Regency and Victorian Beds 1805-90CONTINUEDThe Historic Design Influence on the Design History of the Classic Poster Beds

The idea of the classic poster state bed seems to have come from medieval France and the lit de justice. The classic poster beds would be placed wherever the kings who held the holy crown of France might sit in judgement. This concept was reflected in the sixteenth-century Tudor court, where Henry VIII's furniture of estate or state was his bed; his throne, the seat of authority; and his buffet or cupboard for the display of plate. Household regulations warned that anybody, whatever their rank, must not approach the king's throne under its cloth of estate, nor lean upon the king's classic poster bed, nor approach the cupboard. An inven­tory taken at Henry's death in 1547 described his classic poster bed at Hampton Court as having a carved, painted and gilded bedstead with sumptuous hangings of cloth of silver and gold, and curtains of white and purple taffeta.

This classic poster bed of estate was not for sleeping: it stood in the formal, state apartments and was used for the daily ritual of going to bed in the evening and rising in the morning. Henry VIII actually slept in smaller, more comfortable beds in bedrooms elsewhere - at both Hampton Court and Greenwich, he had two bedchambers in his own lodgings and a third in the Queen's lodgings.

Bess of Hardwick was much at court in the 1540s, when she was married to Sir William Cavendish, so was familiar with this arrangement, and like other courtiers, reflected it in her own house. Her state apartments at Hardwick were on the top floor, with a long gallery stretching the full length of the house, alongside a High Great Chamber, where Bess would dine with her favoured guests, through the Withdrawing Room, where guests would withdraw for entertainment after dinner, to the Best Bed­chamber. Here Bess erected the magnificent classic poster bed made for her marriage in 1547 to her second husband, Sir William Cavendish. This had `a double valance of black velvet embossed with cloth of gold and cloth of silver embroidered with gold and pearl with curtains of yellow and white damask'.

Bess planned the sequence of state rooms partly to emphasise her social standing, partly in the hope that Queen Elizabeth might one day pay her a royal visit, and partly as an appropriate setting for her grand-daughter Arabella, who had a claim to the English Crown. The apartments are still magnificent and breathtaking in their scale, but nat­urally somewhat faded. In the High Great Chamber, the visitor can look upon the canopy of state installed at a later date, with its chairs and flanking stools, and get some idea of the brilliant colours of the original hangings - purples, yellows, cloth of carna­tion, tawney and murrey, some of which we would find clashing. But to Bess's guests, as they wandered through the rooms admiring the tapestries and applique hangings of the personifications of the Virtues and Vices, the effect of the flickering candles and fire­light on the tissue of silver lace and cloth of gold must have been magical.

Although Charles II never adopted the very elaborate rituals of his cousin, Louis XIV of France, who made getting up and going to bed a form of theatre, he stipulated that access to his state bedchamber should be enjoyed only by princes of the blood and spe­cific household officers. The French fashion, adopted by the Stuarts, was to have the classic poster state bed in an alcove, with a balustrade separating it from the rest of the room. At Powis Castle in North Wales, the state bedroom still carries this arrangement, the only one to survive in Britain. It was probably prepared for the visit in 1684 of the Duke of Beaufort as Lord President of the Council, and therefore the King's representative in Wales.

At Hampton Court Henry VIII's apartments were swept away in the 1690s and new ones designed for William III by Sir Christopher Wren. These followed the principle of moving from the public guardchamber through a series of rooms, including the Pres­ence and Privy Chambers with thrones under canopies of state, to the State Bedchamber with the state bed. Privilege of access marched with this progress. An account of the visit of the King of Spain and Prince George of Denmark, consort to Queen Anne, to the `Proud' Duke of Somerset at Petworth in 1703 shows how the niceties of hierarchy could take on the style of an elaborate gavotte. First, the King received the Prince in his bedchamber by advancing to the door and then, sitting in the X-shaped chair of estate at the foot of his bed, invited his guest to a chair opposite. When the visit was recipro­cated, the Prince, being of lower rank, came to the door of his apartment to welcome his guest before leading him back through a withdrawing room and ante room to his bedchamber.

