Prodigy house said to be Henry VII's Richmond Palace, completed in 1501 but now destroyed. But as a royal palace it does not strictly fit the definition. Hampton Court Palace, built by Cardinal Wolsey but taken over by the king on his fall, is certainly an example. The trend continued through the reigns of Henry VIII, Elizabeth, and into the reign of James I, when it reached its height. Henry was a prolific builder himself, though little of his work survives, but the prudent Elizabeth (like her siblings) built nothing herself, instead encouraging her courtiers to "...build on a scale which in
Eltham Ordinance Eltham Ordinance The Eltham Ordinance of January 1526 was the failed reform of the English court of Henry VIII by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. It is named after the Eltham Palace in Kent where Wolsey devised his plan. The Ordinance, which targeted Wolsey's influential opponents from the Privy chamber, would have given the Cardinal immense political power, but the plan did not materialize. Wolsey jealously watched the rising influence of Henry's courtiers. By around 1518 he himself amassed enough influence to control the access of lay courtiers to the king but the Privy chamber and the King's council remained a formidable