henry’s pro-
gresses from the second half of the reign, when both the theory and the practice of
English kingship were facing unprecedented change.

Building Loyalty: the Western Progress of 1535

On 8 July 1535 – three days later than planned – Henry VIII and his ‘dere and
entirely beloved’ wife Anne left Windsor for Reading Abbey.34 Their departure
marked the beginning of one of the longest progresses of the reign. The royal
party would travel to Gloucester, Winchester and Southampton before return-
ing to Windsor on 26 October. The 1535 tour highlights recurring themes in
28 J. P. D. Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies
Henry VIII’s progresses, including their responsiveness to circumstance – Henry
diverted from the itinerary advertised in the gest to avoid plague at Bristol, and
to deal with a naval incident at Portsmouth – and the elaborate preparations made
by hosts: Nicholas Poyntz built a new east range at his manor of Acton Court in
advance of the king’s visit.35 But an analysis of the king’s itinerary, in particular
his choice of host and the presence of Thomas Cromwell, also reveals the specific
intent behind the 1535 progress.
Cromwell joined the court at Sudeley Castle, and on 26 July he accompanied
the king and queen as they lodged in Tewkesbury. It was here that he met with
his auditors, who would travel almost parallel with the progress throughout the
summer, reporting their findings on the alleged abuses of monasteries and abbeys
in Bath, Keynsham, Maiden Bradley and Glastonbury. The 1535 progress pur-
sued a dual agenda: to gather evidence of monastic vice and ‘abomination of liv-
ing’ which Henry and Cromwell would then set before Parliament; and to show
favour towards gentry and clergy supportive of dissolution – Sir Thomas Seymour
at Sudeley, Sir Edward Baynton at Bromham, Lord Sandys at the Vyne, Bishop
Nicholas Shaxton at Salisbury, Nicholas Poyntz – or else persuadable, like Ste-
phen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. Preachers accompanying the progress rein-
forced the message that Henry’s separation from Katherine and marriage to Anne
was blessed by God, though imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys reckoned that
the people would return to the truth ‘when there is any appearance of remedy’.36
An inventory of Acton Court in 1532 lists the kind of lavish furnishings wel-
coming Henry and Anne: tapestries and Turkish carpets, carved oak chairs and
chests imported from Flanders, cushions of embroidered velvet, a four-poster
bed with hangings. The house was well supplied with salts, goblets and apostle-
spoons in silver or silver-gilt. Archaeological excavations have discovered exam-
ples of Venetian glass and Italian glazed earthenware, perhaps purchased for the
king’s visit and discarded when they got broken. A painted frieze in the ‘antike’
style brought Renaissance motifs familiar from the king’s palaces to the English
provinces.37

Diplomacy and Dominance: the Northern Progress, 1541

Of all Henry VIII’s journeys into the further reaches of his kingdom, the northern
progress of 1541 raises the most acute questions about the purpose and impact of
taking the royal court on tour. This was certainly an impressive display of power.
The French ambassador estimated between 4,000 and 5,000 horsemen and more
than 200 tents leaving London ‘as if it were a question of war’; artillery was
sent ahead by sea. Meanwhile, the Tower was ‘cleared’ of high-profile prisoners
in a swathe of executions.38 Writing from York on 16 September 1541, Maril-
lac describes the scene at the recently dissolved St Mary’s Abbey, where up to
1,500 workmen were ‘night and day building, painting . . . and adding tents and
pavilions’ to make it ready to receive the king. Meanwhile the ‘richest tapestry,
plate, and dress’ had been brought up from London, to recreate the splendour of
the royal court in what amounted to a temporary palace.39 For nine days, Henry
 Progresses in the Reign of Henry VIII 29
and Catherine occupied apartments converted from the monastic west range and
dorter as they waited – in vain, as it turned out – to receive his nephew James V,
King of Scots.40
Why this militarised expedition to the north, ‘a radical departure from the
­established routines of the Henrician Court’?41 Three articles in Northern History
have attempted to disentangle the threads of international diplomacy, regional
­English politics and Reformation contexts that came together in the 1541 progress.
Though they develop different arguments – Richard Hoyle and John ­Ramsdale
focusing on mutual provocation between the rulers of Scotland and England,
Tim Thornton emphasising Henry’s ‘unalloyed humiliation’ of the city of ­York –
­historians agree that this was not a conventional summer progress, even if the
king did manage some hunting along the way.42 Reports of an intended ­conspiracy
in the ­Yorkshire town of Wakefield recalled the Lincolnshire and ­Pilgrimage
of Grace uprisings five years earlier, though whether this was (as Christopher
­Sansom argues) a ­‘serious attempt to overthrow [Henry’s] regime’ depends on
how much credit is given to Chapuys’s account of the ‘Wakefield conspiracy’.43
Henry received the homage of each town and wapentake in two groups, accord-
ing to their loyalty in 1536; at York, the corporation and local gentry were com-
pelled to kneel in ­submission at Fulford cross, a scene memorably fictionalised
in Sansom’s detective novel Sovereign.44 For J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry’s entourage
‘resembled an army of occupation . . . to strike a decent fear, as well as love in the
hearts of the querulous northerners’.45
Clearly, the atmosphere of the 1541 progress was tense. But was Marillac cor-
rect in his analysis of the ‘danger of the daily rebellions’? Henry VIII decided
not to travel north in 1537, when a military tour of recently rebel territory might
have made more sense; it is also worth noting that the Pilgrims of Grace consist-
ently protested their loyalty to the king. Henry rode with a substantial number
of soldiers (Sansom estimates between 1,000 and 1,500), as appropriate for one
king meeting another in a context of a serious danger of war between their two
nations.46 But the bulk of his retinue was made up of courtiers, officials and serv-
ants: the size of a battlefield army perhaps, but not arrayed as one. Henry also took
his queen, much of his government and – for some of the way at least – his daugh-
ter Princess Mary. Would this have been wise if the conditions were as ‘hazardous’
as has been claimed?47 Henry has been depicted as intent on the ‘unconditional
surrender’ of the north, which might have matched his temperament but would
hardly have been a good policy in a region shouldering England’s defence against
the Scots.48 The progress of 1541 may rather have represented a new accommoda-
tion with the north of England, where governance had been disrupted by the fall
of the Percy family as well as the dissolution of the monasteries and the revolts of
1536. For Henry VIII’s sovereignty to be effective, he needed the cooperation of
the local elite. A progress was an opportunity for both confession and absolution,
a means for the compromised to be readmitted to royal service along the lines of
his father’s visit to York in 1486. The king’s council in the north also acquired new
premises at the King’s Manor in York: an administrative, legal and ceremonial
complex from which the region continued to be governed for a hundred years.
