NARRATOR: Hampton Court.
A 500-year-old English royal residence.
Forever linked to Henry VIII and his many wives.
As soon as you say the words Hampton Court, you think of Henry VIII.
It was at the heart of at the heart of scandal.
NARRATOR: Behind the grand facade lie the dark secrets of the British Royals.
Extraordinary lives of passion and excess.
This is the world of Hampton Court Palace.
(RINGING) ANNOUNCER: Explore new worlds and new ideas thro NARRATOR: One of the greatest surviving medieval palaces of the world.
Just ten miles from London, the River Thames links with the capital city.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of visitors tour its palatial rooms and the 60 acres of formal, landscaped gardens.
This is the story of the kings and queens who created Hampton Court, each adding their own taste and style, each contributing to this unique fusion of architectural styles.
SUZA Hampton Court's story is a tale of two palaces.
It's these two palaces abutting each other with this very, very different architecture, different historical times, and you can walk over these thresholds from one palace to the other.
NARRATOR: Every part of Hampton Court Palace holds its own secrets.
Some of the greatest characters in British royal history have graced these walls.
For some, the palace became a gilded cage.
Within these walls they lived out a hidden story, love and relationships eroded by power and jealousy.
Hampton Court definitely has a darker side.
Yes, it's this splendid, sumptuous, beautiful palace but I think the history of it, particularly in Henry's reign, has left its mark.
NA was Hampton Court's first royal resident.
History's most infamous monarch, big, brash, larger than life.
Six wives came and bloody reign.
Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.
They were the center of everything one minute and they were having their head cut off the next.
And they all left their mark on Hampton Court.
NARRATOR: The palace played host to every wife.
The Great Hall where Anne Boleyn once danced with her king.
The chapel that hides Jane Seymour's heart and lungs beneath its altar.
The Haunted Gallery where Katherine Howard begged for her life.
Crowned king aged just 18, young Henry Tudor had almost infinite wealth and infinite power.
With scores of palaces to choose from, Hampton Court was his summer favorite.
This was his pleasure palace.
Vast parklands for hunting and sport, sumptuous rooms for entertai and extravagance.
Henry had between 50 and 60 palaces.
He invested so much money in building and buying palaces.
And he could move from palace to pal along the river.
Hampton Court was in the countryside and it was a place where he could go for fun and to just enjoy himself.
NARRATOR: Completed in 1515, the newly-built palace was the pinnacle of Tudor fashion and style.
But the grandest house in the land wasn't built by Henry VIII.
It was designed as the home of the king's closest advisor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.
As chancello was the second most important man in the land.
LIPSCOMB: the king's chief minister for almost 15 years.
He managed all the business of running and at this time Henry liked to play more than he liked to do business, so Wolsey kept that all and kept the king happy.
JONATHAN FOYLE: Wolsey is about to become a cardinal in 1515 and it's in January of that year that his workmen arrive with their cranes and their ropes and the materials by the side of the River Thames.
And they transform a pretty humble manor of the Knights Hospitaller into this extraordinary palace.
This is a cardinal's palace built on a European scale.
NARRATOR: Wolsey spent lavishly on the palace.
The had brought him wealth beyond measure.
Dignitaries from across Europe were beating a path to his door and Wolsey n to match his prestige.
He spared no expense and used red brick, the new wonder material of the day.
Hampton Court changed the rules of the game.
This thing was absolutely enormous and it glittered.
Not just the brick itself, but the fact that the brick was painted in red and then it was painted in black to give you the di And then all the white mortar joints were This thing was like an illustration of itself.
It was in Technicolor.
NARRATOR: But building a home fit for a king can be a dangerous game.
home provoked gossip that it was richer than any royal palace.
to be careful.
Upsetting Henry could cost you your head.
What Wolsey says is, "I'm building it on your behalf, Your Highness, "of course I am, of course that's what I'm doing."
Cos he's got to...
He's got to keep two people happy.
One is the pope and the other one is the king.
So you see Roman emperor in the courtyard, you see the signs of him b but you also see the accommodation for th who is a frequent visitor.
NARRATOR: Wolsey was also keen to ingratiate himself with Henry's wife.
Catherine of Aragon was a blue-blooded Spanish princess and her marriage to the king cemented a key political alliance.
Her own royal emblem is etched into the stonework of Hampton Court.
The seeds of the pomegranate frui of her kingdom.
It's really poignant, isn't it?
Because you've got the pomegranates and you've got the rose, the Tudor rose of Henry VIII.
And this says everything you need to kn what he thought about their relationship early on.
