The Grossly Glamorous Life of Royal Palaces: A History of Filth in High Places
When imagining royal palaces, the mind conjures visions of gilded halls, glittering chandeliers, and extravagant banquets. But beneath the veneer of grandeur lay a pungent reality that few history books care to emphasise. For centuries, royal residences were not just seats of power—they were veritable cesspools of filth, overflowing chamber pots, and dubious hygiene practices. If ever there were a reason to appreciate modern plumbing, the sordid history of royal palaces might be it.
Henry VIII’s Royal Road Trip: Spreading the Stink
In July 1535, Henry VIII, the Tudor monarch known for his matrimonial escapades, embarked on a monumental tour with his court of over 700 people. Over four months, this lavish caravan visited approximately 30 palaces, noble estates, and religious houses. While the ostensible purpose was to display royal magnificence and inspire loyalty among his subjects, the real motivation was far less glamorous: the necessity of escaping the stench and squalor of court life.
Royal palaces like Hampton Court, despite their grandeur, rapidly became cesspools of human and animal waste, rotting food, and unwashed bodies. These epic migrations allowed the host residences time to recuperate, scrub away layers of grime, and deal with the mountainous waste left behind. When the tour ended, Henry and a swelling entourage of over 1,000 continued their peripatetic existence, shuffling between the King’s 60 official residences in a ceaseless quest for semi-sanitary living conditions.
A Palace’s Lifecycle: From Stately to Stinky
Within days of Henry’s court arriving at a residence, the problems began. Fires burned constantly to keep the vast halls warm, leaving walls coated in soot. Food scraps and discarded bones piled up in corners, while rodents frolicked freely among unwashed bodies. Chamber pots overflowed, and worse still, many courtiers didn’t bother to use them, instead relieving themselves in hallways, staircases, or even fireplaces.
The smell alone was staggering. Henry VIII, famously fussy about cleanliness, tried to combat the advancing filth. Tapestries bore warnings for visitors not to wipe their greasy hands on the King’s precious textiles, and large red X’s were painted on walls to deter men from urinating—though this backfired spectacularly, as the markings became targets instead.
Even the royal kitchen was a battlefield of hygiene. Cooks were forbidden to work naked or wear threadbare clothing, and Henry ordered the purchase of “honest and wholesome garments” to improve their appearance. Still, the floors remained slick with grease and the stench of rotting food lingered.
Versailles: The Jewel of France, or the Sewer of Europe?
While Henry VIII’s nomadic strategy kept the filth moving, his French counterpart Louis XIV took the opposite approach, turning Versailles into a permanent residence for his court in 1682. The Sun King’s decision to consolidate power in one location came at a high olfactory price. With over 10,000 residents—including nobles, servants, and military officers—Versailles quickly descended into squalor.
Latrines overflowed, sometimes leaking into the bedrooms below. Men urinated off balconies, women relieved themselves in corridors, and human waste was routinely flung out of windows. Even the kitchens were plagued by blockages and contamination, leading to some unfortunate meals being cooked in tainted conditions. Marie-Antoinette herself reportedly endured being struck by human waste while walking through an interior courtyard.
Baths Are Bad for You (Apparently)
The Western European aversion to bathing compounded the problem. While Henry VIII bathed regularly and changed his linens daily, this was an anomaly. Louis XIV reportedly bathed twice in his life, while Queen Isabella of Castile famously declared that she had only bathed once—in preparation for her wedding.
The lack of bathing wasn’t just a matter of preference. Many believed that water opened the pores, making the body vulnerable to disease. Instead, the nobility relied on perfumes, sachets of herbs, and fragrant floor coverings to mask the overwhelming stench. This created an ironic juxtaposition of visual splendour and nasal horror: gowns glimmered with jewels, but the bodies beneath them teemed with lice and the smell of decay.
The Gong Scourers: Unsung Heroes of Hygiene
The monumental task of cleaning up after the royals fell to the humble gong scourers. These workers were responsible for emptying the underground chambers that collected waste from non-flushing lavatories. According to Simon Thurley, curator of Historic Royal Palaces, these brick chambers could fill to head height after a few weeks of courtly occupation. Once the court moved on, the scourers descended into the pits, armed with rudimentary tools, to shovel out the waste.
Their efforts were temporary at best. As soon as the court returned, the cycle of filth resumed, and the struggle against grime continued unabated.
A Smelly Legacy
The unsanitary conditions of royal courts weren’t limited to England and France. When Catherine the Great arrived in Russia, she was appalled by the juxtaposition of opulence and filth. Her letters describe jewel-encrusted women stepping out of carriages into courtyards filled with mud and animal waste. The disparity between royal splendour and the stark realities of hygiene was a recurring theme across European courts.
It wasn’t until the 19th century, with the advent of modern plumbing and improved sanitation, that these problems were addressed in earnest. Today, royal palaces are pristine tourist attractions, their sordid pasts largely forgotten.