30 J. P. D. Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies
Conclusion: Henry VIII on Tour
In his still authoritative History of the King’s Works, the architectural historian
Howard Colvin observed dryly that ‘The history of the English court has yet to
be written’.49 During the four decades since Colvin laid down that challenge, his-
torians of Henry VIII’s court have brought to light a great many of the elements
that contributed to the practice of his kingship, from the apartments where he
lived and the officials who peopled them to the abundance of plate and tapestries,
portraits and jewels catalogued by the ‘Inventory of Henry VIII’ project. Animat-
ing this image of royal magnificence has been an equally vivid reconstruction of
the pageantry and ceremony that proclaimed Henry’s power in his own time and
shape how we remember him today. Less evident, at least until now, has been
any sustained effort to survey all of Henry VIII’s progresses. Writing in 1999,
Fiona Kisby concluded that ‘knowing where the court was at any particular time
and why it was there, is obviously essential’.50 As one of those who responded
so effectively to Colvin’s call for a new history of the court, Kisby in turn set an
agenda that it has taken more than twenty years to follow up. Now that agenda has
been set in motion, in the form of a PhD thesis and a research network, and we
hope further research to come.
When complete, the first full itinerary for Henry’s reign will interact with the
richly detailed inventories that have already been published to produce a new
model of Tudor royal magnificence on the move. From our pilot project and
research undertaken so far, what is abundantly clear is that royal progresses were
taken seriously by all concerned: as a means of bringing the splendour of the court
to the country but also as an assertion of royal agency and an expression of the
priorities of Henry VIII and his queens. Personal monarchy still mattered very
much in sixteenth-century England, and monarchy was never so personal as in
the time of progress.

Notes
1 LP xvi, 941.
2 Two important articles were published in the 1990s, taking the subject forward and
posing key questions, but neither resulted in the monograph-length study that the sub-
ject deserves. See N. Samman, ‘The Progresses of Henry VIII, 1509–1529’, in D. Mac-
Culloch (ed.), The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics and Piety (London, 1995), 59–73; F.
Kisby, ‘Kingship and the Royal Itinerary: A Study of the Peripatetic Household of the
Early Tudor Kings, 1485–1547’, The Court Historian, 4/1 (1999), 29–39.
3 The authors would like to acknowledge the research of Dustin Neighbors, whose report
for the ‘Henry VIII on Tour’ project and draft itinerary for Henry VIII have made a
significant contribution to this chapter.
4 George Bernard, for one, is not afraid to admit that ‘more and more I have come to see
Henry VIII as a tyrant’: ‘The Tyranny of Henry VIII’, in G. W. Bernard and S. J. Gunn
(eds.), Authority and Consent in Tudor England (Aldershot, 2002), 113. Marillac’s
despatches to Francis I anatomised what he saw as Henry VIII’s growing tyranny: R.
J. Knecht, ‘Marillac, Charles de (1510x13–1560)’, in ODNB.
5 S. J. Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England: Architecture and Court Life 1460–
1547 (New Haven, CT and London, 1993), 67, 70; Samman, ‘Progresses of Henry
VIII’, 62; Kisby, ‘Kingship and the Royal Itinerary’, 32.
 Progresses in the Reign of Henry VIII 31
6 M. Jones, The Black Prince (London, 2018), 148, 266–7.
7 W. K. Jordan (ed.), The Chronicle and Political Papers of Edward VI (Ithaca, NY,
1966), 45.
8 D. Starkey and P. Ward (eds.), The Inventory of King Henry VIII (London, 1998),
354–5.
9 H. M. Colvin, The History of the King’s Works, 6 vols (London, 1963–82), vol. IV,
28–9.
10 Thurley, Royal Palaces, 67.
11 J. A. Franklin, B. Nurse and P. Tudor-Craig, Catalogue of Paintings in the Collection
of the Society of Antiquaries of London (London, 2015), 35–8.
12 ‘progress, n’. OED Online [accessed December 2021].
13 E. Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre [and] Yorke
(2nd ed., London, 1548; STC 12722), ‘The trobleous season of Kyng Henry the sixt’,
fol. 170; ‘The politique governaunce of Kyng Henry the. vii.’, fol. 4.
14 Hall, Union, ‘The triumphaunt reigne of Kyng Henry the VIII’, fol. 8; Colvin, King’s
Works, vol. IV, 344–5.
15 Mary Hill Cole, The Portable Queen: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Ceremony
(Amherst, MA, 1999), 22.
16 Thurley, Royal Palaces, 1; Colvin, King’s Works, vol. IV, 2.
17 Colvin, King’s Works, vol. IV, 356.
18 Kisby, ‘Kingship and the Royal Itinerary’, 32–3, 35.
19 S. Wabuda, ‘Receiving the King: Henry VIII at Cambridge’, in T. Betteridge and S.
Lipscomb (eds.), Henry VIII and the Court: Art, Politics and Performance (Abingdon,
2016), 164.
20 Hall, Union, ‘The triumphaunt reigne of Kyng Henry the VIII’, fol. 57.
21 G. Richardson, ‘Hunting at the Courts of Francis I and Henry VIII’, The Court Histo-
rian, 18/2 (2013), 127–41; J. Williams, ‘Hunting and the Royal Image of Henry VIII’,
Sport in History, 25/1 (2005), 41–59.
22 TNA SP 1/39, fol. 31r. For this William Fitzwilliam (as distinct from the more famous
courtier of the same name), see G. Richardson, Wolsey (Abingdon, 2020), 158. In
1541, Francis I sent Henry VIII a diplomatic gift of game pasties, three of venison and
three of wild boar, brought by an officer of the French royal kitchens; their (favourable)
reception was watched closely by both the French and Imperial ambassadors. Richard-
son, ‘Hunting’, 139–40.
23 Examples of this more questioning approach to Tudor royal propaganda include S.
Anglo, Images of Tudor Kingship (London, 1992); J. P. D. Cooper, Propaganda and
the Tudor State: Political Culture in the Westcountry (Oxford, 2003); D. Shaw, ‘Noth-
ing but Propaganda? Historians and the Study of Early Modern Ritual’, Cultural and
Social History, 1/2 (2004), 139–58; T. C. String, Art and Communication in the Reign
of Henry VIII (Aldershot, 2008).
24 C. S. L. Davies, review of Betteridge and Lipscomb Henry VIII and the Court, EHR,
129 (2014), 1483–4; see also Wabuda, ‘Henry VIII at Cambridge’, 163.
25 Thurley, Royal Palaces, 77.
26 Cole, Portable Queen, 72, 85–95.
27 Samman, ‘Progresses of Henry VIII’, 63.
28 TNA OBS 1/1419.
29 Samman, ‘Progresses of Henry VIII’, 62–3 and n. 12; Cole, Portable Queen, 40–1.
‘Gest’ (sometimes ‘giest’ or ‘gist’) meant a stopping-place on a journey or progress, a
loan word from Old French: ‘gist, n.1’. OED Online [accessed December 2021].
30 Samman, ‘Progresses of Henry VIII’, 59. By contrast Tim Thornton has argued that the
north chose to forget the 1541 progress: ‘Henry VIII’s Progress through Yorkshire in
1541 and Its Implications for Northern Identities’, Northern History, 46/2 (2009), 242.