That that was it, it was permanent.
So permanent that he'd carved it into the very stonework of the palace.
NARRATOR: It seems Henry was truly dedicated to his wife.
He and Catherine were together for nearly 24 years, longer than all his other marriages put together.
BORMAN: Catherine started off as Henry's true love, and she was this beautiful, blond Spanish princess, very exotic.
He was very gallant in his courtship o NARRATOR: Henry and Catherine were frequent visitors to Hampton Court.
And kings do not travel light.
LUCY WORSLEY: The way that Tudor palaces work is that the king doesn't live in one of them all the time.
But when he did he would bring with him his 800 courtiers, and then the place was absolutely packed.
NARRATOR: The logistics were terrifying.
Almost a thousand people suddenly needing to be fed in regal style.
This is the entrance to Hampton Court's kitchens.
The largest surviving 16th century kit in the world.
MARC MELTONVILLE: When the court of King Henry VIII arrived here at Hampton Court, these kitchens burst into life.
You're at the heart of a supermarket.
There are carts coming in every minute being unpacked, the food being moved to stores.
This dead space suddenly filled with 200 cooks desperate to get that royal meal on the table.
Six hundred, maybe a thousand people want their dinner twice a day.
NARRATOR: The workload was immense.
from dawn until dusk.
were regularly whitewashed to keep the room as bright as possible, allowing the cooks to work even as darkness fell.
The palace feasts, headed by King Henry at the top table, would last for seven hours or more.
MELTONVILLE: These kitchens for Henry are part of his magnificence, his status.
Everything about this palace has the very best.
From the decoration upstairs to the clothes the king's wearing and the food he eats and the food he gives you, that's more important.
The its roasted meat, it was at the heart of every feast.
You've got a fir that belonged to Henry VIII and there it is, burning still.
Before you can do you're going to have to have a really big... Ooh!
A roasting fire.
Looking at about a ton of fuel a day going onto each fire.
That's a lot of money.
You need something to put the meat on.
You need a spit.
And not one there, but loads for every fireplace.
And to make anything cook on here, someone's got to turn the handle.
Not once or twice, but all the time.
hit 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
And there we in every roasting room.
I'm real quite hot stood here.
And if I worked here, I'd have to keep getting hot.
Another log to keep it fueled.
And they talk about these kitchens being a veritable hell.
The guys sat here are The heat from this fire and the five others are radiating out into the room.
So it is like being in a furnace.
Now we know that you were allowed to drink quite a lot of beer here at Hampton Court.
Just an ordinary worker got one gallon a day as his allowance.
But working by the fires is even better.
There is no limit to the beer you can have.
NARRATOR: Hampton Court's bar tab included 600,000 gallons of beer a year.
10,000 gallons and more a week.
(CHEERING) The revelr knew few limits.
An from the front.
Contrary to his popular image today, young King Henry was a handsome and dashing figure.
At the beginning of his reign, he was 18 years old and he was exceptionally good looking.
He was 6"2' when the average height for a man was five foot seven and a half.
He was athletic, he was good at e he turned his hand to, whether it was playing musical instruments, whether it was surpassing all the archers of his guarded archery, or as a capital horseman.
And he was also said to be very warm, very generous, very charismatic.
NARRATOR: Henry's friends were like-minded young men, courtiers that could and enthusiasm.
it would have been a place of great fun and I think we can understand this best by realizing how young most of the men at court were.
They're in their late they're in their early 20s, they're boisterous, they're having fun, and so the court was actually like taking a load of teenagers traveling around the country.
It would have been a place of... Of noise and naughtiness.
NARRATOR: Hampton Court Palace became the ultimate royal playground.
This is the palace's 16th century tennis court.
One of the oldest sporting v in the world.
Part of a leisure complex designed to entertain the young king and his courtiers.
ROMAN KRZNARIC: There's been a court here for 600 years.
In fact, some of the walls were the ones that Henry will have hit a ball against.
It's like a living museum.
NARRATOR: Real tennis is the modern name for the antiquated form of the sport.
One of its most avid fans is author and historian Roman Krznaric.
You know, Tudor times, this was a vigorous society, it was full of passion, and tennis was actually part of that passionate way of living.
I mean, this is where court li It wasn't just listening to, you know, music and madrigals over in the palace a few hundred yards away.
I mean, this is where the really exciting stuff was happening.
You can imagine on a court like this, you wouldn't have just had people playing, but in the galleries surrounding, behind the netting there would have been people watching the game, gambling on the game.
