All language subtitles for Tales from the Royal Bedchamber.srt - eng(2)

(processional music playing)

DR. LUCY WORSLEY:
Today it seems that
the royal family

are being constantly watched
by the entire world.

No detail of their lives is too
tiny to be fascinating.

This obsession that we've
got with our monarchy

is nothing new.

But these days we don't get
to see inside their bedrooms.

It's surprising to learn
that it was very different

in the past.

And the royal bed
was a public place.

It was like a little stage where
the future of the monarchy

and the nation was played out.

In this program,
I'm going to get into bed

with kings and queens
from history,

examine their fabulous beds,

and uncover the secrets
of the royal bedchamber.

And that's because I believe
the rise and the fall

of the magnificent royal bed
reflects the rise and the fall

in the power of
the monarchy itself.

This program is made possible
in part by contributions

to your PBS station from:

We get our first glimpse
of the importance and grandeur

of the royal bed
in medieval times.

Geoffrey Chaucer
of The Canterbury Tales

has a lot to say on the subject
of the beds

of the medieval rich and famous.

In another poem called
The Book of the Duchess,

he describes
14th-century luxury.

"A feather-bed arrayed with
gold, and right well clad

in fine black satin
from over the seas."

Now, surprisingly,
Chaucer actually knew

what he was talking about here.

He had a very technical
knowledge of beds.

That's because as well
as being a poet,

he had a whole string
of different jobs

in the royal household, and
one of these was yeoman valet

to the king's chamber.

And in this job his duties
included helping

to make the king's own bed.

Despite Chaucer's wonderfully
vivid description,

it's hard to know exactly
what a medieval bed was like

because, on the whole, they
don't survive from this period.

At the Tower of London, though,
my curator colleagues

have cunningly used
a few scanty clues

to reconstruct the bed
of one medieval monarch,

Edward I, who reigned
from 1272 to 1307.

Now this bed, to our eyes,
it looks a bit

sort of gaudy and strange.

How do you know that this
is what it looked like?

Well, we don't know exactly what
a 13th-century royal bed

looked like, so we based it on
a variety of different sources,

a combination of building
accounts, wardrobe accounts.

If we look at this rather
peculiar picture here...

This is a sex scene.

(laughing)

Is that a nun?

Well, it's the mother
of Merlin.

Merlin is in the process
of being conceived.

Who's that, then?

Well, that's a demon.

I love the way he's
gritting his teeth

and saying, "I must do
my duty here."

She looks quite happy,
doesn't she?

But anyway, moving on,
and casting our eyes

onto the bed furniture, Lucy,

is the structure of the bed,
the boring detail

of the structure of the bed.

This is what our bed
is based on,

so we've got the posts
in the corner,

and we've got this
convenient opening here

to allow the king to get
easily onto the bed,

because it's quite high.

It's like a little playpen
for him with a fence all around.

No, exactly, it would have been
very comfortable, I think, yeah.

How did you choose
this lovely rich red color?

This is based
on the wardrobe accounts

of Margaret of France
and on Edward's children.

What about that white fur,
is that an accurate detail?

The royal family had
coverlets and quilts

with fur on the underside
to keep them nice and warm,

and often this were miniver,
or squirrel fur.

And the most expensive form
of fur you could have, really,

was vair, which was made
from the bellies

of northern red squirrels.

White bellies
of the squirrels?

That's so sumptuous.

Yes.

Now, you mentioned
the accounts of the queen

and the accounts of the king.

Were they not sleeping
in the same bed?

No.

They tended to come together
for conjugal relations,

but most of the time they
had their own household

and they had their
own bedchambers.

And we know about this
particularly

in this early period
from an account

from Henry III's reign in 1238
at Woodstock Palace,

and Henry survived an
assassination attempt on him

because he was in bed
with the queen

in her apartment whilst
the assassin came

to his apartment, and
of course he wasn't there.

He was saved by sex.

Indeed, good old Henry.

(laughing)

You may have wondered why,
when you see pictures

of medieval people in bed,
they often look

like they're sleeping
sitting up.

This could be something
to do with art,

showing the sitter's
face more clearly.

Or iconography.

I don't believe that kings
actually wore their crowns

in bed.

But there's another
explanation for it.

Early beds until
the 17th century

were often strung with ropes
so the mattress was sitting

on a construction a bit
like a hammock.

You can't lie flat in that.

You're forced to adopt
the position of a banana.

And this bed is demountable--
it comes apart.

And the accounts
for medieval beds

often include big leather bags
to pack them into,

and the king would take
it with him

when he traveled
to a new castle.

Sleeping in this was
a bit like camping.

The king's portable beds
reflected the mobile lifestyle

of medieval monarchs.

Kings were constantly
on the move.

Their beds traveled with them
from castle to castle,

and setting up the royal
bedchambers each time

was a huge operation.

The king even had
a massive warehouse

where his bedroom
furnishings were stored,

ready to be dispatched
wherever he needed them.

The names of churches
in the City of London

often give us clues to things
that aren't there anymore,

and St. Andrew by the Wardrobe
used to stand next door

to the King's Wardrobe.

Here it is on the map.

And the wardrobe wasn't
a big piece of furniture,

it was this vast complex
of buildings here.

It's called the Wardrop.

It was a big storage facility.

The people who worked here
were called

the warders of the robes
and it was their job

to look after the king's gowns
and his clothes,

but also his soft furnishings,
including his bedding.

Now, inventories talk
about the king's bolsters

and his fustian pillows.

All this stuff used to be kept
in the Tower of London,

but in 1361 Edward III brought
it here to the new facility

and there it stayed until 1666,
when it got burnt down

in the Great Fire.