31 S. Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy (Oxford, 1969), 21–8; N. Mur-
phy, ‘Receiving Royals in Later Medieval York: Civic Ceremony and the Municipal
Elite, 1478–1503’, Northern History, 43/2 (2006), 241–55.
32 J. P. D. Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies
32 For Dover and Hull see Colvin, King’s Works, vol. IV, 472–5, 729–53.
33 E. Cavell, ‘Henry VII, the North of England, and the First Provincial Progress of
1486’, Northern History, 39/2 (2002), 187–207.
34 D. Starkey, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII (London, 2004), 559.
35 K. Rodwell and R. Bell, Acton Court: The Evolution of an Early Tudor Courtier’s
House (London, 2004), 128.
36 LP ix, 58.
37 R. Bell, ‘The Royal Visit to Acton Court in 1535’, in D. Starkey (ed.), Henry VIII:
A European Court in England (London, 1991), 123–5.
38 LP xvi, 941.
39 Ibid., 1183.
40 C. Norton, ‘The Buildings of St Mary’s Abbey, York and their Destruction’, The Anti-
quaries Journal, 74 (1994), 267.
41 R. W. Hoyle and J. B. Ramsdale, ‘The Royal Progress of 1541, the North of England,
and Anglo-Scottish Relations, 1534–42’, Northern History, 41/2 (2004), 239.
42 Thornton, ‘Northern Identities’, 240.
43 C. J. Sansom, ‘The Wakefield Conspiracy of 1541 and Henry VIII’s Progress to the
North Reconsidered’, Northern History, 45/2 (2008), 218.
44 Thornton, ‘Northern Identities’, 238; C. J. Sansom, Sovereign (London, 2006), 213–16.
45 J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (London, 1968), 427–8.
46 Sansom, ‘Wakefield Conspiracy’, 233.
47 Hoyle and Ramsdale, ‘Progress of 1541’, 240.
48 Thornton, ‘Northern Identities’, 242.
49 Colvin, King’s Works, vol. IV, 29.
50 Kisby, ‘Kingship and the Royal Itinerary’, 39.
Another random document with
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salutation even to their own fathers, when they draw their sabres in
action, wound the heads of their own horses, and thus cover
themselves and their beasts with blood; this awkwardness of theirs
cause those who see it to utter ejaculations of surprise. In short, it is
evident to men of understanding, that as the talents of reading,
writing, riding on horseback, shooting with the bow, playing on an
instrument, and other similar acquirements, will not come
spontaneously to persons unskilled, and uninstructed in them; so
likewise victory cannot be obtained without a knowledge of the art of
war, which is a particular, and noble branch of science, independent
of others.
There are indeed certain considerations which may induce us to
pardon those calumniators of the Nizam-y-Gedid, who are any wise
connected with the old corps; but do those persons who are by no
means attached to them, and who know the difference between alum
and[88]sugar, and between good and evil, show any sense in daring to
abuse so noble a science? Their perverseness and obstinacy are
astonishing, seeing that, notwithstanding the taste which the infidel
race has always had of our raw troops, they do not allow it to be
sufficiently proved, that if a war should break out, these ignorant
beasts pressing together in masses of one or two thousand men, will
be unable to resist the tactic of the enemy.

SECTION V.
Containing a relation of the footing on which the old corps
of troops originally were, and of their present state.

Since so unreasonable a dissension prevails between our old and

new troops, we have undertaken a disquisition on the organization of
the first of these corps. The public are well aware of the conduct
observed by our old corps of troops when they march out to war, or
return from it; but if any persons should be ignorant of this, we will
thus explain it to them. At the time that His Highness Sultan
Suleÿman Khan set on foot these forces, the soldiers whose names
were inscribed on the muster-roll conducted themselves on their
marches with the most perfect propriety; and at the places through
which they passed, whether they moved by land or by water, did not
take so much as the value of an asper, either from rich or poor,
mussulman or Rayah; neither did they eat a single egg without
paying for it, nor injured the honour of any one. Truly the said
troops, yielding implicit obedience to the orders of the emperor of
the times, and of their other commanders, performed their duty well,
and wronged no man in any respect. In their military expeditions
they were wont to subdue forts and countries, and to ruin the
reputation of the infidels, and thus to elevate the glory, fame, and
power of the emperor of exalted splendour, and as they were thought
worthy of the prayers of his Highness and of the people of the true
faith, the whole world held them as objects of praise, and all men
desired their honour. As they were so highly respected a body, they
did not admit into their ranks men of obscure race, such as Franks,
Greeks, Armenians, Jews, or gypsies, or persons belonging to any
other inglorious nation. Being men of true courage, they repressed
these as well as all other insolent and shameless persons, and those
of the description of robbers. As the enemies of our religion were not
pleased with their excellent regulations, they found means to
introduce into their ranks very cunning spies for the purpose of
sowing dissension amongst them. These spies gradually creeping in
amongst the soldiers under pretence of being comrades, insinuated
themselves like Satan, and began by degrees to set on foot practices,
tending to corrupt the valour implanted in their hearts, and their zeal
for religion. “Comrades (said they) the pay which we receive from
government is seven aspers, and they point out to us Paradise as the
reward of martyrdom; they will certainly cause us all to be
slaughtered by the infidels; we have not two lives, why then should
we be destroyed for seven aspers, and without reason?” Having, by
similar and repeated insinuations, corrupted the minds of the
faithful soldiers, these began to care no longer about the concerns
they were intended for, and saying at last, “Useless and destructive
expeditions are only proper for the Russian infidels, let us leave it to
their soldiers to feed upon dry biscuits, as for us we will return home
and eat fine Baklava.”[89] Thus they forgot the stream of benefits in
which they were immersed, and the kind treatment and protection
that they had experienced. As there was nobody, either in the corps
or out of it, who spoke reason to them, they came in process of time
to do whatever they liked, plundering the places that they traversed
on their march, burning and destroying the houses both of
Mussulmans and Rayahs, and stretching forth their hands against
the honour of their families. Besides all this, although the whole body
of men who compose an hundred and ninety six Ortas, being
quartered altogether in one residence, ought to have no differences
one with the other; yet hatred and dissension rose to such a pitch
amongst them, that they no longer considered those who did not
belong to their own Orta, as brothers in religion, but, without
dissembling their sentiments, exchanged bullets, and drank each
others blood; and in the villages, forcing open the houses of the poor,
committed murder, which disorder still prevailing, as none of them
are safe from the others either in war or peace, their well regulated
system of discipline hath perished and gone to decay. They pass their
days in propagating seventy thousand false reports, saying, “When
we were opposed to the infidels, they did not allow us to give them
battle; if we had obtained permission, we could without trouble have
overthrown the crals from their thrones; but the ministers of our
government conspiring with the Ghiaours[90] cause us to be slain and
taken prisoners, and, receiving from the Russian infidels casks of
gold, deliver up the country to them.”
