Theobalds House, also known as Theobalds Palace, was a significant 16th-century stately home located in the parish of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire.
Set in extensive parkland, it was a residence of statesmen Lord Burghley and his son the Earl of Salisbury, both leading royal advisers. It was a notable example of the Elizabethan prodigy house. It became a royal palace in the seventeenth century when it was acquired by King James I, who died there in 1625. The palace was demolished as a result of the English Civil War.
A new mansion, Theobalds Park, was built on the estate in 1763, about a mile west of the palace: this Grade II* listed building now serves as a hotel. The site of the original sixteenth-century palace is now occupied by a public park, Cedars Park, in which some Grade II listed remnants of the palace can be seen.
Early history The manor was originally called Cullynges, later Tongs (after William de Tongge), and since 1440, Thebaudes, Tibbolds, and finally Theobalds. The original manor house was surrounded by a moat. In 1563, it was bought by William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, senior councillor of Queen Elizabeth I. He entertained Elizabeth in this house on several occasions.
Fit for a queen Lord Burghley commissioned a grand new house, which was built between 1564 and 1585. Burghley's intention in building the mansion was partly to demonstrate his increasingly dominant status at the royal court, and also to provide a palace fine enough to accommodate the Queen on her visits.Loades, D., The Cecils: Privilege and Power behind the throne (The National Archives, 2007). pp. 124-5. The Queen visited eight times between 1572 and 1596. The location was ideal in that it lay just off the main road north from London to Ware, a 2.5 hour horse trot journey from London, and thus an ideal stop at the end of the first day of a royal tour. A list of rooms to be prepared for the royal visit in 1572 survives.HMC Salisbury Hatfield: Addenda, vol. 13 (London, 1915), pp. 110-1, 228
The formal gardens of the house were modelled after the Château de Fontainebleau in France, the English botanist, John Gerard, acting as their superintendent. A plan for rebuilding the inner or conduit court in 1572 was made by Henry Hawthorne, who was a "purveyor" in the royal works. In 1582, brass figures called "terms" were supplied for the Great Chamber fireplace and the windows were glazed with heraldry. There was a water feature, six artificial trees, and the ceiling was decorated with the signs of the zodiac. The great staircase with its oak carvings, similar to those at Hatfield House, was salvaged and eventually installed at Herstmonceux Castle. Another schedule of rooms and lodgings was drawn up in May 1583,William Murdin, Collection of state papers left by William Cecill Lord Burghley (London, 1759), pp. 375-8 when Elizabeth stayed for a week at Theobalds and was reconciled with the Earl of Oxford.Thomas Birch, Memoirs of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 1 (London, 1754), p. 37. Elizabeth came in May 1591 and an entertainment, the Hermit's Welcome at Theobalds, was performed.Gabriel Heaton, 'Elizabethan Entertainments in Manuscript: The Harefield Festivities and the Dynamics of Exchange', in Jayne Elisabeth Archer, Elizabeth Goldring, Sarah Knight, Progresses, Pageants, and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth (Oxford, 2007), p. 229.
Visitors would first enter the Great Hall. It was two storeys high, with oak panelling and a minstrels' gallery. The hall ceiling was arched over "with curved timber of curious workmanship" and may have resembled the slightly later decorative hammerbeams of the Great Hall at Wollaton. The chimneypiece was carved from blue marble. In 1585 a painter called Jenings drew the heraldry of the peers of England on the wall and provided a frame for a map, the "chart of England".
The Painted, or Green Gallery, completed in 1574 ran over a wing of lodgings and bedchambers. The decoration of the Green Gallery was also of a topographic and heraldic character. It was described by a German visitor, Jacob Rathgeb, secretary to the Duke of Württemberg, who visited in 1592, and the Baron Waldstein in 1600. Frederic Gerschow, secretary to the Duke of Stettin-Pomerania, saw the hall in 1602 and explained that England was represented by 52 "trees", a tree for each county hung with arms of the earls and barons. There were also token items depicting the produce of the regions. Paul Hentzner mentioned a canal in the garden for visitors to row boats amidst the shrubbery.John Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 3 (London, 1823), p. 241.
Two thieves, John Todd alias Black Jack and Thomas Travers got into the Queen's privy chambers and stole an inkstand and two silver bowls in September 1597. They were caught and executed. Burghley employed the London goldsmith Richard Martin to recover the silver they had sold.A. Jefferies Collins, Jewels and Plate of Queen Elizabeth I (London, 1955), pp. 157-8, 535. Lord Burghley's younger son, Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, inherited the house. The Earl of Northumberland paid him a compliment, writing that for planning his own new house he was going to look at Copthall and as a builder he "must borrow of knowledge somewhat out of Tibballs, somewhat out of every place of mark where curiosities are used.HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 15 (London, 1930), p. 383.
King James and Theobalds
After the Queen's death in 1603, Robert Cecil arranged for the new king, James I, to stay on his way from Scotland to London, and receive homage from the Privy Council. The king was troubled by the dust of the entrance road or drive, and an alternative route was made through the lands of Cheshunt Park and Peryours.HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 15 (London, 1930), p. 71. James wrote to Cecil to provide stags for him to hunt in the woods and park of Theobalds in July 1604.HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 23 (London, 1974), p. 196.G. P. V. Akrigg, Letters of King James VI and I (University of California, 1984), pp. 232-233. Fulke Greville went to Theobalds in May 1605 to report on Salisbury's horses and survey the lake and islands in the park. Greville suggested enlarging some windows in one of the galleries of the house.HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 17 (London, 1938), p. 214–215.