Everybody betting money, bringing out their purses, losing fortunes left, right and center, visiting cardinals from France, young princes from Spain wanting to get on court with Henry.
And in fact in 1519, the Venetian ambassador spot and made this remark that it was "the prettiest th "to watch the king play at tennis, "to see his fair skin glowing through a shir of the finest texture.
"He's more handsome than the king of France."
He looked really good on cou He was a great athlete.
And he could whack the ball harder than during his age.
He could reach into the corners, he could move like a cat.
So it was no wonder Henry actually won most of his matches, at least that's what the records show.
But would you really have wanted to go face to face with Henry?
You know what kind of temper he had.
If you beat him in a game, well, it could be pretty dangerous for your livelihood.
(BELL RINGS) NARRATOR: But sport Henry's competitive streak completely.
The king wanted victory on the battlefield.
Three epic paintings on the wall of the palace's Tudor apartments tell the story of Henry's quest to prove himself on the international stage.
These priceless pieces, more than 400 years old, were commissioned by Henry VIII himself.
This painting celebrates Henry's first significant military engagement, Linda Collins, it's little more tha Hampton Court propaganda.
LINDA COLLINS: There were 30,000 troops assembled by Cardinal Wolsey to be in this battle.
As the French troops rode in, what they did expect to find was a large number of English troops.
It took them of And so they turned and they rode away, chased by the English.
And it's called the Battle of the Spurs because as the French troops turned and ran, their spurs glinted in the sunshine and it was said that they used their spurs more than their swords.
Well, here Henry on his white horse in the center of the battle and you're talking maybe sitting duck here, you're on a white horse, in the middle of the battlefield.
So Henry's advisors would not have allowed him onto the front line.
So this is artistic license.
NARRATOR: Henry's warrior ambitions were ultimately frustrated.
But the next two paintings in the series show he learned to project kingly power in another way, outrageous and ostentatious wealth.
Embarking for a peace conference in France, Henry's fleet of ships is packed with jewels, tapestries and livestock.
The event was so opulent it became known as the "Field of the Cloth of Gold".
COLLINS: The tents were made of gold cloth, everything was gilded, it was a spectacular event.
And this time he can use a white hors a glorious procession.
NARRATOR: Six thousand men erected this huge temporary palace, Henry' Hampton Court on the road.
We've spectacular palace, which was actually created on the field for the Royal Family to live in during this event.
Outsid we have these two fountains, this one has been recreated at Hampton Court Palace.
An should not have water in them, they should have red wine.
They can drink as much red wine and they certainly did.
And you do find these men here who they have either thrown up or are about to throw up.
NARRATOR: Excessive consumption and luxury defined Henry VIII.
At the heart of Hampton Court, they came together in a heady mix.
The palace's Great Hall was the place to see and be seen.
This is the Great Hall at Hampton Court.
Isn't it magnificent?
It would have looked so much mo magnificent though, at the time it was first built because it would have had green and white tiles on the floor here.
And on the ceiling, all this incredible hammer beam ceiling would have been even more gold and blue and red than it actually is now.
So you come in here and you've got this assault on your senses.
There's an incredible mass of color surrounding you.
And, of course have been going on in here would have been lots and lots of fun and festivities.
NARRATOR: The 60-foot-high vaulted room was far more than just a royal dance hall.
It was a unique toke of love from Henry to his second wife, Anne Boleyn.
Henry spends three years rebuilding the Great Hall to Anne Boleyn's honor.
So there are carvings of her arms with Henry.
It's got H and A with lover's knots and so on.
NARRATOR: As one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn had made a big impression at court.
After 20 years of marriage, Henry and Catherine had failed to have a son, and the king's eye had started to stray.
Anne Boleyn was the woman who was known as the great whore, and Henry absolutely adored her.
I think it was love at first sight.
LIPSCOMB: We think of Anne Boleyn as this really attractive woman.
In fact, she probably wasn't.
She's described by a friend as being good looking enough, and that was her friend, so she obviously wasn't that much of a looker.
But she was cosmopolitan, she was witty, and she was fun to be around.
She was a graceful dancer and Henry found her company enchanting.
NARRATOR: Anne played Henry well, refusing to become his mistress.
She would only enter his bed as queen.
Frustrated and love-struck, Henry wanted a divorce.
But divorcing a queen was no small matter, igniting the fury of Catherine's influential Spanish family.
Any annulment would have to come from the Pope himself.
The king knew who to turn to.
Cardinal Wolsey the unenviable task of striking a deal with Rome.
