Beyond having six wives and founding the Church of England, historians have just discovered Tudor monarch Henry VIII had another claim to fame; inventing the stairlift! David Starkey, who produces TV documentaries on historical royals, has discovered that Henry VIII used a ‘stairthrone’ during the making of a programme about the bloated Tudor monarch.
Royal records describe it as “a chair….that goeth up and down”. It is thought to have been operational at Whitehall Palace in London, where it would have lifted Henry up a 20ft staircase. David Starkey says that Henry the Eighth owned a stair lift, as well as three “wheelthrones”, which transported his thirty stone body around his palaces. He found the evidence of the stairlift in a list of the King’s possessions. An exhibition at the Tower of London, ‘Dressed to Kill’, showcases how Henry VIII’s waistline expanded to 52 inches during his lifetime. A Russian doll-like array of armoured suits built to case the monarch proves his growth.
Starkey had a disagreement with Graeme Rimer, academic director of the Royal Armouries, who proposed that the suits of armour worn by the king tell historians that he was “6ft 1in and that he was pretty enormous, but still vigorous at the end of his life”. Starkey argued that the evidence pointed to Henry VIII being barely able to walk unaided. “It was a terrible misleading story to say the King (Henry the Eighth) was able-bodied” said Starkey, who thinks that before an accident at the age of 45, he was incredibly active with exercise and horse riding around twenty miles per day. Starkey is “90% certain that in January 1536 he had a really bad fall while he was jousting”. He acquired a wound to his calf, which was not properly cleaned and ended up in an ulcer that sporadically erupted, and caused him to spend most of the rest of his life in London.
Unable to travel around the country and hunt, he stayed in his properties dotted along the river; Hampton Court, Greenwich and Whitehall. Starkey thinks he was so immobile that instead of riding off to hunt, the King’s servants would present a deer to him, which he would then slaughter. There are no pictures of this Tudor stairlift or ‘stairthrone’, but Starkey believes that a block and tackle system, like those used on Henry’s warship the Mary Rose would have been used, with servants pulling ropes to lift the monarch’s expanding body.
Stannah Stairlifts are one of the world’s most famous stair lift companies, having been producing them since 1974, and are renowned for their safe home mobility aids. There are no ropes or pullies here; you can expect a smooth, electrically-driven ride.
- Adam Cairn writes articles on a number of subjects including stairlifts and mobility aids.