On a day of battle, as soon as they have heard from a distance the
noise of a cannonade, and have seen a few hats, the Mussulman spies
who are in their ranks begin to exclaim aloud: “Community of
Mahomet, why do you stay here? the Ghiaours have forced our camp,
the troops in front of us have turned their faces this way; we shall be
pursued and made prisoners.” As these cries spread in succession
through the army, even the very regiments which since their original
institution never surrendered their kettles to the enemy[91], and
which are at that moment sacrificing a thousand martyrs in their
defence, now estimating their own lives at the price which the others
set upon theirs, abandon in the space of half an hour their tents,
camp equipage, kettles, and baggage of every sort, and repairing
straight to the imperial camp, plunder the treasure, effects, and
military chest, and then adorning their heads with the trophies of
their pillage, walk about in small parties with a presumptuous air, as
though these were inscriptions which made good their pretence of
having beaten the enemy, and overturned their cral. As they are all
mixed and confounded together, there is no way of distinguishing
those who fight with true patriotism from those who do not, and
there are amongst them certain adversaries who begin the attack
against the orders of their Vezier, Agha, Pashahs, and other officers.
When, however, the action is engaged, it is not possible to make
them stand their ground for half a minute, and the following example
is a clear proof of it. During the reign of his Highness Sultan
Moustapha, in the year of the battle of Kartal, when an hundred and
fifty thousand soldiers of Islam were opposed to the infidels, whilst
his excellency, Cogia Abdee Pashah (who hath attained to the mercy
of God,) was engaged in combat on the field of battle, at which time
the people of Islam were not very hard pressed, a mounted spy,
dressed like a Chiaoush, rode hastily along the rear of the
entrenchments of the Janissaries, and cried aloud: “Janissaries, why
do you remain here? the Ghiaours have turned our rear!” having said
these words, he put spurs to his horse and departed. Before he was
out of sight, the whole camp of janissaries, without examining
whether he had spoken truth or falsehood, at once betook themselves
to a precipitate flight. The infidels, availing themselves of the
opportunity, pursued them, and were on the point of completing
their destruction; but his excellency, whom we mentioned above,
saved them by vigorously charging the infidels with another corps;
but while he thus checked the enemy, the fugitives never thought so
much as rallying or coming to his assistance, neither did they stop to
take breath, until they arrived on the banks of the Danube, amongst
the tents which contained the treasure. As they did not see the enemy
at their backs, they ought to have retraced their steps, instead of
which, they plundered the baggage and treasure of the imperial
camp, and not being able to cross the river in open boats, they threw
themselves into the river, so that one third of them, or perhaps more,
were swallowed up in the Danube. Some, who could not swim,
climbed up the willow-trees upon the banks of the Danube, and
many lay hid among the reeds and flags; but when the enemy arrived
and perceived them, they were all put to death by fire and sword. It
was exactly three days before the whole army of the infidels came up,
when they made themselves masters of all the artillery, ammunition,
and military stores of various descriptions, which our bravoes, who
were unable to carry them off, had left on the banks of the Danube.
Towards the conclusion of the Russian war, which had succeeded
the one we have been speaking of, when Cogia Jussuf Pashah was
Grand Vezier for the second time, all the officers of the corps, and the
Janissary-Agha coming up to the Vezier in a body, made to him this
representation: “Although we have upwards of one hundred and
twenty thousand men, yet eight thousand of the Russian troops,
crossing to the higher side of the Danube and attacking us, have
completely routed our army. It is utterly impossible for us, with our
regular troops, to make head against such welldisciplined forces as
those of the Ghiaours; therefore, if you intend to make peace with
them, do it without delay. While our soldiers continue ignorant of
these new military manœuvres, we are not destined to become
victorious, from this time even to the day of judgment.” The
astonished Vezier said in answer to this strong representation, “How
can I lay these points before the Emperor?” To this they replied, “We
will ourselves cause a petition to be drawn up and presented to him.”
At the same time, they caused an humble representation to be
written out by me, and delivered it to the Vezier. It was dispatched to
the Emperor, and his Highness became convinced of their inability of
obtaining success in future. When peace was made, in consequence,
the Sublime Government, considering that the Janissaries
themselves had declared that their state of discipline rendered them
unfit to oppose the tactics of the enemies, thought itself obliged to
use every effort to introduce into the corps of Janissaries a regular
system of exercise, hoping by that means to retrieve their affairs, to
avert defeat, to open the way to victory, and to obtain security from
hostile machinations. The Janissaries, however, contrary to reason
and expectation, would not receive this project, and absolutely
rejected it. But as it became evident that, if it were abandoned to
oblivion, things would become worse, and the infidel race would
certainly encroach more and more, and as the conversation which
had taken place at Petersburgh relative to the reservoirs, was then
generally known, a body of musketeers was formed from among the
Bostangees, and quartered in the barracks newly constructed at the
Levend-Chifflick. As when His Highness Sultan Suleÿman set on foot
the corps of Janissaries, the new recruits deserted next day, so in the
present instance a number of worthless persons set up an opposition
in defence of the Janissaries, although these were no otherwise
connected with it than by the simple reception of pay, and began to
whisper to each other, “Hark ye! a hearth[92] is set open for the
Nizam-y-Gedid; if these new troops, who are practising military
evolutions, should perform any good service in war, the institution of
Janissaries will become obsolete, and our muster-roll will be erased
from the list.” They suggested also, that as the men who were
inscribed in the corps of the Nizam-y-Gedid performed an exercise
similar to that of the Ghiaours, the Mussulman faith is thereby
injured. Although these blockheads had never before given
themselves any concern about our faith or government, and indeed
knew nothing of what belongs to Mussulman purity; yet, on the
present occasion, they showed a mighty anxiety for religion, and by
that means prevented many persons from inscribing their names,
and encouraged many who were already engaged to desert. Behold!
how inscrutable are the decrees of Divine Providence! When the war
with France broke out, at which time these forces consisted only of
three or four thousand men, the new gunners and musketeers were
appointed to serve at Cairo and Acre. The said troops committed no
excesses, either on board the vessels in which they were transported,
or in the places of their destination whither they repaired, nor
robbed any man of the value of an asper; but both in going and
coming, conducted themselves with propriety and modesty. If any
persons have either seen or heard of their having committed the least
fault, we challenge them to declare it. When by the favour of Divine
Providence they arrived at Acre, the French infidels, who had for
sixty-three days pressed very closely Gezar-Pashah and the
inhabitants of the place, were within a hair’s breadth of making
themselves entirely masters of it; for they had already entered that
which is called the Sublime bastion within the fortress; but the
troops of the Nizam-y-Gedid, valiantly exerting their military skill, in
one day slaughtered the infidels to such a degree, that in no part of
Europe did the French nation ever receive so disgraceful an
overthrow; and no man in the world is ignorant that the said fortress
and its inhabitants were delivered by their courage. Is not this also a
proof of their utility, past and future? Wherever they have been
opposed to the infidels, although few in number, they never turned
their faces back, but broke the enemy, or were themselves broken;
and as not one of them dared to mention the word flight, they have
always, in exact obedience to the will of the great and mighty
Prophet, punctually discharged the duties which appertain to a holy
war, and a steady zeal for the faith. If there is any falsehood in my
words, let any one prove it; I am extremely willing that he should do
so, otherwise, for God’s sake, let every body listen to reason. When
our undisciplined forces in Egypt found themselves unable to make
head against the cavalry or infantry of the French infidels, they
retired for protection behind the ranks of our regular troops, who
alone stood their ground, and by that means saved themselves from
the impending danger. Moreover, in the year 1217 they were sent
against the Mountaineers who had rebelled in Rumelia. Since that
insolent race first showed themselves, several Veziers and other
officers had been sent against them without effect.[93] Having formed
the wicked design of destroying the Nizam-y-Gedid institution from
its roots, they now exerted their whole strength and gave battle.
