Source 1: Printed version of Ordinances of Eltham, pages 862/3/4
Source 2: PRO Ref. E344/22

The document extracts are designed to be used in Key Stage 2, probably alongside portrait-study. They add another dimension to the strong sense of personal monarchy which will characterise any study of the Tudors.

However, there is more to it than just personal aggrandisement, just as there is more to Henry VIII than the bluff bully. The use of high-born pages and esquires, for example, was a feature of medieval courts; what Henry added was the Renaissance expectation to be excellent in a much wider range of human endeavour. The account of his getting up stresses privacy and demarcates very precisely who could actually touch the royal person (the barber is an interesting exception to this). In another two hundred years -ritual at royal courts moves slowly - Louis XIV was to create a whole royal lifestyle out of the levée. By 1700 privacy, not the public attendance of masses of servants, was to be the mark of real privilege.

What were the differences between rich and poor in Tudor England? KS 2