Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, aged 18. He was determined to be a great king, looked up to by everyone. He showed this in lots of ways: in his portraits for example (see above), in his wars and his behaviour towards other people -and other kings. He also showed it in his control of every detail of his daily life. One measure of greatness was the number of people around you: the more there were, the more important you must be. When Henry stayed at  Hampton Court he was attended by nearly 1,000 people. Controlling this number of people was quite a job and in 1526, while he was staying at another of his palaces, at Eltham, a strict and detailed set of rules was drawn up. These documents are extracts from those rules.
Note that:
1. Three rooms are mentioned. The "pallett room" is the room where the King actually slept
(a pallett is a bed). The "privy chamber" is the private room next to the pallett room (privy means private). The King's Chamber is the big room where he began the day's public life.
2. Some of those mentioned are ordinary people, e.g. servants, grooms, ushers and the barber. But the pages, esquires and gentlemen of the privy chamber were the sons of rich and powerful lords and knights.

1a. Use this table to note down what each type of person did each morning:

1b.    Which type of person was actually allowed to touch, or speak to, the King?

1c.   In what way is the barber an exception to this?

2a. Use the information from the table below to write a storyboard for a documentary film about how the King gets up. Use this table to record what the camera shots will show and what the commentary will say with each shot.

2b.     If there was a 3^rd column to record the King's own words for each shot, what do you think he would say each time?

3.      What rules were there to make sure everyone behaved well?

4.      The point of all this was to increase the greatness of Henry VIII. How do each of these points increase the King's greatness?

4a.  having lots of servants

4b.   having upper class people serve the King

4c.   doing things in the right order

4d.   strict control of good behaviour 

Monarchs at the time of Henry VIII were setting new standards of magnificence and power. Some historians have described this as "New Monarchy". When Henry met one of his rivals, King Francis I of France, just outside Calais in 1520, a complete town of tents and timber was built for the meeting. Yards of velvet, satin and cloth of gold were sent to decorate the temporary palaces. It was called "The Field of the Cloth of Gold." Henry loved all this display: by the end of his reign he had amassed fifty-five palaces, two thousand tapestries, one hundred and fifty paintings and nearly one thousand eight hundred books. He also owned forty-one gowns, twenty-five doublets, twenty coats, eight cloaks, fifteen capes and eight walking sticks.
The number of people in attendance on the monarch was another sign of power. But even better than numbers was the quality of your servants. Kings and great barons had always taken  young boys from their friends' families into their households. It was a good education for leadership: you learnt how great men ran their affairs, how to behave, and made contacts which would be useful all your life. However, to get on at Henry's court young men had to show more than noble blood. New monarchs
were expected to play, sing and compose music, read and discuss books, speak several languages
as well as wrestle, play tennis, joust and hunt. Henry could do all these things superbly and his favourite "gentlemen of the privy chamber" did as well. Not surprisingly, some of the older aristocrats looked with disdain at these clever young men -"minions", or pretty boys, as they called them.
Henry was intelligent enough to see that there was a point to all this. His father, Henry VII, had won the throne of England by fighting for it, winning the battle of Bosworth in 1485. Henry VII did not have a strong claim to the throne, so his son's was not much better. In the 15^th century kings and barons had been rivals for power. In fact, some barons were more powerful than the king himself. Henry VIII could see that putting a big distance between the monarchy and the barons, building up his magnificence, his separate position, made him more secure.
Everything outlined in the extracts from the Ordinances of Eltham, therefore, built up this separateness and specialness. The elaborate rules about who was allowed to get near the king and when, the requirement to be well-behaved and for servants to be discreet, all contributed to this image-building.

For another Tudor Snapshot see:

The Royal Seal, about Henry's able daughter Elizabeth I.

Take a look at the following websites:

Overview of Tudor History

Catholic interpretation of Henry VIII and his break with Rome