In 1598, a German tutor stepped off a ship at Rye in East Sussex, to begin a tour of some of the sights of late Elizabethan England. He travelled around the south east on horseback, noting objects and structures he saw that were of interest. He counted thirty heads, for example, impaled on Tower Bridge.
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| Elizabeth I, Public Domain, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
During his visit he used politeness and charm, and no doubt lined guards’ palms with a few pennies, to access some of the most intimate areas within the royal palaces of Elizabeth I. Hentzner’s visit coincided with the end of Elizabeth’s reign. She was sixty-five years old and had ruled for forty years. She would die in 1603.
Luckily for us, Hentzner left notes from his travels, which reveal a little about how Elizabeth I lived and some of her personal possessions. As he was waved into the palace of Whitehall, Paul Hentzner noted the vast...
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