One thing that this amazing man couldn't achieve in the end was to get Henry his divorce, his annulment of the marriage to Catherine of Aragon that Henry so desperately wanted.
NARRATOR: The Pope refused the divorce.
Henry lost patience and dismissed Wolsey, even though the cardinal had given in a desperate attempt to appease him.
sole control of the palace.
So Wolsey comes to a b He falls from power, Henry takes his palace, Wolsey dies in disgrace.
Just before he can be executed, probably.
♫Glory to thee, my this night ♫For all the...♫ NARRATOR: The Chapel Royal at Hampton Court.
This glorious azure and gold roof was added by Henry VIII.
Under the king's guidance, the palace became the birthplace of a Christian denomination that would shape history.
Just downstairs from this office, in the council chamber, Henry VIII was in council one day and he said, "Right, "the Pope won't give me the divorce I from Catherine of Aragon "so that I can marry Anne Boleyn.
I'm getting rid of the Catholics "and setting up the Church of England."
NARRATOR: In 1533, within the walls of Hampton Court, the king did the unthinkable.
He broke from the Roman Catholic Church and anointed himself head of the new Church of England.
With the Pope out of the way, Henry could finally marr seven years of waiting.
Their marriage triggered raucous merriment at the palace.
Plays and dances ran late into the night.
The king himself would have been in here, and there would have been dancing...
He himself liked to dance very much.
We have accounts saying that he leapt like a stag.
He had defined calves, of which he was very proud.
NARRATOR: The queen would invite up to a hundred women from noble families to join the revelry.
It was the place for Tudor ladies to be seen in all their finery, as demonstrated by Hampton Court guide and lecturer, Siobhan Clarke.
SIOBHAN CLARKE: A young lady, if lucky enough to be offered a position at court, would need to be suitably dressed to provide an ornament to this magnificent court.
So we're put on the foresleeves here, which you can see actually match my kirtle but they're a separate piece altogether, which get tied on wit um, onto my French gown.
A Tudor lady might wear up to five layers of clothing.
We know that the climate was much colder in the mid-16th century and the palace is right by the river.
It could be cold and drafty.
A word about corsets, because people always that... Like the Victorians, that it's going to be a really, really tiny waist.
In fact, the Tudors didn't try to achieve those tiny waists.
It was actually fashionable to be a little bit plump.
A lady at this time would have very long hair.
Anne Boleyn had hair so long she could sit on it, um, and it's really important to cover your hair.
And if you go about wi you're really considered immoral, a loose woman.
Now the reason that this French hood was considered daring and rather racy, is that it's going to leave the front part of my hair uncovered.
NARRATOR: Everything at Hampton Court was about display.
While Anne made with her daring fashion, Henry shone at the joust.
He commissioned a jousting complex to be built at the palace.
These gardens an are where the arena, or tiltyard, once stood.
FOYLE: When Henry was barely out of shorts, even if they were cloth of gold ones, he really concentrated on building things which entertained him.
And th the joust, the tournament, that was his favorite thing of all.
He saw himself as this great gallant, knightly king, so the ladies of the court would be positioned at windows and the knights outside, including the king, would chase up and down ei and try and either snap their lances or knock each other off horses.
(HORSE NEIGHS) (JOUSTS SMASHING) And the ladies' hearts would be aflutter as they, like Rapunzel, leant out the window.
NARRATOR: Henry invested extravagantly in tournaments and elaborate suits of armor.
Historian Mark Griffin works with a totally accurate replica of one of his suits.
Your armor says a lot about your aesthetic style, what you like, how much you can afford.
It can be decorated, it could be engraved, embossed, gold could be added, silver could be added.
Some of the French kings even had jewels set into their helmets that they would then pluck out and throw at the audience after they'd finished jousting, just to prove how rich they are.
NARRATOR: But beneath the pomp and ceremony, there was real danger.
Henry is taking an enorm taking part in this sport.
Men were they had bits of splinters of wood going into their eyes, blinding them, you could... You could be cut in the...
Under the arm, in the groin, or they could bleed to death.
There's no way anybody in the medieval or early Tudor world could do anything about those sorts of injuries.
NARRATOR: In 1536, the risk of the tournament finally caught up with Henry.
(JOUSTS SMASHING) A brutal fall was to change the course of Eng He is knocked from his horse, the horse rolls over him, and the horse is armored.
He is basically crushed underneath half a ton of animal and steel.
He is...
He is knocked unconscious for two hours, he is very badly injured and around that time, Anne Boleyn who is watching, has a miscarriage, which of course has amazing consequences not only for her but for the kingdom as a whole.
