Royal bling with the Tudors at the Queen’s Gallery and the V&A

As soon as the battle of Bosworth was won, Henry VII’s politically astute mother sent him appropriate clothing for his state entry into London. A king was expected to look like a king, having ‘a prerogative is his array above all others’. Sumptuary laws policed the system under the Tudors, with everyone — in theory — wearing only as much glitter and flash as their rank permitted. You really were what you wore.

The Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII offer numerous unexpected insights into contemporary events. One sinister detail I spotted during my research on the period is a warrant issued in November 1498 for black damask to be made into doublet for the pretender Perkin Warbeck, then a prisoner in the Tower. Black was an extremely expensive colour to achieve, requiring multiple dyeing, and was favoured by royalty. The gift was a striking mark of the king’s favour. Soon afterwards, Warbeck involved the last genuine male Plantagenet, Edward, Earl of Warwick, a fellow prisoner, in a treasonous escape plot. Had the damask encouraged Warbeck to expect a pardon in return for acting as an agent provocateur and helping dispose of Henry’s royal rival? I think so, but he was executed anyway, shortly before Warwick and almost a year to the day after the damask was ordered for him.

There is no black suit in the sensational In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace (until 6 October). But we do have a terracotta figure, dating from this period, of a laughing boy in a jacket of green cloth of gold: almost certainly Henry VIII as a child. He often wore green, yet is rarely depicted in it. There is also a miniature of him here, however, as a young king in a green doublet.