Although the regular troops had with them neither their cannon,
howitzers, or mounted men, and were engaged in the midst of a
severe winter, snow, rain, and mud, and though the rebels were
strongly posted in a town, they nevertheless marched up to the
attack, and without regarding the advantageous position of the
insurgents, while they were themselves up to the knees in mud and
water, they knocked down half of the rebels like rotten pears,
sending their souls to hell, and obliged the rest to fly. In a short time
the field of action was covered with the vile carcases of the rebels,
and those who were taken alive reported that they called out to each
other, “Ah! comrade, these troops which they call Nizam-y-Gedid,
are not what we took them for.” In these exclamations they betrayed
the sense of their own inferiority. Every one knows that at last these
rascals, unable to make a stand on any side, climbed the mountains
by night, and fled. To this we may add, that although the banditti
tried by every means to introduce a spy into the ranks of the new
soldiers, they could not succeed, because, by the regulations of those
forces, an officer is appointed to command every ten privates, and
these officers who have an opportunity of seeing constantly, as well
their own men as those who are on the right and left, are acquainted
with them all, and in the line they never quit each other’s sides; if,
therefore, a stranger from without should get in amongst them, in
what condition would he find himself, being exposed in the middle;
like a broom in a court-yard, he delivers his collar to the first man
that takes him.
Just and intelligent men may readily understand how easily the
Sublime Government can organise these troops, from this
circumstance, that it is utterly impossible for any person, whether
Mussulman or infidel, by passing to and fro to examine the state of
these troops, and learn where they are going, and what they are
about to undertake, without being discovered and punished. The
advantages of the new corps, and their superiority over the old are
infinite; were we to write them all down, we should fill several
volumes. In order, however, to make the people comprehend well, we
will point out to them another of these advantages. The soldiers of
our ancient corps, are not at all clothed alike; from this diversity of
garment, the following bad effect results: if, in time of war, any of
them should desert from the army, as there are no marks by which
we can distinguish whether the deserters belong to the troops, or
whether they are tradesmen, or servants, they have thereby the
opportunities of escaping without being known. Whereas the new
troops have a particular uniform of their own, so that the stragglers
would be soon discovered. Hence it results, that in a large camp of
the new troops, every man will be forced to remain fixed in his
company, and steady in the performance of his duty, whether he
would or no, since it is impossible to desert without greatly incurring
the danger of punishment.
Another of their advantages is this: our old forces, when in
presence of the enemy, do not remain drawn up in a line, but stand
confusedly and promiscuously like a crowd in a place of diversion.
Some load their muskets, and fire once, some twice, or oftener, just
as they think proper, whilst others being at their wits’ end, and not
knowing what they are about turn from side to side like fabulous
story-tellers.[94] If in consequence of any movement which they
perceive on the side of the enemy, the officers endeavour to make the
troops fall back a little, some will obey them, others will not, every
one does just as he likes. If they wish to retire a little, the soldiers
make that a pretence for flying to the distance of some days’ journey.
But the new troops remain drawn up in line as though they were at
prayers, the rear ranks being exactly parallel with the front, and
consisting of the same number of companies, neither more nor less,
so that, when it is necessary, they turn with as much precision as a
watch. The whole body, consisting of many thousand men, observe
attentively the signals given them by the two fuglemen who explain
by signs the commands of the officers, and not one dares so much as
to turn his head. Thus the orders of the officers being communicated
without the least noise, they stand firm, and lend an attentive ear,
whilst not a word issues from their mouths. If, for instance, the
officer whose business it is to give the command, makes the signal
for attention, the whole body are ready in an instant, and not one of
them dares to stand idle, or to make any noise, or to look another
way, thus they are equally prepared for whatever may happen.
Sometimes the signal is given for them to load and discharge their
muskets successively, without regarding order or slacken their fire,
so as to make the balls shower like rain. If, while thus engaged, they
meet with a check, the officers immediately by a signal will cause
them to retire in good order, and will supply their place with fresh
troops from the rear, who likewise scatter their fire in the same
manner. This method of managing troops gives great facility to their
operations. Sometimes they dispose a large body of men in a circular
form, and then cause them to march round in such a manner, that as
the circle turns the soldiers incessantly discharge their muskets on
the enemy and give no respite to the combat, and having prepared
their guns for a fresh discharge before they return to the same place,
they fire the moment they arrive in the face of the enemy. The result
of this circular formation is, that the fire and slaughter do not cease
for an instant. Sometimes, when it is judged necessary, several
thousand men being crowded into a narrow space, form a solid mass
for the purpose of appearing to the enemy to be few in number, then
by opening out, they can execute any manœuvre that they please, and
sometimes, ten thousand men deploying, appear to consist of fifty or
sixty thousand. At other times, when they are hard pressed, the
troops receive the superior officers in the centre, and throwing
themselves into the form of a square castle, pour their fire on every
side, the artillery also being disposed on every face of the square, so
that if the enemy should charge them even on four sides, he will be
unable to make an impression. If the enemy’s cavalry should
endeavour to break in upon them while they are formed in this
manner, on the signal being given, the front rank men kneel
altogether in an instant, and remain in that position keeping their
muskets supported against their breasts, and the ranks who are in
their rear stand upright and make use of their fire-arms, thus
rendering it impossible for the hostile cavalry to break in and create
confusion. Should it happen that the enemy is as skilful and well
trained as themselves, and employs against them the same
discipline, then of the two parties, that will be victorious whose
chiefs are enabled, by the favour of Divine Providence, to put in
practice with superior address, the new science and stratagems of
war which they have learned, because the apostle of the Most High,
our great prophet (on whom be the blessings and peace of God!)
himself condescended to use military stratagems. This sacred
tradition is thus related.