After the fire the
site was redeveloped,

and it turned out
that it was big enough

to take 30 normal people's
houses.

The medieval royal bedchamber
was hugely important,

but then it wasn't just a place
for the monarch to sleep,

it was also where he conducted
the day-to-day business

of being king, holding meetings
with his courtiers.

The most trusted of them,
the lord chamberlain,

was literally the lord
of his bedchamber,

and he needed to travel
around his realm

to show himself to his people,

maintaining order and
discouraging rebellion

simply by his presence.

If you look at the last seven
medieval kings,

and by that I mean the seven
running up to Henry VIII,

no less than four of them seized
the throne by violence.

That means they weren't
inheriting it

from their fathers as
the result of activity

in the royal bedroom.

At this period the battlefield
is still a better means

of gaining power.

When Henry Tudor ended
the Wars of the Roses

with his victory in 1485,
he finally brought stability

to the monarchy and the country.

His Tudor successors would
no longer constantly have

to pack up their beds
and go campaigning

to protect their realm
against usurpers.

By the time we get
to the reign of Henry VIII,

the royal lifestyle
has settled down a bit.

He is still traveling
from palace to palace,

but each one now has

a dedicated, specialized
bedchamber.

Considering that Henry had 60
palaces to choose from,

it's a shame that none of his
Tudor bedrooms survived,

although we can look elsewhere
to get a glimpse

of the sort of bed he
would have slept in.

This is Hever Castle in Kent,
in the Tudor period home

to the famous Boleyn family.

We know that Henry visited Hever

and if he stayed over,
Thomas Boleyn,

the head of the house, would
have had to give up his bed

for his monarch.

This bed is a typical
Tudor affair--

solid oak and decorated all over
with intricate carvings.

Tudor monarchs slept
a little more peacefully

than their medieval
predecessors,

but there were still some
disruptions.

Even royal beds were
infested with fleas.

Henry VIII took
a little piece of fur

to bed with him so that
the bugs would jump onto that

instead of sucking
his own blue blood.

And there were
security checks too.

Before bedtime, servants would
roll across his bed

to check that assassins
hadn't concealed a dagger

in the straw mattress.

The future and the stability
of the monarchy was beginning

to shift away
from the battlefield

and into the royal bedroom.

It was here that
the long-term success

of the dynasty would be decided.

Now at first,
the Tudors could be said

to have quite a tenuous grasp
on the crown, couldn't they?

Henry VII, he seized it
from Richard III.

How does he go about building
up a stable dynasty?

The best way of doing that,
of course,

was to make a good marriage
and then, of course,

to have an heir, which is
exactly what Henry did.

He married soon
after his accession

and within a very short time
he managed to have an heir,

Prince Arthur.

So marriage and the birth
of children, they're central.

Matters of the bedroom
are central?

Really, we can consider the bed
as our kind of theater or stage

upon which all the key events
are going to play out.

When you read accounts
of the wedding

of Prince Arthur and Catherine,
the Spanish princess,

it's almost voyeuristic,
the detail.

We get to see them going
to bed together.

You can just imagine sort
of Catherine looking

at Arthur and Arthur looking
at Catherine and thinking...

We're for it, we've got
to do this now.

You know, we've got
to get busy.

So, a massive expectation.

And, of course, although
everybody would withdraw,

you could imagine all
the kind of whisperings

outside the door-- exactly--
to know what was going on.

And so, of course,
when the couple emerged

in the morning, there
was great expectation.

What had happened that wedding
night becomes hugely important,

because within just less
than a year Arthur dies.

Catherine of Aragon
is left a widow.

She's too important a figure
to remain unmarried,

she is the daughter of Spain,
and so what happens?

She marries Henry VIII,
brother to Prince Arthur.

The marriage is happy
for a while.

Then when no male heir
emerges, Henry decides

that he wants an annulment.

His attention has wandered
to Anne Boleyn.

And the key issue in order
to get that annulment

becomes events 30 years before,
way back in the bedchamber

of Arthur and Catherine
of Aragon.

The controversy is when
Henry wants this divorce

from Catherine,
he needs to prove

that Arthur and Catherine did
consummate their marriage,

and she needs to prove
that they didn't.

Yes.

I mean, he turns to
the text of Leviticus,

where it says that
a man shouldn't lie

with his brother's widow,
and suddenly says,

"Aha, this is evidence

that I should never
have married anyway."

And so any of those people
that were around at the time

were called upon to describe
what had happened.

One of those sources describes

how the morning
after the wedding,

the morning after
the night before,

when Prince Arthur emerges
from the bedchamber,

he brags to one of the grooms
of the chamber,

"Bring me a drink,
for I am thirsty

because I have spent the night
in the midst of Spain,

which is a hot region."

He could have just been
showing off, in my opinion.

Bawdy adolescence, perhaps,
but who's to say?

Catherine remains absolutely
committed to the line

that she never had sex
with Prince Arthur,

therefore it's absolutely
fine and above board

for her to have married
his brother, Henry VIII.

So it's like a little keyhole
detail, isn't it?

It's such an intimate thing,
and yet it's a matter

of international diplomacy.

Exactly.

The marriage bed,
which we sort of see

as a private space,
is the stage,

the sort of great public arena
through which these key issues

of the Tudor monarchy
are played out, really.

WORSLEY:
Catherine of Aragon endured
great personal suffering

as a result of this
investigation

into her sex life.

But it was also to have
extraordinary consequences

for the nation as a whole.

Gossip from a Tudor bedroom
had given Henry

the excuse he needed
for his divorce,

ultimately leading
to the break from Rome

and the birth
of the Church of England.