NARRATOR: The accident changed the king forever.
Some believe Henry VIII's injury twisted him into an ill-tempered tyrant.
He opened up an ulcer in his leg that would never heal and would give him constant and debilitating pain for the rest of his life.
So the first place to look for his temperamental change is the fact that he's in constant pain.
But also it's possible that he bruised his cereb cortex when he fell.
The cumulative effect is to change him in People didn't know what had angered him, but suddenly he would turn on a dime and then be a completely different person.
And so by that time, I think it must have been nightmarish to be at his court.
NARRATOR: High in the roof of the Great Hall, colorful faces peer down on the room below.
They are a warning of the deadly consequences to come.
Hanging from the wooden eaves, these little figures inspired the name "eavesdropper".
the Great Hall today, you'll see these eavesdroppers who the architect had actually built into the ceiling.
They're little figures who are looking down on the courtiers below, and it's almost a warning to those courtiers to say, "Look, everything is overheard here."
There was gossip, there was intrigue, there was plotting for advancement at court.
NARRATOR: Anne is becoming a victim of the court she loved so much.
Jealous factions start to spread stories of infidelity and incest.
What's more, Anne has not produced a male heir and she's quarrelling with Lo from the marriage, Henry se (SLAMS) In 1536, Anne She had one day where she was celebrating jousting May Day celebrations with Henry.
Then he left in a b and there was much muttering about it, according to one of the sources.
And the next morning, her reign as queen come NARRATOR: Anne faces charges of adultery, incest and treason.
The river flowing past her to the Tower of London.
The executio trained in hanging people, not in cutting off heads.
We have accounts of someone like Mar When she was executed in 1541, the first blow gashed her shoulder and it took 10 further blows to separate her head from But Henry took pity on Anne Boleyn when i He ordered an expert French executioner to be brought all the way over from France, in order that she might be beheaded with a sword, cleanly, i NARRATOR: With Anne barely cold in her grave, Henry wipes all trace of her from Hampton Court.
In their haste, the workmen miss one of her symbols in the woodwork.
It's still there today, a secret memorial to Anne.
When she is executed, Henry marries Jane Seymour.
has to start all over again.
Poor Galyon Hone, who did th He must have been pa and someone said, "Oi, Galyon!
You know what's just happened, don't you?"
"Oh, no, not another eight months!"
Cos that's how long it took.
So Hampton Court ends up being this continual building site for a and Henry never really gets around to finis NARRATOR: Next to the Great Hall is the G This fine room was where co to see their monarch.
Henry built it in honor of h Jane Seymour.
LIPSCOMB: Henry VIII would h walked through here, he would have processed through here on Sundays and holy days in extraordinary finery.
And people would be trying to petition him.
They'd been waiting all this time to see him, so they'd be trying to pull at his arm, trying to get his attention.
So if you at the ceiling, you can have a sense of how much he must have lavished on it.
Because this is incredible, beautiful gilt, and these badges are leathe And this is Jane That's a castle with roses, a rose bush coming out of it, and a phoenix rising from the top.
And, of course, the phoenix rising from the ashes is exactly what Jane Seymour did for Henry VIII, because she provided him with a son and an heir.
And so it's no surprise that he would build something NARRATOR: To celebrate, Henry hung a series of extravagant new tapestries.
Less than a year into their marriage, Jane Seymour had provided him with the son LIPSCOMB: Henry VIII commissioned the tapestries that you can see here, the Abraham tapestries.
He paid a vast amount of money At the time, that was the cost of a warship.
So these were really expensive.
And the other thing about them is that they would Because they were made with clo NARRATOR: Their vibrancy has faded over 500 years, but modern pigment analysis can bring their 16th century colors back to life.
LIPSCOMB: The tapestries would have been practically neon.
Th They were made with spirals of real gold with silk thread going through them.
And they would and glimmered in the light, they would have looked absolutely beautiful.
NARRATOR: But this marriage, too, had a sad end.
It's believed Jane Seymour's heart and lungs are in a lead box hidden behind the cha Jane died from childbirth complications soon after Prince Edward was born.
CLARKE: In Henry's memory, he will look back in years to come with g He will weep and say that she was the best of his wives.
He'd been unfortunate in love with ill-conditioned wives, except for Jane.
I think, actually, there's an element of that that says, well, perhaps she didn't live long enough for him to have fallen out of love with her, actually.
NARRATOR: Racked by grief, life is now on a downward slope for the previously young and sp Henry's leg injury makes him almost immobile.
