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The Royal Wardrobe (also known as the King's Wardrobe) was a building located between Carter Lane and St Andrew's Church, just to the north of what is now Queen Victoria Street in the City of London, near Blackfriars. It was used as a storehouse for royal accoutrements, housing arms and clothing among other personal items of the Crown.
The Royal Wardrobe was not, first and foremost, a building, but a department of the Royal Household (and later a Department of State) in medieval and early modern England.
The building in Blackfriars was a 14th-century house sold to King Edward III shortly after the death of its owner in 1359. It served primarily as a storehouse for the king's state and ceremonial robes, as well as those pertaining to members of the Royal Family and Household, to ambassadors, ministers, Knights of the Garter and various other office-holders. Cloths and hangings, as used at coronations, funerals and other occasions of state, were also kept here; as were items such as beds and other furnishings for royal and official use. These items had previously been kept in the Tower of London, but space there was increasingly in demand for storage of arms, armour and ammunition (all of which was also in the keeping of the Wardrobe). The Wardrobe was also responsible for keeping the accounts of the Royal Household; this work too was undertaken at Blackfriars, and it was there that the books were kept. [1]
The Wardrobe was used to house orphans during the Commonwealth of England. Samuel Pepys records that a party of children sang to Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich when he was appointed as Master of the Royal Wardrobe during the Restoration but he was unmoved, the orphans were evicted, and the Wardrobe resumed its usual function.
The Royal Wardrobe was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and was not rebuilt on the same site, but relocated, first to Buckingham Street in the Savoy, and later, again, to Great Queen Street.
The building's legacy survives in the street names Wardrobe Terrace and Wardrobe Place, built on the site of the Wardrobe, and in the curious designation of the nearby church, St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe (also destroyed in the fire, but built anew by Sir Christopher Wren).
The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry associated with Scotland. The current version of the Order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland who asserted that he was reviving an earlier Order. The Order consists of the Sovereign and sixteen Knights and Ladies, as well as certain "extra" knights. The Sovereign alone grants membership of the Order; he or she is not advised by the Government, as occurs with most other Orders.
The Worshipful Company of Drapers is one of the 110 livery companies of the City of London. It has the formal name The Master and Wardens and Brethren and Sisters of the Guild or Fraternity of the Blessed Mary the Virgin of the Mystery of Drapers of the City of London. More usually known simply as the Drapers' Company, it is one of the historic Great Twelve Livery Companies and was founded during the Middle Ages.
The College of Arms, or Heralds' College, is a royal corporation consisting of professional officers of arms, with jurisdiction over England, Wales, Northern Ireland and some Commonwealth realms. The heralds are appointed by the British Sovereign and are delegated authority to act on behalf of the Crown in all matters of heraldry, the granting of new coats of arms, genealogical research and the recording of pedigrees. The College is also the official body responsible for matters relating to the flying of flags on land, and it maintains the official registers of flags and other national symbols. Though a part of the Royal Household of the United Kingdom, the College is self-financed, unsupported by any public funds.
The Royal Mews is a mews, or collection of equestrian stables, of the British Royal Family. In London these stables and stable-hands quarters have occupied two main sites in turn, being located at first on the north side of Charing Cross, and then within the grounds of Buckingham Palace.
St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe is a Church of England church located on Queen Victoria Street, London in the City of London, near Blackfriars station.
Baynard's Castle refers to buildings on two neighbouring sites in the City of London, between where Blackfriars station and St Paul's Cathedral now stand. The first was a Norman fortification constructed by Ralph Baynard, 1st feudal baron of Little Dunmow in Essex, and was demolished by King John in 1213. The second was a medieval palace built a short distance to the south-east and destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. According to Sir Walter Besant, "There was no house in [London] more interesting than this".
Horse Guards is a historic building in the City of Westminster, London, between Whitehall and Horse Guards Parade. It was built in the mid-18th century, replacing an earlier building, as a barracks and stables for the Household Cavalry, later becoming an important military headquarters. Horse Guards functions as a gatehouse giving access between Whitehall and St James's Park via gates on the ground floor. It originally formed the entrance to the Palace of Whitehall and later St James's Palace; for that reason it is still ceremonially defended by the Queen's Life Guard. Although still in military use, part of the building houses the Household Cavalry Museum which is open to the public.
The Jewel House is a vault housing the British Crown Jewels in the Waterloo Block at the Tower of London. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994 and refurbished in 2012. Regalia have been kept in various parts of the Tower since the 14th century after a series of successful and attempted thefts at Westminster Abbey.
