The Fainting Chamber

In some parts of the world, people are more prone to certain activities. Indians like travelling on the tops of trains; Frenchmen like kissing each other and eating garlic; even Yetis like living purely in the camouflage-inducing snow.

But back in the past, indeed in Henry VIII’s days, there was a room – or more specifically a corridor – in which people could not avoid fainting. This room, in Hampton Court Palace, was prone to a haunting, perhaps by ghosts, which forced people into their unconsciousness. Past the Great Hall, and any number of privies – which did not denote a toilet per se, but a private area – courtiers would walk to be in the monarch’s presence. But too far, and past too many opulent tapestries and chandeliers and they would come to a chamber, not especially grand and with mere portraits on their walls, and in here they would come and they would faint.

Because King Henry had so many wives, one at least would have been expected to faint, and one indeed did. Maybe it had something to do with the 600,000 gallons of wine they drunk each year, maybe not. When Henry was not gambling or injuring himself jousting, he would be marching through the many acres of corridors which he had purloined from Cardinal Wolsey. But no one would say a word against him, for he was very fond of beheading.

So many rooms and so little time, the Tudor Monarchs must have had it difficult. They had to please so many people, and with so many rooms with which to do it, they must have had little time to do what was important – like invading France. So when people started fainting in their long corridors, they would not have batted an eyelid. Moreover they must have considered it a sign from God, or from those their money and opulence was trying to emulate.