During a holy war which was carried on in the happy time of the
apostle of God, (on whom be peace!) a certain valiant champion of
the enemy’s army came out to offer single combat, and demanded
that the glorious Alli should be opposed to him. Alli, well pleasing to
God, having received the command of the Apostle, girded on his
sword only, and immediately went forth alone to the place appointed
for the combat. When this friend of the Most High met that infidel,
he thus addressed him: “I come on foot having one sword; why come
you out on horseback having two swords and two bows?” The great
Alli spoke to him again, saying “let these things be so; but I come out
alone to give battle on our side, why do you bring another man and
come both together?” The infidel, at this question, looked about him
believing that another man had followed him, when at the same
instant, the great Alli, in the twinkling of an eye, made the vile head
of the reprobate fly off. The death of the said wicked person having
been a source of joy to the followers of Islam, the excellent Alli,
meeting the great prophet on his return, related to him the
admirable stratagem by means of which he had slain that wretch.
This holy tradition has been vouchsafed unto us.
Although many similar stratagems have been employed at various
times, by holy warriors, and leave has been granted to the spies sent
forth amongst the infidels for the purpose of advancing victory to the
people of Islam, to assume any sort of dress; and although the great
Prophet hath given full permission and authority to do any thing
which may conduce to the defeat of the infidels, yet an ignorant
rabble keep chattering like parrots, some of whom do not approve of
the dresses of the new troops, while others say that their exercise
belongs specially to the Kiafers[95], and does not become
Mussulmans.
With respect to the manner in which the provinces of the Sublime
Government are to be defended, and the means by which the
enemies of our faith are to be repressed, and the causes that have
produced victory and defeat, the rabble are utterly ignorant of them,
occupying themselves solely with this question, “shall we lose our
pay of a few aspers?” With this, as with a fishing hook, they draw
from their sack various absurdities, and prevent a number of simple
and foolish men from undertaking the duties of holy warfare. In
truth, is not this a sufficient reason for their being excluded from the
two blessed worlds?
To sum up all in one word: it is evident to men of penetration, that
there is no possibility of introducing this system into our old corps,
for this reason; that as at their first institution they were regulated in
a different manner, every one of them has an aversion to submitting
himself to the new discipline. If, for example, any of the old troops
wish to leave the camp and return, although forty thousand officers
should attempt to turn them back, it is useless; they will do as they
please. If only five or ten individuals should turn their faces, who has
power to say to them “Stop, go not away!” the whole body forthwith
following on their steps; for the most part draws breath in the tents
containing the treasure and baggage of the Imperial camp.
The following is another of the advantages of the new troops. If it
should happen that the enemies have obtained the victory by their
superior numbers, and that the new forces were defeated, they will
not, in consequence, lose courage and disperse themselves; their
captains and other officers will rally them the following day or soon
after, and will again march upon the enemy; and not one of their
soldiers will dare to make the defeat a pretext for quitting his post.
But if our old corps meet with a small check, they run, throw
themselves into the water, and get drowned. Thus they become the
cause of the progress of the enemies of the faith. Which thing having
come to pass in our own times, twice in the Russian, and once in the
Austrian war, and repeatedly in the war with the French, is manifest
to the world, and wants no new proof.[96] Another of the advantages
of the new troops is this; that when a body of them are appointed to
defend any post, they establish an advanced guard round the place in
order to obviate any hostile stratagems. Although this sort of
vigilance and precaution was formerly observed, yet there is a world
of difference between the ancient method and the new. According to
the old system, it is not easy to discover strange soldiers of the
enemies’ army who mix with the posts; but it is utterly impossible for
strangers to pass the guards of the regular troops, and to get into a
fortress which they defend; so that the army is safe from any
surprise.
The following is a description of the manner in which these posts
are arranged. When they are disposed round the camp, a certain
word is given them every night as a sign; the commander-in-chief
first announces in secret this word to the officers, and they
communicate it privately to the officers of the corps de garde; if
therefore they meet with a suspicious person, they immediately
demand the parole, that is to say, the sign word for the night; and if
he does not give the parole of the night, they seize and conduct him
to the captain of the camp. Behold! this is the only method of
discovering spies; and as it is a matter which, above all others,
demands great care, they will pay special attention to it; so that until
their return from any expedition, the parole of one night will never
be the same as that of another, and by this means they are delivered
from the plague of spies. But of all the advantages, the most material
is this. If, under Divine favour, a sufficiently numerous body of these
new troops should be properly disposed along the frontiers of the
Sublime Empire, our enemies will find themselves opposed on every
part of the boundaries of Islam, by expert artillery men, and well
disciplined forces, perfectly acquainted with the rules of the art of
war; nor will they, as heretofore, be able to take advantage of our
unguarded posture, in order to make an attack upon us; for there are
persons still alive who well know that when in the time of Sultan
Mahmoud the German infidels assaulted, and at once made
themselves masters of the fortress of Nissa, it required a great deal of
trouble to drive them out. In fine, His Highness the Emperor, and
the supporters of his power, considering that it is indispensably
necessary to guard against such occurrences by striking terror into
the enemies of our religion, have firmly resolved to take measures for
that purpose, seeing that those enemies who were from the
beginning a troublesome and insolent race, and who, in all times,
had been unable to withstand the power of the people of Islam,
insomuch that they were wont to frighten their bastards in the cradle
by saying “The Mussulman is coming!” and many of them on seeing
one Mussulman, took off their hats through excess of fear, now
venture to resist us, and have with exceeding care and diligence
made themselves so thoroughly masters of the use of fire-arms, that
a body of some thousands of them are able to serve their cannon with
as much precision and celerity as they can their muskets, firing a
single piece of artillery twelve or fifteen times in a minute, and
making a thousand discharges in the space of an hour. By this means
they destroy the people of Islam from a distance, and prevent them
from making use of their sabres. They now say, “At length we have
taught the Ottoman troops what value they ought to set upon
themselves; henceforth they will never set foot in our country; even
the Mussulman provinces are ours.” Thus they never allow victory to
incline to the side of Islam, and especially since the year 1182, they
have continued to afflict the followers of Islam with most disgraceful
usage, bringing under their own power so many of our tributary
subjects. Nevertheless, a crowd of ignorant people of our nation
never bring these things into their recollection, nor can persuade
themselves that the success of the infidels for nearly the space of
forty years over the people of Islam proceeds entirely from their own
inability to resist their fire, and that their own frequent flights are the
cause which disables us from carrying on war. These despicable
wretches have never issued from the castle-gate, nor travelled a
single stage from home, neither do they know what war and peace
mean, nor from what cause the troubles of the world have sprung,
and whence they are likely to arise in future; some of them are so
ignorant of what belongs to pure religion, that in repeating a short
prayer they commit mistakes from beginning to end; men in
appearance only, vulgar of the lowest description, children of
falsehood, who suppose that the Nizam-y-Gedid is the cause of
confusion in the universe, and that if this ordinance were removed,
and the old system restored, the world would be tranquil in five days.