Richmond Palace was a royal residence on the River Thames in England which stood in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Situated in what was then rural Surrey, it lay upstream and on the opposite bank from the Palace of Westminster, which was located nine miles (14 km) to the north-east. It was erected in about 1501 by Henry VII of England, formerly known as the Earl of Richmond, in honour of which the manor of Sheen had recently been renamed "Richmond". Richmond Palace therefore replaced Shene Palace, the latter palace being itself built on the site of an earlier manor house which had been appropriated by Edward I in 1299 and which was subsequently used by his next three direct descendants before it fell into disrepair.
George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar, KG, PC was, in the last decade of his life, the most prominent and most influential Scotsman in England. His work lay in the King's Household and in the control of the State Affairs of Scotland and he was the King's chief Scottish advisor. With the full backing and trust of King James he travelled regularly from London to Edinburgh via Berwick-upon-Tweed.
The King's Wardrobe, together with the Chamber, made up the personal part of medieval English government known as the King's household. Originally the room where the king's clothes, armour, and treasure were stored, the term was expanded to describe both its contents and the department of clerks who ran it. Early in the reign of Henry III the Wardrobe emerged out of the fragmentation of the Curia Regis to become the chief administrative and accounting department of the Household. The Wardrobe received regular block grants from the Exchequer for much of its history; in addition, however, the wardrobe treasure of gold and jewels enabled the king to make secret and rapid payments to fund his diplomatic and military operations, and for a time, in the 13th-14th centuries, it eclipsed the Exchequer as the chief spending department of central government.
The Cockpit-in-Court was an early theatre in London, located at the Palace of Whitehall, next to St. James's Park, now the site of 70 Whitehall, in Westminster.
All Hallows Bread Street was a parish church in the Bread Street ward of the City of London, England. It stood on the east side of Bread Street, on the corner with Watling Street. First mentioned in the 13th century, the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The church was rebuilt by the office of Sir Christopher Wren and demolished in 1876.
St Olave's Church, Old Jewry, sometimes known as Upwell Old Jewry, was a church in the City of London located between the street called Old Jewry and Ironmonger Lane. Destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, the church was rebuilt by the office of Sir Christopher Wren. The church was demolished in 1887, except for the tower and west wall, which remain today.
Puddle Dock is a street in Blackfriars in the City of London. It was once the site of one of London's docks, and was later the site of the Mermaid Theatre. The dock was filled in during redevelopment in the 1960s and 1970s.
Queen Victoria Street, named after the British monarch who reigned from 1837 to 1901, is a street in London which runs east by north from its junction with New Bridge Street and Victoria Embankment in the Castle Baynard ward of the City of London, along a section that divides the wards of Queenhithe and Bread Street, then lastly through the middle of Cordwainer ward, until it reaches Mansion House Street at Bank junction. Beyond Bank junction, the street continues north-east as Threadneedle Street which joins Bishopsgate. Other streets linked to Queen Victoria Street include Puddle Dock, Cannon Street, Walbrook and Poultry.
St Ann Blackfriars was a church in the City of London, in what is now Ireland Yard in the ward of Farringdon Within. The church began as a medieval parish chapel, dedicated to St Ann, within the church of the Dominicans. The new parish church was established in the 16th century to serve the inhabitants of the precincts of the former Dominican monastery, following its dissolution under King Henry VIII. It was near the Blackfriars Theatre, a fact which displeased its congregation. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666.
King's Chapel is a small chapel in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located at the southern end of Main Street and adjoins the Governor of Gibraltar's residence, The Convent. What nowadays is King's Chapel was the first purpose-built church to be constructed in Gibraltar. Originally part of a Franciscan friary, the chapel was built in the 1530s but was given to the Church of England by the British after the capture of Gibraltar in 1704. It was badly damaged in the late 18th century during the Great Siege of Gibraltar and in the explosion of an ammunition ship in Gibraltar harbour in 1951, but was restored on both occasions. From 1844 to 1990 it served as the principal church of the British Army in Gibraltar; since then it has been used by all three services of the British Armed Forces.
Costume and gold and silver plate belonging to Elizabeth I were recorded in several inventories, and other documents including rolls of New Year's Day gifts. Arthur Jefferies Collins published the Jewels and Plate of Queen Elizabeth I: The Inventory of 1574 from manuscripts in 1955. The published inventory describes jewels and silver-plate belonging to Elizabeth with detailed references to other source material. Two inventories of Elizabeth's costume and some of her jewellery were published by Janet Arnold in Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlocke'd.
Servais de Condé or Condez was a French servant at the court of Mary Queen of Scots, in charge of her wardrobe and the costumes for masques performed at court.
Coordinates: 51°30′45″N0°06′03″W / 51.5126°N 0.1009°W