Worsley - Courtiers: the secret history of Kensington Palace

Ulrich Jorry, a dwarf entertainer from Poland

I will send you a general map of Courts; a region yet unexplored all the paths are slippery, and every slip is dangerous.

(Lord Chesterfield, 1749)

The Great Drawing Room, crammed full of courtiers, lay at the heart of the Georgian royal palace. Here the king mingled most evenings with his guests, signalling welcome with a nod and displeasure with a blank stare or, worse, a turned back.

The winners and the losers of the Georgian age could calculate precisely how high theyd climbed or how far theyd fallen by the warmth of their reception at court. High-heeled and elegant shoes crushed into the floorboards of the drawing room the reputations of those whod dropped out of favour, while those whose status was on the rise stood firmly in possession of their few square inches of space.

In the eighteenth century, the palaces most elegant assembly room was in fact a bloody battlefield. This was a world of skulduggery, politicking, wigs and beauty spots, where fans whistled open like flick knives. Intrigue hissed through the crowd, and court factions were also known as fuctions.

Beneath their powder and perfume, the courtiers stank of sweat, insecurity and glittering ambition.

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The ambitious visitors crowding into the drawing room were usually unaware that they were under constant observation from behind the scenes. The palace servants overlooked but ever-present knew of every move made at court. Thats why, in this book, well meet kings and queens, but also many of the people who worked to meet their most intimate needs.

The Georgian royal household was staggeringly vast and complicated. The highest ranking of its members, the courtiers proper, were the ladies-and gentlemen-in-waiting. These noblemen and women were glad to serve the king and queen in even quite menial ways because of the honour involved.

Beneath them in status were about 950 other royal servants, organised into a byzantine web of departments ranging from hairdressing to rat-catching, and extending right down to the four necessary women who cleaned the palace and emptied the necessaries or chamber pots.