It was clear that
a king's performance--

or nonperformance--

in the royal bedroom could
now transform the future

of the country.

The pressure to produce new
members of the dynasty

became even more intense
as the queen's crown passed

to Anne Boleyn.

Catching Henry's fancy wasn't
enough to ensure Anne's success.

She had to produce a male heir.

As with Catherine,
Anne's fate, and the fate

of the nation would be decided
in the royal bedroom.

To make sure that a royal
baby, heir to the throne,

was healthy and safely
delivered,

a Tudor queen's pregnancy
was closely monitored.

So on the 26th August, 1533,
following the announcement

that Anne was going
to have a baby,

she was confined to her
bedchamber at Greenwich Palace.

The doors were closed,
the windows were blocked,

fires were lit and the darkened
room was prepared

with candles and aromatic oils.

Despite the stifling
summer heat,

Anne would have to spend
the next eight weeks

in this stuffy cocoon.

Every moment of her
pregnancy was witnessed

by a gaggle of women selected
from the Tudor court.

It must have been horrible
for Anne

to be trapped in what sounds

like a really oppressive
environment

for such a long time,

at the height of summer, with
all these people watching her.

And when the baby was born,
it was a disappointment.

Everybody had been hoping
and praying for a boy

to secure the succession,
but Anne's baby was a girl.

For her, this was
a personal tragedy.

It was a step on the journey
towards her fall

and, ultimately, her execution.

The trauma of this event
and the importance

that was attached to it
showed how the future

of the succession would now
unfold in the royal bedchamber.

And the Tudor dynasty's anxiety
about its future

would all be centered
in the royal bed.

As the number of Henry's
wives mounted up,

people's scrutiny
of what was going on

between the royal sheets
got more and more intense

and intimate and quite
extraordinary in its detail.

When Henry VIII wants to get rid
of his fourth wife,

Anne of Cleves, his line is that
Anne was just too unattractive.

He couldn't bring himself
to consummate the marriage.

But this was a risky strategy,

because people may have said,
"Well, it's Henry's fault.

The king is now old,
he's becoming impotent."

So to counter this, Henry does
something quite extraordinary.

He has his doctor, Dr. Butts,
make an announcement

in the House of Lords
that the king has still got it

in the bedroom department.

Dr. Butts tells the lords
that the king's had

duas pollusiones nocturnus
in somno--

that means two nocturnal
pollutions, two emissions.

This is intended to show
that the king

is still very capable
of fathering a child.

In the Tudor period, then,

inadequacies
in the royal bedroom

had been instrumental
in the divorce and downfall

of four of Henry's six queens.

And when none of his children
produced heirs of their own,

it was the end
of the Tudor dynasty.

Under their successors,
the Stuarts,

the royal bedroom
would get even more splendid,

and the pressure to reproduce
got even more intense.

After a rather bad patch
for the monarchy--

the Civil War,
Charles I's annus horribilis,

and ten years
without any monarch at all--

Charles II was unexpectedly
restored to the throne.

He knew he had to create
a stable and a popular dynasty.

When he arranged the marriage
between his niece

and the Dutch prince,
William of Orange,

he even turned up
at their wedding night

to egg them on.

When the 15-year-old Mary
was told that she had to marry

this unknown 27-year-old
hook-nosed Dutchman,

she cried for two days.

And their wedding night
was quite inauspicious.

The young couple were put to bed
by the whole court,

and then Charles II,
who was uncle to both of them,

shouted out some helpful words
of encouragement:

"Now nephew," he said,

"to your work for St. George
and England."

As with the Tudors, royal
wedding nights were witnessed,

and when a royal baby was born,

it was equally important
that courtiers were present

to swear that the heir
was healthy and likely to live.

And the Stuarts
would discover

that you could never be
too careful

about getting this done
properly.

In 1688, dangerous speculation

about failings
in the royal bedroom

would bring about the downfall
of the king himself, James II.

This bed belonged
to James II's second wife,

Mary of Modena,
the Italian princess.

But when I say that,
I have to qualify it a bit,

because the bed's actually
a bit of a mishmash.

Mary would have slept in it
in the late 17th century,

but the wooden structure
holding up the canopy

actually dates
from the early 18th.

Those are Mary and James's
initials on the headboard,

but they'd been brought
from another bed,

cut out and slightly
randomly plonked here,

so it's not the greatest
work of art in the world.

But the reason that people
have looked after it

and repaired it
and cherished it for centuries

is because of what went on here.

This was the location of the
famous warming pan incident.

The warming pan incident began

with the announcement
from St. James's Palace

that Mary of Modena
had given birth to a son.

Usually, this would have been
a cause

for national celebration,

but James II
was extremely unpopular.

He was autocratic,
he was arrogant--

qualities that most
of his subjects hoped

that they'd seen the last of

when they beheaded his father,
Charles I.

But James's biggest problem

was that he converted
to Catholicism.

Large numbers of his subjects

weren't keen on returning
to the Church of Rome,

but now with the news that
James had a Catholic heir,

there was a real threat

that Catholicism
would be back for good.

In the eyes
of the Protestant establishment,

something had to be done.

James's Protestant enemies
put it about

that his baby boy had died,
and to cover this up,

an impostor baby,
a changeling,

had been smuggled
into the queen's bed.

This became
a very elaborate story

with all kinds
of circumstantial detail.

People even produced maps,

showing the route
by which the baby

is said to have been smuggled
into the palace.

This is ever so detailed.

He came in here, they said,

and he was carried
through these rooms,

round the corner, along here,
through these rooms,

and finally, along here
into the queen's bedchamber.