Last year, one of those superlatively ignorant persons was
appointed to the office of receiver of the revenue in one of the
islands. This man, who before was continually uttering curses and
execrations against the authors of the Nizam-y-Gedid, having gained
five thousand piasters by the perception of the imposts, and hoping it
was continued to him for another year that he might gain five
thousand more, upon meeting with his friends and companions, said
to them, “Ha! comrades, there is no harm in this Nizam-y-Gedid; I,
indeed, at first opposed it, but it was from want of sense; for the
impost upon wine is not paid by those who drink it, but is levied
upon the wine which is sent to Russia, so that the money comes out
of the pockets of the Russians; it were better that it was twice as
much; I now understand the matter, and I make vow never to speak
a word against the Nizam-y-Gedid.” See how this man, in
consequence of gaining a few piasters by an institution which he had
been in the habit of abusing, is not ashamed afterwards to praise it.
Such, however, is the nature of all the lower orders. To sum up all in
one word: if the clamour and execrations of a rabble, who makes no
difference between good and evil, obliges us to abandon the said
institution of new troops, (which Heaven forbid!) the enemies of our
religion will find so much the more facility in invading us; and as one
of their kingdoms maintains three hundred thousand regular troops,
they will mount upon our necks on seeing that the Ottomans cannot
discipline a hundred thousand. At that time we shall not derive the
least service from those knaves who disapprove of the Nizam-y-
Gedid; they will merely say that it was thus ordained; that there is no
contending with destiny; and if a great calamity befalls (which
Heaven avert!) they will, without making more words about the
matter, become the authors of trouble and distress.

SECTION VI.
Wherein is explained the purpose for which exercise is
intended.

In the time of his Highness the late Emperor, during the period of
my two captivities, I have often, in the course of conversation with
Russian military men, questioned them, saying, “by what secret
prodigy hath it come to pass, that you Muscovites, who were
formerly a very stupid and easily vanquished nation, have for some
time back obtained such success over the race of Osman?” They, in
reply, said, “Since you are ignorant of the causes of our superiority,
you shall be made acquainted with them. The Russians, in former
times, did not possess the knowledge of tactics, and were therefore
beaten by their enemies. A man called Mad [97]Petro, having in his
travels seen the world, and acquired an intimate knowledge of the
advantages thereof, became Cral of Muscovy, and subjected the
Russians, whether they would or no, to the restraints of discipline. In
order to try what progress they had made in it, he declared war
against the King of Sweden, and avenged himself of him. He then
went in an expedition towards the Crimea, reduced whatever
fortresses he thought proper, and began to break the power of the
Tartars. Afterwards, when we concluded a treaty with you, we
demanded for our Cral the title of Emperor; and as you could not
oppose us, the Sultan Mahmoud Khan (of excellent memory) in
writing to us, granted that title. Then in the war with Sultan
Moustapha, we approached Adrianople, and made peace on our own
terms. And see, in the present war, we have, with very few troops,
defeated your numerous forces; and after taking the fortresses of
Hotim, Bender, Ibraïl, Ismail, and Otchakoff, and conquering
Moldavia and Wallachia from one extremity to the other, we passed
the Danube with eight thousand men, and routed the Ottoman army
consisting of fifty thousand. As you have no troops able to face ours,
know that this time also, after being well beaten, you will make a
worse peace than the former one.” In this manner did they answer
this poor person[98]; and truly before much time had elapsed, it came
to pass that such a treaty was concluded.

SECTION VII.

It is a difficult thing to find out the spies that go to and fro in the
camps of the followers of Islam, and it is necessary to explain how
much injury is done by them. As this matter requires attention above
all others, let us relate some events which have happened to us, with
the consequences resulting from them.
In the war with the Russians, during the reign of the late Emperor,
Sultan Moustapha, two hundred thousand unknown and
undisciplined troops were drawn together. In this multitude no one
knew the other, and if a father had searched for his own son, he
could not have found him. If each day some hundreds separated
themselves and went off, no one knew it, nor even could have said to
them, ‘stop! remain!’ In so disorderly a camp, the spies from the side
of the infidels came and went each day and night, and acquainted the
Russians with every thing that passed in our army, and the secrets of
our government became known to the enemy. For this reason,
whenever a forward movement of our army was resolved upon, they
surprised the camp towards morning, the day before it was to be
executed, and routed so large an army of the Ottoman race, without
allowing them to open their eyes, all being buried in sleep. We have
learned by experience, that as the infidel race are very cunning and
deceitful, they have often effected, merely by wiles and stratagems,
things which we never have been, nor ever will be, able to bring
about with our hundred thousand men. Among all the wiles which
that wicked race have put in practice, there is one extraordinary
stratagem which it is worth while for us to describe. During the said
war, three poor men belonging to the assembly of Janissaries, having
concerted together, went out to gain some information of the
Russians: after it was quite dark they seized, on the Muscovite
borders, a certain Ghiaour, one of those who were employed in
getting forage, and, satisfied with their success, were conducting him
to the camp, when, their prisoner being a cunning hog[99] that
understood Turkish, said to them, “Sirs! if you set me at liberty, my
father, who is a rich man, will recompense you largely.” They,
believing his words, conducted him back to the Russian confines,
where he soon found a surreptitious pimp[99] whom he called father,
to whom they delivered him. This man, who was also a very deceitful
rogue, said to them, “I am greatly pleased at your bringing my son
here and not killing him, and I am very much obliged to you.” With
these and other expressions of gratitude, he gave them five ducats,
and continued thus: “I have not been able to reward you as I ought to
do, but allow me to show you something, and let that be another
recompense.” So saying, he carried them in disguise into his own
camp, and placed them at the edge of a large tent; here the comrades
perceived that there was a great bustle before the tent, and that
within they were weighing gold and silver coin in a large balance, and
were then filling with it some casks placed near. In the tent were men
habited in divers sorts of Mussulman dresses, and the casks filled
with money were continually distributed amongst them. The traitor,
after showing these things to the three comrades, took them to his
own tent, and said to them, “Comrades! see what I have shown you.
Part of this money is to go to your government, and part to the Vezier
and other Generals of your army. We have purchased your country
with money; the sum that has just been given is the price of
Constantinople which we have bought and shall soon enter. My
motive for informing you of this is that you may henceforth look to
yourselves; do not remain in your camp, nor even lose time at
Constantinople; but go to your own country that you may not be
made prisoners. Keep all this secret, and say nothing of it in your
camp.” With these words he led them back to the Ottoman confines.
The comrades returned to our camp, and being all three simple fools,
they gave implicit confidence to the falsehood contrived to deceive
them; and whenever they met their friends and acquaintances they
said to them, “Breh! what did we come here for? Our chiefs have sold
their country and are now receiving the money for it: we have seen it
with our own eyes; why should we stay here? all that passes is but
lost labour.” By this means they struck with consternation many who
were as great asses as themselves, and these spread confusion and
alarm through the whole Imperial camp. Finding this pretext of
going home, a great number of the troops went off and dispersed,
like a flock of young partridges.
