by Beyond Hampton Court: how Henry VIII actually used Leeds Castle and his father’s palace at Richmond.
Henry VIII owned far more than Hampton Court, and two of his lesser-known residences, Leeds Castle and Richmond Palace, reveal genuinely different sides of how he actually used his many properties.
Leeds Castle: Built for Catherine of Aragon
Between 1517 and 1523, Henry poured significant money into transforming the centuries-old Leeds Castle in Kent from a fortified stronghold into a comfortable royal residence, specifically for his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. He added an entire upper floor to the castle’s central tower, known as the Gloriette, reserved exclusively for Catherine’s use, complete with fireplaces decorated with royal arms and Spanish motifs honoring her heritage.
A Palace Built for a Retinue
Catherine reportedly traveled with a personal retinue exceeding one thousand staff, so extensive that Henry had to redevelop an entire section of the castle, the Maiden’s Tower, purely to house her household. The royal couple are believed to have stayed at Leeds Castle in 1520 en route to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, though recent research into surviving castle accounts has actually raised some doubt about whether that particular overnight stop happened.
Richmond Palace: His Father’s Showpiece
Richmond Palace was largely his father Henry VII’s creation, an opulent riverside residence built around 1501 and named after Henry VII’s own former title, Earl of Richmond. Henry VIII was born there in a sense of family history rather than personal preference, since his brother Arthur’s wedding celebrations to Catherine of Aragon had taken place there, and Henry VII himself died at the palace in 1509.
A Palace Henry VIII Never Fully Embraced
Despite inheriting Richmond, Henry VIII never developed quite the same attachment to it that his father had, using it mainly as a refuge during outbreaks of plague in London rather than as a favored residence. Once he acquired Hampton Court from Cardinal Wolsey in 1529, Richmond’s importance in Henry’s personal life declined considerably.
A Personal Tragedy at Richmond
In 1511, Henry and Catherine celebrated the birth of a son at Richmond Palace, only for the infant to die there just seven weeks later, an early, painful preview of the succession struggles that would come to define so much of Henry’s reign.
A Fuller Picture of Where He Lived
Between a fortress rebuilt for love and a palace inherited but never quite embraced, Henry’s lesser-known residences add real texture to a life usually remembered through just one or two famous addresses. It is exactly the kind of overlooked royal geography The London Prat enjoys mapping out, since 1961. For further reading, see Leeds Castle’s account of Henry VIII’s visits.
A man who owned this many palaces clearly appreciated a good venue; here is one more worth adding to the list, five centuries later: magical realism, a storytelling style that treats one genuinely impossible event, a Tudor king turning up alive in 2026, as completely ordinary inside an otherwise realistic modern world. Take Henry out of his own palace, his own propaganda, and every account written centuries later to flatter or condemn him, and put him instead in front of a crowd who has no idea who he is, just a comedian with a microphone and thirty minutes to earn a laugh, and the accumulated bias mostly falls away on its own. That is the exact premise behind HENRY IS LIVE, the free companion booklet, and the novel it grew out of, HENRY IS BACK, both completely free to download for UK residents at henryviii.uk/HENRY-IS-LIVE.pdf and henryviii.uk/HENRY-IS-BACK.pdf. Paperback editions are also on Amazon: Henry Is Back and Henry Is Live.