And how was the baby supposed
to have been transported?

Well, it was
in the 17th century equivalent

of a hot water bottle.

It's a metal pan,
you fill it with hot coals,

use it to warm the sheets,

and this is
the infamous warming pan.

As the rumors gained credence,
James got more and more furious.

Hoping to kill the speculation,

he published the results
of an official inquiry

into exactly who'd been at the
birth and what they'd seen.

Now clearly, this inquiry
was a bit of a farce.

There were 40 witnesses
to this birth,

and you can't even fit a baby
into one of these things.

But it was a good story,

and this meant a lot of people
believed it.

The smear campaign had worked,

and within months,
James had fled the country.

After James II was overthrown,
the crown passed jointly

to his daughter Mary
and to her husband,

James's own nephew,
William of Orange,

both of them strongly
Protestant.

These two, William and Mary,

had been very keen
on the warming pan story

and had done their best
to spread it about

to damage James.

William and Mary
came out on top,

but their succession
had come at a price.

Before being crowned,
they'd had to agree

that they'd be answerable to
their people and to Parliament.

As their position changed,

so too did the role
of the royal bedroom.

William and Mary made their
main base at Hampton Court,

totally remodeling
the rambling Tudor palace

and spending £131,000,
about £9.5 million today,

on the refurbishments
and its new baroque layout.

And the new royal bedrooms
give a fascinating insight

into the changing relationship

between the monarchy
and its subjects.

A dynasty's success
was now just as dependent

on winning over
the political classes

as it was on producing heirs,

so there was less of a focus
on the bedroom

in terms of marriage
and childbirth.

Its importance now lay
as a place

where elaborate ceremonies
were played out,

where aspirational courtiers

would try to gain access
to the king

to exert their influence.

In the 17th century,

this was almost literally
a corridor of power.

What you needed
to make it as a courtier

was face time with the king.

These are his rooms,
and they're laid out in a chain

that gets increasingly exclusive
as you go up it.

There were the more public rooms
at that end

for receiving guests,
then the more private rooms

that are for eating
and for little parties.

Now, the more important
and influential you were,

the more likely
you could get up this chain

and the more likely you were

to get into the actual presence
of the king.

The climax
to the whole experience

is the king's bedchamber.

You can tell this is
the most important room

because of the painted ceiling,

the decoration is much fancier
than elsewhere,

and obviously, there's
an enormous red velvet bed in it

with an explosion
of ostrich feathers.

It's quite surprising
that the king's bedroom

was a semi-public space,

but those top courtiers,
the ones who'd made it,

they were allowed in here
to watch the ceremony:

the king being dressed
in the morning--

that was called the levee--

or undressed at night,
the couchee.

The king didn't actually sleep
in this bed--

he nipped next door to a much
more comfortable little one--

and by the late 17th century,

this is a purely
ceremonial space.

It's a bit weird to think,
though,

that sometimes it was packed
with courtiers

looking at the king
in his underwear.

These rituals may sound
extraordinary today,

but they really mattered.

Although power was beginning
to shift to the people,

the monarch was still ultimately
in charge.

To see or to be seen
with the king

was any ambitious
courtier's goal.

But it was the people
holding backstage passes,

the staff responsible

for looking after the royal body
and bedroom

and orchestrating these rituals,

who were really at the top
of the tree.

OLIVIA FRYMAN:
So what we have here
is a list of all the servants

who attended the king
in his bedchamber.

LUCY WORSLEY:
Quite a number of them
then really,

ranging from high to low
in serried ranks,

is that right?

FRYMAN:
Yes, absolutely.

WORSLEY:
And the groom of the stool,

or "stole,"
as it's written here,

he's the most important.

What was his job?

Well, the groom
of the stole

was originally
the groom of the stool,

so during
the Tudor period,

the officer
that attended the king

when he went
into his stool closet...

His toilet.

When he used
his closed stool, yes.

And did he have the job of
wiping the king's bottom then?

Probably not, no.

Oh, come on.

Surely lost in the mists
of medieval time,

it was pretty hands-on.

It was hands-on,

but he would have done things
like holding the candle,

helping the king
with his clothes,

and passing him
the stool ducket,

so the wiping linen.

Well, if you're handing
the king something

to wipe his bottom on,

that's still
a pretty dirty job.

It is, but it wasn't
considered to be menial.

It was actually a very important
and honorable role.

That was because
you got the chance

to be alone with the king,
intimate with him,

you could ask him
a good favor.

Yes, it's a key moment

where you can ask the king
for a promotion,

or you can ask
for one of your friends

to be promoted,

or perhaps try and influence
some political policy.

It's amazing to think that
this is the top job at court,

and yes, it involves the toilet,
but everybody wanted it.

Absolutely.

It really was the most
important job at court.

What about
actual dressing?

Well, the grooms
of the bedchamber

were responsible for keeping
the king's underwear,

so his day shirt
and his drawers.

So they bring those
into the royal bedchamber.

He's not important enough to put
the shirt on the king himself,

so they would warm
the shirt by the fire

and then pass it
to the groom of the stole,

who would then
put it on the king.

I like that.

So the more important you are,

the more intimate the things are
that you're allowed to do.

Absolutely.

WORSLEY:
The monarch had a huge
retinue of staff,

each with his or her own title
and very specific function.

Many of these offices
still survive

in the royal household
to this day.

Those who were responsible
for the bedchamber,

the most important room
of the palace,

were at the top
of the hierarchy.

The groom of the stool,
or stole,

had access to all areas.

He had the private key
to the king's apartments

that he wore on a blue ribbon
round his neck

as a badge of his office.