The Russian hogs, availing themselves of so favourable an
opportunity, brought the devil among us. But the best of the story is,
that they all laughed at us in relating it to each other, saying that in
order to disperse a Turkish army, they had only to weigh a little gold
in the presence of three of their men, and then send them to inform
the rest of it. Thus, on account of so many ignorant fools, who
understand nothing of the wiles and machinations of the enemy, it is
necessary that we should give our troops such a form of discipline as
may prevent similar disorders, and the danger of the spies who mix
with our men and can never be discovered.
How is it possible for us without such a system, to avenge
ourselves of our enemies, to defend our Empire, or to gain the least
advantage? As the deep cunning of the Russian race was not at first
so well known, our precious heroes of soldiers made use of such
expressions. “The Muscovite infidels are dogs of fishermen, whom
we can suffocate only by spitting upon them; if we each of us throw a
stone, we shall destroy them all.” These Janissaries who are merely
vain boasters, good only for swaggering on the pavements, falling by
thousands into the hands of the Russians through their total
ignorance of military affairs, at length saw and learned the power
and stratagems of the enemies of our faith. But to what purpose?
since the children and daughters of so many noble and pious persons
of the Mahometan community have continued even to this day (a
space of nearly forty years!) in the possession of the Russians; and
the children whom they have produced remain depressed and
afflicted, a weeping prey in the hands of soldiers, officers, and other
reprobates.[100]
If a rabble of men, ignorant of the world, who pass their whole
time in festivity and play, or in buying and selling, or in idleness,
were in the first place to learn thoroughly the things which belong to
purity, and then, in order to preserve their religion unsullied, were to
avoid discourse with infidels and designing men, and examine
whether their own observance of it did not require some correction,
there is no doubt that they might attain to the summit of the good
things, both of this world and of the world to come. If they contend
with us, saying, “We understand questions of purity, we preserve our
religion, and there is no doubt of the validity of our marriage
contract[101]”; in that case, although what they maintain be true, yet,
as the knowledge of the affairs of this world is apt to occasion many
great sins, let them not lengthen their tongues on a subject of which
they certainly know nothing, and to which their understandings
cannot reach. If this business of the Nizam-y-Gedid seem obscure to
them, let them acquire information from men who, like this humble
individual[102], have reached their eighty-seventh year, and have
gained by experience a thorough knowledge of the world, and have
brought to light what things have injured, and what have turned to
the profit of, the Sublime Government. Let them not talk of things
void of sense, for as the troubles of man proceed from his words, so
reason is given him as a defence against his words.

SECTION VIII.

Many simple persons, who do not know why the treasure of the
Nizam-y-Gedid was instituted, and whence this money is collected,
and to what purpose it is expended, say sometimes, “the water of the
old cistern is not exhausted; why then is the new revenue made a
separate treasure?”[103] We have already stated how difficult a thing it
is to explain public affairs to people who are plunged in the darkest
ignorance, and to make those who cannot read the common alphabet
understand science; although we were to labour until the day of
judgment, we should not succeed. If a man is capable of receiving the
words of truth from his outward ears into his mind, we proceed to
relate matters as they really are.
 Wars have been carried on for seventy or eighty years in a rude
manner, and with weak and irregular troops, during which time the
followers of Islam having been often defeated, His Highness Sultan
Suleÿman Kannuni thought proper to form the body of the
Janissaries, whom he divided into different divisions, assigning to
each their particular regiments and quarters. He considered,
however, that these troops could not be assembled and kept together
for the love of God only, but that it was also necessary to establish
funds for the purpose of providing meat, drink, &c. for them, as well
as to appoint them a pay suitable to their expenses. After consulting
with the wise and experienced men of the time, he regulated the
administration of the revenue in the following manner. A small part
of the monies drawn from the provinces that had, by right of
conquest, become subject to his illustrious predecessors, was
appropriated to the subsistence of military men who served on
horseback and otherwise. The Emperor appointed by the canon[104]
that, from the annual product of the revenues, and from the sums
which every one who succeeded to the farming of them, paid
according to his means, as an anticipation price, provision should be
made for meeting the expense incident to these corps, whether in
war or in peace. After these arrangements had been made, it
frequently happened that, in good times, no war took place for
twenty years together, during which some of the military men who
belonged to the corps, having turned old, departed in peace. As the
papers granted them to enable them to draw their pay fell into the
hands of their servants, relations, or comrades[105], it was not suffered
that the allowances appointed for several thousand men should be
received by persons who did not belong to the military profession,
who were novices in affairs, or apprenticed to some trade. As few of
them left sons capable of taking the place of their fathers, and
opposing the enemies of our faith, men of war became very scarce,
and it was therefore necessary to levy fresh troops, and assign new
funds for their support, the old revenue being exhausted. Besides
this cause of the impoverishment of the royal treasure, the price of all
commodities had greatly augmented since the time that the canon
was promulgated. For instance, at that period an oke of the flesh of
mutton was sold for four aspers, but in the course of time it rose to
twenty-five paras, and other things were dearer in proportion. Thus
an increase having taken place in the price of the necessaries which
were furnished to the corps at its institution, the royal funds
provided for that purpose were no longer able to meet the expense of
the times, and as they were nevertheless obliged to find some means
of going on, the rents of the Sublime Government began to run into
each other; that is to say, that in order to provide for the expense of
the current year, they sold the revenue of the succeeding one, and so
on. Hence resulted a deficiency in the Imperial finances. Even the
treasures, which had been amassed with a great deal of trouble
previous to the Russian war that broke out during the reign of the
late Sultan Mustapha, were in that war entirely drained and
consumed, although every thing was then very cheap when
compared with present prices, and after peace, the finances could not
recover themselves, but the expense still exceeded the revenue. The
enemies of our religion being informed of our want of money, were
thereby confirmed in their purpose, and obtained complete success.
But besides the difficulties in which our government found itself
involved in peaceable times, owing to the deficiency of the ordinary
revenue which did not suffice for the current expenses, there have
been moments during war in which it stood like a man who has both
his hands tied down to his sides, and knew not which way to turn
itself; for as there was no ready money, nothing could be
accomplished, and nobody showed any inclination to engage in a
holy war; nothing was considered but pay, rations, and the privilege
of being exempted from active service.
Thus hath the want of a well-organised system of finance been
clearly proved, the whole revenue of the state not being sufficient for
the exigencies of these times. The following example will point out
the truth of this to the people at large. Suppose the case of a man,
who twenty or thirty years ago enjoyed an income of one piaster a
day, and regulated his expenses accordingly, if that man continued
on the same scale how could he live at present, when every thing is
four or five times dearer than at that period, and make the two ends
of the year meet with his piaster a day? In like manner, we may apply
this consideration to the actual condition of the Sublime
Government. Behold, while the royal finances are in so great a state
of penury, not a single person, whether rich, poor, or tributary
subject, will give a single piaster to the treasure, under the name of a
voluntary contribution, towards carrying on war; and, in short, no
man will go to war gratis, and at his own expense, only to please God,