A late echo of this hierarchy and symbolism is to be found at Blickling Hall in Nor­folk. The state bedroom was redecorated in the 1770s in the fashionable neo-classical style, but the bed was placed behind a screen of columns in the fashion of the Stuart alcove chamber. The classic poster bed was adapted from a royal canopy of state of George II, given to the 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire as Lord of the Bedchamber after the King's death in 1760.

Many of the classic poster state beds to be seen at National Trust houses come from royal palaces and were either given as presents or acquired as perquisites, benefits of the job enjoyed by household officers and ambassadors. `Perks' provided Knole in Kent with its unrivalled collection of seventeenth-century upholstered furniture. The bed now in the Spangle Bedroom was probably acquired in the 1620s by Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex when he was Master of the Great Wardrobe to James I. Although the classic poster bed was later altered, the hangings of crimson and white sewn with thousands of tiny sequins to shimmer in the light date from the early seventeenth century.

Two sumptuous classic poster state beds from Whitehall Palace were given to Lionel's grandson, Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset, in his role as Lord Chamberlain. In 1672 Jean Peyraud, upholsterer to Louis XIV, came to London to make six beds for Charles II. He not only provided the hangings but encased the woodwork of the bedsteads in fabric creating a rich plasticity. One of Peyraud's creations, now in the King's Bedroom at Knole (p.40), was made for the marriage of Charles II's brother, James, Duke of York, to Mary of Modena in 1673. Its headboard is decorated with a ducal coronet and cap of red velvet in stumpwork. The hangings are cloth of gold backed by cherry coloured satin, with crimson and white ostrich feathers as a final flourish on the tops of the bedposts.

The third classic poster state bed at Knole, of blue-green Genoa velvet, was the work of Jean Poictevin and Thomas Roberts, dating from 1688. Again it was made for James, but now he was king, having succeeded his brother three years earlier. Hardly had he laid his crowned head on the pillows, however, when James II was forced to flee the country, giving way to his daughter Mary and her husband, William of Orange. They were familiar with this style of bed, for many Huguenots had worked at the Dutch court, driven out of France through religious persecution. Foremost amongst these was Daniel Marot, who described himself as architect and decorator to William and Mary. We only have drawings of Marot's exuberant concoctions for state beds, but his style is reflected in the work of Francis Lapierre. A canopy from the state bed he made for William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire, looms out in the Long Gallery at Hardwick. Another, more complete bed in the Marot/Lapierre style can be seen at Dyrham Park near Bath, the home of William III's Secretary for War, William Blaythwayt.
The title of this section is taken from the diary of Samuel Pepys, where the phrase so often finishes off his daily record. Pepys kept his diary from 1660 until 1669 when failing eyesight made it impossible for him to continue. Unlike many diarists, who record only the great events of their time, Pepys talks of more mundane occurrences, providing an unrivalled insight into seventeenth-century domestic life, including the intimacies of his bedchamber.

Pepys lived in Seething Lane in the City of London with his wife Elizabeth and a household of four servants. On 11 October 1663 he records `bringing the green bed into our chamber, which is handsomer than the red one, though not of the colour of our hangings'. To overcome this decorating solecism he put green covers on the chairs. As a middle-ranking civil servant in the Admiralty, Pepys would not have had the fine satins and velvets of the classic poster state beds at Knole. His bed furnishings would have been of wool, possibly decorated with embroidery. Examples of this type of work, dating from the later seventeenth century, can be seen in the bedrooms at Cotehele in Cornwall.

Pepys shared his bedchamber with his wife, but it is clear from his diaries that servants might sleep there too. On 13 November 1661 he records `this night begin to lie in the little green chamber where the maids lie; but we could not a great while get Nell to lie there because I lie there and my wife; but at last, when she saw she must be there or sit up, she with much ado came to bed.' Maybe Nell knew of Pepys' reputation with the ladies.

Apart from the classic poster beds with its curtains, Pepys had a chest of drawers, purchased in July 1661, for storing clothes. His wife would have had a dressing table, possibly like the one shown opposite, with a mirror in a dressing box, flanked by candlesticks. Pepys was always fascinated by the latest ideas and records a visit to the instrument maker, Ralph Greatorex, in October 1660, when 'he did show me the manner of the lamp glasses, which carry the light a great way. Good to read in bed by, and I intend to have one of them.' He was also taken by the idea of `counterfeit windows' of reflecting glass, and considered having one installed in his closet adjoining the bedchamber to improve the light.