Where, you might wonder,

could William III
ever be by himself?

Well, there was one place.

Down here in the king's
private apartments,

this little room
was his private bedchamber.

It's got three different doors,

but on the inside
of each of them

is a lock with a bolt,

so the king could slip
these three bolts

and he was in the one room
of the whole palace

where he could be on his own.

This is what you might call
the service entrance

to the king's bedchamber.

It's a secret hidden set of
stairs called the back stairs.

Here you might meet
the necessary woman

coming down with the chamber pot
when it was full

or other servants going up

with food and drink
and clean sheets.

This was very heavily guarded
to keep out any riff-raff,

but sometimes you might meet
some very important people here.

If the king wanted any visitors

to come and see him in secret,
with discretion,

then they came up
through the back stairs.

Access to these back stairs
was closely monitored

by the Page of the Back Stairs.

For some people, he used
his less formal job title,

the Pimp Master General.

In the 17th and 18th centuries,

male monarchs were notorious
for their mistresses.

Charles II's infamous actress

turned mistress turned duchess
Nell Gywnn,

and Barbara Villiers,
the uncrowned queen

who secured titles and wealth
not just for herself,

but her five illegitimate
children with the king.

And George II
had his famed official mistress

Henrietta Howard.

Today, if somebody
has a mistress,

it's almost by definition
a secret thing, isn't it?

And yet everybody knew
who these women were.

TRACY BOORMAN:
Absolutely.

In the 18th century,
it was a very public figure.

If you were a royal mistress,
it was an official position.

And the likes
of Henrietta Howard,

long term and, indeed,

long suffering mistress
of George II,

she's given a salary,

she's given a pension
when she retires.

It's all very public
and out in the open.

It's as official a position

as any other that you would find
at court.

What sort of contemporary
accounts are there

about Henrietta's behavior?

Henrietta
was very popular

with certain sections
of the court,

and her apartments
were forever filled

with ambitious courtiers
all expecting her

to be able to put in
a good word on their behalf

with the king.

Whatever the perception was,

how much power did Henrietta
really have?

I think the truth was Henrietta
had very little power.

We can't actually trace
any action or gift

that the king made

that was thanks
to Henrietta's influence,

so I think really
she had nothing,

she had very, very little.

But actually,
her enemy, Lord Harvey,

probably put his finger on it

because he writes quite a lot
about this in his memoirs.

He says that
"she was forced to live

"in the constant subjection
of a wife

"with all the reproach
of a mistress

"to flatter and manage a man
whom she must see and feel

"had as little inclination
to her person

as regard to her advice."

That's terrible then.

She has to put up
with all the tough stuff

of being a wife,
being bossed around,

but at the same time,

she doesn't get the fun
of being the queen

because she has no real
tip-top official position.

But actually,
it didn't matter, in fact,

whether Henrietta
had power or not.

The idea that she had it was
enough to secure her position.

WORSLEY:
By the 18th century,

the royal bedroom was the
epicenter of power at court,

and if you could
gain access to it,

you were considered to be
amongst the chosen few.

Its prominence was illustrated

by the extraordinary beds
that were made for it.

When the last Stuart monarch,
Queen Anne,

realized that she was
approaching the end of her life,

she commissioned
what people have called

one of the most magnificent beds
ever created.

This is Queen Anne's bed,
and we believe

that she commissioned this
for a very special reason.

We believe that she intended
to die in it.

Unfortunately,
she left things a bit late

and she actually died
before the bed was finished.

But if you think about a bed
fit for a queen,

this has to be
what comes to mind.

It's so tall,
it's so brightly colored,

it's so rich.

And Anne's successors
valued it ever so highly.

100 years later,
George III called this

the most splendid bed
in the universe.

Anne's bed reflects the height
of baroque furnishing fashions.

The fabric alone cost
about £78,000 in today's money.

Even the parts of the bed
that you're not supposed to see

are incredibly sumptuous.

Here are the five mattresses,
and look at this:

they go from rough to smooth.

They get increasingly silky

as you approach the proximity
of the monarch's flesh.

When Queen Anne commissioned
her "death bed" in 1714,

it didn't just express
her personal taste--

it was a political statement.

Traditionally,
luxurious fabrics like this

would have been created
on the continent,

but now, with Britain
at war with France,

this bed had to feature
the best of British.

Today, Gainsborough Silks
in Suffolk

is one of the oldest silk
weaving firms in the country

and the only one to hold
a royal warrant.

NEIL THOMAS:
We've got fabrics from...

dating back as early
as the 15th century

right through to 20th century.

We've got one
for Buckingham Palace here.

Well, they've kept you
quite busy, haven't they?

Absolutely.

It doesn't say where
they're going.

No, we're always
quite private

about that side of things.

WORSLEY:
Well, some things
might be strictly hush-hush,

but Gainsborough's swanky silks
still show

just how much money and effort

must have gone
into a bed like Anne's.

How many meters can the machine
produce in one day?

On a good day here,

we'll do between eight
and ten meters of fabric.

Oh, that's not much.

Yeah, no, not really,
not by modern standards.

WORSLEY:
If a weaver from 1714
was to come here,

how much of the setup
would he recognize?

THOMAS:
He'd probably recognize
the majority of the setup.

Basically, weaving's
been the same for centuries.

Obviously
some more modern innovations,

for example, the power,

but apart from that,
it's all pretty much familiar.

WORSLEY:
Now, what's the name
of the beautiful pattern

that Lee's weaving here?

This is one
of our designs, Bologna,

which is an early
18th century design.