Gross obesity creeps up on him, not helped by his decision to quadruple the size of the palace kitchens.
By the 1540s, the near sedentary king is comfort eating, and he weigh Food historian has unearthed a recipe for the artery-clogging food that Henry was served at the palace.
When he was a young man he ate a lot, he was given all these dishes at every meal.
When he's an older man, I'm afraid he doesn't do quit but And so we get the bigger and bigger and bigger Henry that he becomes famous for.
So big that his last suit of armor is 54 inc That's If we went for a feast at Henry VIII's pa at Hampton Court, we might be given something called Lombard Custard.
It contains bone marrow.
So it's got sugar in it, it but it's also got the inside o It just gives a really rich, buttery taste.
And rich tastes just say everything about the court And there we go, our custard tart.
Let's give it a little try.
Is this going to be any good?
It actually is beefy.
(LAUGHS) Very mildly beefy and sweet.
I've eaten worse.
(LAUGHS) NARRATOR: On the wall of the palace's processional gallery hangs a full-lengt of obese Henry VIII.
The classic piece was in by the king's brilliant court painter, Hans Holbein.
The genius of Holbein has immortalized Henry as one of history's most imposing figures.
Holbein's paintings of Henry VIII have lasted.
And it's probably true to say that there may have been an element of propa He is sturdy, strong and magnificent.
What Holbein has done for Henry is to give NARRATOR: When Henry needed a portrait painted of a foreign princess, Holbein was To protect an imag of virility, the king needed a queen.
Bu were not having an easy time.
Famously, one of the foreign brides who was propo as his future wife said, "I would marry him if I had two heads, and then I'd got (CHUCKLES) You know, and you can see why she'd have He was terrifying.
He had this formidable reputation.
NARRATOR Holbein returned with Anne of Cleves's portrait, and Henry liked what he saw.
The beau was invited to England to become his fourth wife and queen.
Their blind date was a disaster.
He arrived early in disguise, and the whole game of court was that you were su that Henry looked like all the other young, good looking men that he was around, even though by this point he had run to fat in quite a great way, and also that true lovers wo So she was supposed to see through his disguise and recognize the regal king.
She did neit of those things.
So this man approaches her, and she's thinking this is just a terrible breach of etiquette.
She tries to ignore this terrible man So Henry by this time is com So when it comes to consummating their re that she is fat and that she is not a maid, she's not a virgin.
And obviously there somebody in the room who is smelly and fat and not a virgin, but it's not An NARRATOR: Wedding plans were too advanced to be canceled, but the relationship was going nowhere.
Within months, the un to put right their mistake.
BORMAN: She gave him the divorce willingly, and as a result she got £30,000 a year, five palaces, she was welcomed at court, she was known as the king's sister.
And she became, really, one of the most important ladies in England.
So it was an example of history, how to deal with Henry.
Give him what he wanted.
NARRATOR: Undeterred, Henry was soon back honeymooning at Hampton Court with Katherine Howard, wife number five.
Beautiful but naive, Katherine was powerless to resist the king's advances.
BORMAN: Of course, she was a teenager when she married the aging Henry VIII so it certainly wasn't a love match for her, but Henry VIII couldn't keep his hands off Katherine Howard.
He adored her.
He was always sort of petting her in public and he was devastated, I think he was genuinely heartbroken when one of his ministers dared whisper to him that his young wife had been unfaithful, and they presented irrefutable proof of Katherine's infidelity.
NARRATOR: One morning, Henry entered the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court to find a letter deta liaisons with other men.
She was confined to her room and in the Great Watching Chamber it was announced that she was sentenced to death.
Legend has it that Katherine broke free and ran down the processional chamber, screaming for mercy.
Her protests were in vain.
She could not reach the king.
Katherine Howard had been taken up the river to the tower and she would have passed underneath the heads of her lovers, which were on spikes.
They'd been beheaded, their heads parboiled and tarred and put there and she would have seen that grisly sight as she went to her certain death.
she was executed, the accounts say that she experimented with putting her head on that block, rehearsed that moment when she would go to her death at 9:00 the following morning.
(SLICING) NARRATOR: Five wives down, Henry locks himself away in his rooms at Hampton Court He starts mixing homemade remedies from the palace herb garden to try and cure on his festering leg.
LIPSCOMB: After Katherine Howard was executed, Henry really goes on a bit And after this, he suffers a period of depression in 1541 and is confined at Hampton Court.
Five years later, he restores when he marries again, Kath She was a very good wife for his last few years, but at that point, Henry is no longer the man he once was.
And so by the end of his life, he really...