In July 1606, Cecil again entertained King James and his brother-in-law, King Christian IV of Denmark, at Theobalds, while Anne of Denmark stayed at Greenwich. Both monarchs were notoriously heavy drinkers, and according to Sir John Harington, the occasion was simply an orgy of drunkenness, as few English or Danish courtiers had their rulers' capacity to hold their drink: an attempt to put on a masque of Solomon and Sheba descended into a farce, as most of the players were too inebriated to remember their lines, or even to stand up.Henry Harington, Nugae Antiquae, vol. 1 (London, 1804), pp. 348-351 The five-day visit cost Cecil £1,180 including presents worth £284.Lawrence Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy (Oxford, 1965), p. 453. Cecil paid Inigo Jones £23 for making and designing the masque scenery.Giles Worsley, Inigo Jones and the European Classical Tradition (Yale, 2007), p. 7. Doubts have been expressed about the details in Harington's description of the masque.Martin Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 125-7: Clare McManus, 'When is woman not a woman?', Modern Philology, 105 (2008), pp. 437-74.
In 1607, King James I acquired Theobalds in exchange for Hatfield Palace, also in Hertfordshire. James gave Theobalds to Anne of Denmark in 1607, and this formality was the occasion of court festivities in May 1607 involving hunting, tournaments, and the Prince de Joinville.Horatio Brown, Calendar State Papers, Venice: 1617-1619, vol. 11 (London, 1904), p. 2 no. 2: Ambassades de Boderie, 2 (Paris, 1750), p. 253. James ordered improvements, and bought neighbouring lands to extend the park,Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer (London, 1836), 63. and Theobalds quickly became his favourite country residence.Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar State Papers Domestic, Addenda 1580-1625 (London, 1872), p. 498.
The house had some disadvantages compared with other aristocrats' houses. Although James declared in 1607 that it was "a fitting place for our sports", Godfrey Goodman noted that it had no "lordship nor tenants, nor so much as provision of fuel, only a park for pleasure and no more". In 1624, Prince Charles wrote "there is no kind of field-hawking there". Theobalds was however conveniently near to Waltham Forest where the king could hunt.John S. Brewer, The Court of King James the First by Godfrey Goodman, vol. 1 (London, 1839), p. 174: Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. 1 (London, 1778), p. 459. In July 1613 Anne of Denmark was hunting deer at Theobalds and accidentally shot and killed the king's dog "Jewel" with a crossbow bolt.John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 2 (London, 1828), p. 671. King James invited a young Polish-Lithuanian nobleman Tomasz Zamoyski to join the hunt at Theobalds in July 1615.John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 3 (London, 1828), pp. 95-6.
In September 1618 James gave orders for the demolition of two new buildings nearby that housed tobacco shops patronised by his courtiers.G. Dyfnallt Owen & Sonia P. Anderson, HMC 75 Downshire, vol. 6 (London, 1995), 521 no. 1123. He also ordered the keeper of the gardens, Munten Jennings, to build a house to keep silkworms and feed them mulberry leaves.Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer: James I (London, 1836), 225, 288–289. The architect John Smythson visited and made drawings, a surviving diagram shows the panelling of the great chamber in "walnut tree colour" graining with black and gold mouldings.Ian C. Bristow, Architectural Colour in British Interiors, 1615–1840 (Yale, 1996), pp. 2, 4.
On 9 January 1622 King James rode from Theobalds after dinner to see the ice on the New River and fell in head first so that his companions could only see his boots. He was rescued by Sir Richard Young and returned to a warm bed at Theobalds.John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 4 (London, 1828), pp. 750-1. A new pool with a barge and barge house was created in the gardens in 1622.HMC 4th Report: De La Warre (London, 1874), p. 310. The ambassador Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, 1st Count of Gondomar arranged for the gift of two camels and a breeding pair of asses to be sent from Spain for the park in 1622.John Sherren Brewer, Court of King James, vol. 2 (London, 1839), p. 237.
King James died at Theobalds on 27 March 1625. The Knight Marshal, Edward Zouch proclaimed King Charles at Theobalds gate.Henry Duke, Multum in Parvo, Aut Vox Veritatis (London, 1681), p. 9: John Rushworth, Historical Collections of Private Passages of State, vol. 1 (London, 1721), p. 165. James had made few changes to the main suites, installing panelling in the Great Gallery to which his son Charles I added a number of carved and painted stag's heads. Charles I hunted in the park at Theobalds. Platforms known as "stands" were built in the park each season for shooting at game. In September 1633, Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland fell from a stand at Theobalds and died after his leg was amputated.Heather Wolfe, Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland, Life and Letters (Cambridge: RTM, 2001), pp. 147–151.
Later, after the execution of Charles I, Theobalds was listed, amongst other royal properties, for demolition and disposal by the Commonwealth. This was achieved speedily, and by the end of 1650, the house was largely demolished. After the Restoration, the estate was granted to George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, but reverted to the Crown after the death of the 2nd Duke of Albemarle, who left no heir.
Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the new house