WORSLEY:
And it's very similar
to the damask woven

for Queen Anne's bedchamber
at Hampton Court, isn't it?

THOMAS:
Absolutely.

We know from the accounts

that she needed 300 meters'
worth of silk.

That's an incredible
amount of fabric

for a hand weaver
at the time to be doing.

They may do a couple
of meters a day,

so you're probably
looking at about

a year's work
for an individual.

A year's work, wow.

THOMAS:
Yeah.

WORSLEY:
That cost her nearly £400,

which in today's money
is £78,000.

Has that got more expensive?

Probably slightly less
than that, but not very much.

Less?

It's a bargain then,
this place.

Between £50,000 and £60,000
of fabric for that quantity.

For 300 meters.

That's still
quite a lot of money.

It's still
a lot of money.

WORSLEY:
With an affluent
and growing middling class

in the 17th and 18th centuries,
it wasn't only kings and queens

who desired
the conspicuous consumption

involved in a royal bed.

The lust for luxury
began to filter down

from the palace to the people.

Samuel Pepys' diaries

are the most intimate
of the 17th century,

and in them,
he takes this childish glee

in the things that he owns,

including his two goose down
mattresses for his bed.

And when he gets a second bed,
it's even better.

This is what he has to say.

"Mighty proud I am,

"and ought to be thankful
to God Almighty

that I'm able to have
a spare bed for my friends."

In the 17th century,
beds were something

that everybody wanted
to be able to boast about.

Samuel Pepys was the official
secretary to the admiralty,

and in his work, he sometimes
rubbed shoulders with royalty,

but he wasn't grand enough

ever to expect a king or queen
to visit his house.

For those a bit higher up
the social ladder, though,

the idea of owning a bed
fit for a king or queen

could be a realistic ambition.

Some courtiers weren't content
with gaining entrance

to the monarch's bedroom
at the levee.

Even better than that
was to have the king or queen

come to visit you
in your own home.

This was the age
of the phenomenon

of the state bed
in commoners' houses.

Noblemen and aristocrats

would buy one of these
fabulous pieces of furniture

and often build
a special bedroom to put it in,

all in the hope of a visit
from the king.

But this was risky.

You could end up bankrupt
and disappointed,

because there was no guarantee
that the monarch

would actually show up.

That's what happened to the
owner of Dirham Park near Bath.

They spent a lot of money

on this fabulous bed
for Queen Anne,

but she never arrived
to sleep in it.

And the same thing happened here
at Keddlestone Hall,

which is by Derby.

They built here an absolutely
fabulous state bed--

look at that one--

but George III never showed up
to sleep in it.

And the same again happened
at Audley End House in Essex.

For the third time now,

we have one more bed
in which the king never slept.

Most frustrating of all

is what happened to the owner
of Wilton House.

He actually had
a royal visit booked,

but he didn't have a state bed,

so he borrowed one
from a friend.

It was a huge palaver
getting it into the house,

but when George III
actually arrived,

he wouldn't sleep in it.

He'd brought his own bed
with him.

Since the royal family
thought that they owned

the best beds in the universe,

perhaps it's not surprising
that they'd shun second best.

But although many people
were disappointed

that their state beds
went unslept in,

for others, the cachet
of simply owning a state bed

fit for a king or queen
was enough.

This is Osterley Park,

the 18th century home
of the Child family.

The Childs weren't
old school aristocracy

who worked their way up
through the royal court,

but they'd got their money
through banking.

They were part
of a growing new elite

who were reaping the benefits of
Britain's Industrial Revolution

and its expanding empire.

And although they had little
chance of getting a royal visit,

the bed they created is probably
the most spectacular we've seen.

In my opinion, this is one
of the most flamboyant

and playful beds ever designed.

It makes me think of actors
and actresses and the theater.

It's the work of Robert Adam,

who created the very distinctive
look of the late Georgian age,

and it's a whopper.

The dome is so heavy that
it's not only a four-poster bed,

it's an eight-poster
to take the weight.

At the same time as he was
working on this commission,

Adam was also designing
a new box

at the Italian theater
in the Haymarket for George III,

and some people think
that the two commissions

got intertwined,
and I do think

that those velvet swags look
like just the sort of thing

that you'd find round the box
at the theater.

When the bill arrived
for his bed, Robert ripped it up

so that his wife couldn't see
how much money he'd spent on it.

But people guessed that
it probably cost £2,000,

which is £210,000 today--

an awful lot of money to spend
on a piece of furniture.

But to Robert Child,
this was money well spent.

The king might not actually
come to sleep in it,

but Robert was the first
generation of his family

to have been born a gentleman.

He wanted to have all
the trappings of high society,

and he was very proud
of his bed.

He and his wife
would bring guests through here

on a candlelight tour
to admire it,

and it was even accessible
to members of the public.

They too could see it
if they paid the housekeeper.

The connoisseur
Horace Walpole

found that it was
a bit too theatrical,

a little bit nouveau riche.

He said it looked like
a lady's hat

decorated with flowers
around the top.

And he asked,
"What would the serious

Roman architect Vitruvius make
of this form of classicism?"

The dome looks like it's been
decorated by a milliner.

The bed may have got
mixed reviews,

but Robert Childs
had certainly succeeded

in creating a talking point.

This bed intrigues me
even more

because nobody really
expected it to be used.

Even though
it was brand spanking new,

it was a relic
from a lost way of life.

By the end of the 18th century,
even the royal family themselves

had stopped commissioning
state beds.

The very last one was ordered
by George III's wife,

Queen Charlotte.

This has got to be
the most delicate and beautiful

of all the royal beds,
wouldn't you say?