Although he's not terribly old, he's only 56 when he dies, he is frail and his obesity has wo NARRATOR: Married in the palace chapel, Katherine Parr, Henry's sixth and last wife, nurses him through his final days.
In 1547, the massively obese Henry VIII dies.
After his reign, a succession of monarchs changed little at Hampton Court.
Eventually, it slipped into neglect.
But there was life in the palace yet.
After a century and a half in decline, once again as the epicenter of royal life.
This was the result.
In 1689, William III and Mary II became King and Queen of England.
immediately set their sights on Hampton Court Palace.
When William and Mary came to the throne in 1688, top of their list was building a really grand new palace.
And they got in Sir Christopher Wren, wanted to rebuild Hampt He made plans for knocking down practically al For William and Mary, the palace itself was now unpardonab and not at all like the regular buildings that the French monarchy were putting up in places like Versailles.
NARRATOR: Wren, the celebrated architect of Saint Paul's Cathedral in London, dr in the style of the Palace of Versailles, near Paris.
But money was tight.
For the time being, Wren had to be content with rebui only half the palace.
Henry VIII's royal apartments were replaced with staircases and state rooms.
The point of Hampton C and in fact, the point of any palace at all, is to really intimidate the pants off anybody who's coming to the place.
It's not supposed to be warm and welcoming and easygoing.
This is about "The King".
NARRATOR: Every outer room contains a throne.
Courtiers were expected to bow even when it was empty.
William III lived much of his life on display.
The king was notoriously prone to ill health.
The public appearances were designed he was alive and well.
DAVE PACKER: This is King William III's private dining room.
This is where William would enjoy meals with his closest friends.
But the king didn't always get to eat alone or in private with his intimates.
William would often have to indulge in the bizarre ritual of the king's dining in public.
He would sit alone at a table with a huge, elaborate feast la a paying, invited audience gathered behind a rope intently watching the ki every morsel going into his mouth.
At the end of it he would retire, leaving the hugely expensive sugar sweetmeats on the table.
The audience would then descend upon them, and taking home pieces, just as we might with wedding cake today.
NARRATOR: Only deep within the palace could William escape from prying eyes.
The rooms at first floor are actually pretty much a sham, and the king used downstairs, he reall lived below the shop.
First floor wa for display, for decorum.
Downstairs is where he did his writing, had his library, had most of his meals, sulked, did all the things that humans really do when they're not ac WORSLEY: All palaces work like a chain.
So you get your bigger, grander, more impressive and then the rooms get smaller as you It's like a filter, if you like.
Lots of people out here, very few people in the middle here, and it gets more and more exclusive as you penetrate.
NARRATOR: A special few shared the inner sanctum with him.
This is William III's royal lavatory chamber.
The odor from the 300-year-old velvet seated box still The king himself has people to attend to him even when he's on the toilet.
He has a top servant, who is called the who actually hands him the cloth he uses to wipe his bottom.
And nobody thinks this And in fact, everybody wants to be the Groom cos it's a great chance to ask the king for favors.
NARRATOR: Some courtiers were certainly more favored than others.
An exquisite mural sprawls across the ceiling above William III's bedchamber.
classical Italian artists, nude male figures dr King William had a selection of male favorites to whom he was extremely close.
Jealous courtiers made a scandalous connection with the fresco above his bed.
People in the palace sort of looked at that and thought, "Wow, that's homoerotic."
And then people have looked at these scurrilous pamphlets saying that he was an "unperforming, puny prig," for example, and they put the two things together.
NARRAT spread that William was a homosexual.
Rumors a lack of children from his marriage.
WORSLEY: Poor Mary couldn't have children.
And people started attacking the pair of them saying, "Whoa!
"Perhaps William is more interested in men than he is in women."
And it was a weakness that the satirists and the caricaturists exploited.
NARRATOR: Then in 1694, Queen Mary died suddenly from smallpox.
William had to live in the new Hampton Court alone.
A few years later, he fell from his horse whilst riding in the grounds of the palace.
William died from his injuries.
He left his Hampton Court rebuild only half complete, and large parts of Henry VIII' still intact, creating the of architecture we see today.
They intended to pull down the lot and just leave the Great Ha They liked that bit.
(LAUGHING) They thought that was And curiously, this wonderful gothic confection of the Great Hall would have sat in between two massive classical blocks.
But happily, William III ended up only building half of what he intended, which means that we now have this wonderful fusion of two very differ Which is a surprise to many visitors who arrive expecting this T All of a sudden they're plunged a century and a half ahead.