SEBASTIAN EDWARDS:
I think it really is
exactly that.

And there's a reason
for that perhaps,

because it's one of the last
gasps of the great state beds,

so they put all their ideas
and energies

and thoughts into it.

And the theme is
English country garden,

but there's nothing informal
about it, is there?

Absolutely not.

It's a very
neo-classical design.

It probably involved
a royal architect,

perhaps even William Chambers,

the leading king's architect
himself.

The textiles are very much to do
with the queen's own interest

and her passionate interest
in gardening and botany.

WORSLEY:
What's that one there?

EDWARDS:
That looks like
some kind of tulip.

And I think...
is that a rose?

EDWARDS:
Or is it a big peony?

What's that one?

We could be looking at this
all day, Lucy.

There are 4,200
flowers on it.

4,200, and they're
all different.

Every one different,

every little posy
carefully drawn in a row.

And each one would have
probably taken

about a day or more to stitch.

WORSLEY:
But it's a bit funny and ironic,
because Queen Charlotte

never actually slept
in it, did she?

No, by this time the state bed
is a largely pointless object,

and they are made
to occupy the space

where there must be a bed
in the great state apartment,

but there is no longer
the levee in the morning

when people attend the monarch
and watch them getting dressed.

They don't sleep
in these beds at all.

The levee has sort of become
an afternoon tea party.

The levee itself is
an all-male affair now,

and it's carried on
in the late morning

or the early afternoon
by the king,

largely at one palace
in particular,

St. James's Palace.

And it's a social gathering
where business is conducted

between gentlemen in the
aristocracy and the king.

So nobody gets to take
their clothes off anymore?

Nobody takes their clothes off,
there's no bed presence,

it's just a word,

and it carries on right through
to the 20th century.

Why do you think then

that this great phenomenon
of the state bed

falls into decline?

By this time,
the king and queen

were no longer actually ruling
from their own palaces

and ruling particularly
from the bedchamber,

and so you don't have to have
all of the great and the good

assembled around you
all the time.

WORSLEY:
So a bed like this, it's become
a dinosaur, hasn't it?

EDWARDS:
It is exactly that.

Politics has moved
from the bedchamber

to the houses of Parliament,

so these beds are
no longer required.

Families like the Childs
of Osterley

no longer needed royal patronage

to maintain their wealth
and status.

If anything, they were often
richer than the king was.

They weren't queuing up for jobs
anymore in the royal household

or competing for access
to the royal bedchamber.

And some people began to ask
what was the point

of this whole paraphernalia
of palaces and state beds?

In 1831, the political reformer
John Wade put together

what he calls an extraordinary
list of the incomes,

privileges and power
of the aristocracy,

and he doesn't mean that
in a good way.

He asks all sorts
of difficult questions, like,

"What is a levee?"

He says it's just
a procession of fools.

They bow and the king bows,

and sometimes the king
even smiles.

And what's the point

of the ancient offices
of the royal household,

the groom of the stool,
or the lords of the bedchamber?

Well, at best,
they give a nice little income

to some ruined aristocrat
or some low parasite.

By the 19th century,
the monarch had become

little more than
a national figurehead.

The court was no longer
a certain route

to financial success.

Political power now lay squarely
with Parliament

and the prime minister.

But there would be
one final remarkable episode

before the royal bedroom
lost its power

and significance for good.

In 1839, just two years
into Queen Victoria's reign,

the parliamentary archives
tell the story

of the greatest upset
in the royal bedchamber

since the warming pan incident
250 years before.

In 1839, Victoria was still
a young and inexperienced

and unmarried queen.

She relied a lot
on her prime minister,

Lord Melbourne, the Whig.

But he fell from power.

Victoria was very upset.

What was supposed to happen
is that Melbourne's rival,

Robert Peel, the Tory,

should have formed
the government,

but he refused unless
a certain condition was met.

He said, "I won't do it

unless Victoria sacks her ladies
of the bedchamber."

Now, what was Peel's problem?

Lots of Victoria's ladies
were Whigs,

and he was worried
that these people

who were intimate with the queen
would be rude about the Tories.

He wanted them replacing
with people from his own party.

But Victoria refused.

These people were her friends.

She didn't want to be surrounded
by some strange Tory ladies.

There was a stand-off.

Now, you might think
that this sounds like

a ridiculous storm in a teacup,

but actually,
it's a constitutional crisis.

There is no prime minister.

It all comes out
in the House of Commons.

Here we have it
in Ministerial Explanations,

and Peel has to defend himself.

He has to give a blow-by-blow
account of the whole debate.

Here, he says he's been
to see her last Thursday,

and verbal communications
took place on this subject,

and then she writes to him
saying,

"No, I won't sack my ladies.

That would be repugnant
to my feelings."

Eventually,
Victoria has to back down.

She has to accept that she's now
the servant of her people.

She can no longer have
powerful political friends

in her bedchamber.

Under Queen Victoria,
matters of state

would no longer unfold in her
or in anybody else's bedroom.

When her favorite
prime minister,

Benjamin Disraeli,
came to office

and bought Hughenden Manor,

owning a big house was
a prerequisite of his job.

But although he was the most
powerful man in the country,

his bedroom was rather
a low-key affair.

Hughenden did have
a state bedroom,

but it was just a hangover

from when the house was built
100 years earlier.

NICHOLAS WITHERICK:
So when Disraeli was here,

this top floor was really
a servants' quarters,

but we do know he had
a smoking room up here as well.

He famously called tobacco
the tomb of love.

The tomb of love,
that's brilliant.

I did enjoy going past
that "no admittance" sign.

That was quite
a good thing to do.