NARRATOR: Only 12 years after William, the House of Stuart's royal dynasty came to an end.
In 1714, the Georgian era began, and Hampton Court exploded into life once again.
King George II and his wife, Caroline had grand plans for the palace.
They used the landscaped gardens to throw extravagant parties.
The couple would create huge flotillas for the long water and celebrate with thous Inside the house, the formidable Queen Caroline commissioned an entire wing of plush new apartments.
If you look at Caroline's rooms at Hampton Court, you can see little bits of her character creeping through.
She actually played a lot of cards, she introduced a lot of gambling into the Georgian court.
And she also was quite progressive in She wanted to be clean, she wanted things to look nice and smell nice.
It was surprising for the Georgians that liked to bathe so much, because they thought it was dangerous to their health and they w fascinated by it.
NARRATOR: But private bathing could be difficult, ev There were no corridors so servants would fr pass through rooms.
She was constantly under so I think she really wanted some places where she could retreat and be alone wit It's shown in her bedroom, where she has locks on the door that she can actually pull all the way from the bed, so quite quickly, just to keep someone out of the room.
NARRATOR: Unusually, for royalty at the time, George and Caroline were close.
But they hated their eldest son, Frederick, Prince of Wales and treated him with c the Hanoverians, the Georgian kings, were like pigs.
They devou And it's We see throughout the 18th c um, all the Georgian kings being really, really horrible to their ANNABEL KING: George II and described Frederick as the greatest ass, the greatest liar and the greatest beast in nature, and they wished him dead.
NARRATOR: For Frederick, the feud with his parents had poisoned Hampton Court.
The prince at the palace with his heavily pregnant wife, Augusta.
One night, on a back staircase, he took his revenge.
Frederick was determined that the birth of his child should not happen under his parents' roof, here at Hampton Court Palace.
He was determined to escape from his mother's eagle eye.
Augusta' Now, Frederick didn't cal he called for the carriage.
He led his wife, whose wa she was sodden, onto a staircase, one of the many back staircases here at the palace, and led her down it step by step, all the time, stuffing handkerchiefs up Augusta's petticoat to stop any signs left behind t Well, they got her to the bottom of the stairs, eve and she was bundled into a carriage and away to London to give birth.
George and Carol were naturally furious.
George blamed Caroline and she blamed everybody else.
This is a big deal because people worry that if a bab dies or miscarries, then an imposter will be sl and the line of the succession will be altered.
NARRATOR: Frederick's baby daughter was delivered safely, but Hampton Court was scarred For the centuries of royal occupation were coming to an unhappy end.
George took a mistre and Caroline to eating.
Towards the end of her life, Queen Caroline's exist Hampton Court was quite sad.
She was aware that she'd lost the love of her husband, who'd adored her.
She was plagued by ill health.
She was overfond of c and had become enormously fat.
She could barely walk, and spent much of her time confined to her chambers at Ham NARRATOR: George and Caroline were succeeded by their grandson, George III, the king who infamously lost th Mindful of his family hi George III hated Hampton Court and refused to s No monarch ever lived at the palace again.
In 1838, Hampton Court was opened for public enjoyment and a new chapter in i Tourists now take photos where roya plotted adulterous liaisons.
The palace stands today as a gateway to the past.
Hampton Court is the most extraordinary building because it survives like no other of that period.
You can share the space the Tudor courtiers and queens and kings Still our imagination walks those halls.
That's why the building has a rapport with us, because you feel like you're occupying this space between the past and the present.
ANNOUNCER: Turn to PBS for stories that define cers"...
Explore a grand house displaying t and power of one of Britain's pre-eminent aristocratic dynasties.
Nineteen generations of Spencers have lived in this house over more than 500 years.
It was the childhood home of Diana, Princess of Wales.
I reme Diana tap-dancing in the main entrance hall.
NARRATOR: And now it is We still get people coming with flowers and laying them where the princess NARRATOR: Althorp was th the secret wedding of two star-crossed lovers, and a battleground in a long-standing feud betw She didn't like people and she fell out with everyone.
And she never forgave.
NARRATOR: Over five cent every English monarch has passed through its doors to be greeted by great finery and immeasurable treasures.
One of my ancestors he had 43,000 first editions, including three of Shakespeare's original folios.
NARRATOR: boasts a connection to the first President of the United States, George Washington.
you'll see Washington tombs, and in the aisle of the church if you lift up a wooden shield, underneath is the Washingtons' star, their coat of arms.
NARRATOR: Uncover these remarkab in "Secrets of Althorp, The Spencers".
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