So how is this curious room
a state bedroom?

How does it work?

Well, this was the size
of the state bedroom,

and it feels very squat,

and that's because
this floor didn't exist.

It's been inserted into...

Absolutely.

...a big, tubular room.

This was a two-story quarter
of the house.

So this is
the original ceiling

and plasterwork
to the room below here.

So it was a vast room.

It's pretty grand.

Absolutely, it's one
of the impressive ceilings

of the house, actually.

So was there ever

a royal state visit
to Hughenden?

Disraeli, when he lived here,
did have a royal visit,

and that was Prince Albert,

who got caught in snow
passing through Wickham

and diverted to Hughenden

and was snowed in here
for three days.

That's really ironic

that we're in this very grand
18th century shell

that was constructed
for a state visit.

It never got used.

But eventually
Prince Albert did come,

but it was a private, low-key,
domestic, cozy little visit.

Absolutely, yes.

And they famously played
whist together

and had what,
by all accounts,

was a really enjoyable
three days.

WORSLEY:
So Disraeli's state visit
happened purely by accident.

He didn't crave
the ceremonial charade

that went on between monarchs
and their subjects

in the century before.

Although Victoria and Albert
may have had little choice

in the removal of politics
from their bedchamber,

the removal of publicity
was no great loss.

It actually suited
their sensibilities.

So Helen,
from Queen Victoria's diaries,

we sometimes get a glimpse
into what actually happened

in her bedroom with Albert,
but generally people at the time

wouldn't have had a clue,
would they?

No, all of that
was strictly off-limits.

The private life was private,

but the image that was projected
for public consumption

was, of course, this one
of the happy family

round the Christmas tree
at Windsor.

WORSLEY:
This is almost middle class,

but like any middle-class
Victorian person,

we're not going to let you
into our bedroom.

Absolutely not.

That was their own very,
very private sphere.

But there's enough to show that
Victoria was a very lusty woman,

enjoyed the physicality
of her relationship with Albert.

The sex life was
certainly driven

by Victoria's very strong
sexual appetite.

When Victoria became pregnant,

was this announced
to the public?

Oh, absolutely not.

Nothing was said virtually
until she's had the baby.

There's this polite
announcement,

as you get
in most of the press,

about the "accouchement"
of the queen.

The queen became "unwell."

WORSLEY:
So it says here, "The queen
was brought to bed on Tuesday

after an indisposition
of a few hours' duration."

They usually say that,
that she became ill.

Just an indisposition.

It was all over
in a trice, really.

The queen herself
found pregnancy

actually unpleasant,

ugly, uncomfortable,
very animalistic.

She didn't like the process
of being pregnant.

For example, in this letter,
she talks about

how she hated seeing ladies

going out in public when
they were heavily pregnant,

and she used the word
"enceinte,"

the French word
for pregnant,

and it's another euphemism
that was used.

She thought it was
absolutely appalling.

She said,
"It was quite disgusting.

"It is more like
a rabbit or guinea pig

than anything else,
and really it is not very nice."

(laughing)

That's brilliant.

She found the whole process
extremely ugly.

"I feel like a cow or a dog
at such moments.

"I often feel shocked
at the confidences

"of other married ladies.

They are very indelicate
about these things."

Victoria just believed
that matters of the body

should be kept private,

especially childbirth
and what went on in bed.

You can see this preference

by comparing
her favorite palace,

Osbourne House
on the Isle of Wight,

to other royal residences.

Osbourne is private.

It's a holiday retreat
on an island,

and its bedchamber
was somewhere that Victoria

could escape and enjoy time
alone with her husband.

This bed is
an incredibly personal

and intimate piece of furniture.

Her bed was of great importance
to Queen Victoria,

but in her private roles
as a wife and a mother,

and they're both
commemorated here.

Down at this end,
she's put up a little plaque

which marks the date
of the first night

that she spent here
with her beloved husband Albert.

And the date
of the last night too,

because clearly he died
many years before she did.

This isn't spelled out in the
plaque, it's just the dates.

It's intended to be read
only by Victoria.

And at this end of the bed,

this plaque
commemorates her death

in this bed in 1901.

And this is a family thing.

It was put up
by her daughter-in-law.

It's not for public consumption.

And it reads,
"In loving memory

"from her sorrowing children,

"grandchildren,
and great-grandchildren

to their ever beloved mother."

In Queen Victoria's bedroom,
you do feel like an intruder,

like you're not really allowed
to be there,

and for many years,
the public weren't.

When Osbourne House
was opened up

shortly after Victoria's death,

the bedroom suite
was kept private until 1955,

and visitors were kept out
by these iron gates.

When the royal bedroom door
swung closed

in Victoria's reign,
it stayed closed.

Today, the royal family
don't release details

of what may or may not go on
in the royal bedroom.

Any knowledge that does get out
is stolen.

As the power of the monarchy
has waned over the centuries,

the royal bedchamber has also
faded out of public sight.

When medieval kings
moved around their realm,

their mobile bedchamber was
the key to their administration.

Under the Tudors
and the Stuarts,

it was essential to the success
of a royal dynasty,

and throughout the 18th century,

it became more
of a ceremonial space

where aspiring courtiers could
still gain influence and status.

But ever since Queen Victoria,

the bedroom has become
a totally private domain.

The royal bedchamber may have
lost its political significance,

but we're still just as
fascinated as we ever were

about what goes on inside it.

And that's because the story
of the royal family--

marriage, childbirth, renewal--

is still central to the story
of Great Britain.

Tales from the Royal Bedchamber
is available on DVD.

To order, visit shopPBS.org
or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

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