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Peter the Great, Sir Francis Drake, Admiral Benbow, John Evelyn,
Christopher Marlowe, Grinling Gibbons, Samuel Pepys and others.
For his shipbuilding needs, premises and property were acquired
by Henry VIII, especially in the vicinity of Woolwich Dockyard,
and some of these could be regarded as ordnance depots which
eventually were to lead to the establishment of the Royal Arsenal.
Unquestionably Henry VIII loved Greenwich. Here within
easy water distance of London, he could hawk and hunt, watch his
merchant shipping bring valuable merchandise from abroad, visit
his ships of war anchored close by and, from this vantage point,
he and his Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, could welcome with
grandest pageantry the many illustrious visitors to his sumptuous
palace. Wolsey was the organiser of the historic ceremony at
Greenwich when a legate of Pope Leo X conferred upon Henry
VIII the title of "Defender of the Faith" which, at the dissolution
of the monasteries, was soon to acquire an entirely different
connotation.
In his dealings with Emperor Charles V, usually at Greenwich
Palace, Henry VIII laid the foundations of England's foreign
policy which remain to this day, viz. to oppose the military domination
of the Continent by any one state.
Following the failure of Cardinals Wolsey and Campeggio to
resolve Henry's marriage difficulties with the church, Wolsey was
replaced by Sir Thomas More, author of "Utopia", as Chancellor.
He was beheaded in 1533 for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy.
His beautiful and talented daughter, Margaret, subject of a
portraiture by the painter Holbein, married William Roper who is
reputed to have been responsible for the building of Well Hall
Manor house.
Before he died, Henry VIII had made great additions to the
Palace of Placentia. He completed the gardens and made them
the finest in England. He built the Armoury and staffed it with
the best of foreign craftsmen, mostly Germans, whose work in
this field made the name of Greenwich world famous. He added
the Tilt Yard which became renowned throughout Europe as did
his Banqueting Hall, the work of the architect William Vertue who
was responsible for the Bath Chapel at Westminster.
It is difficult to conceive the magnificence and splendour of
the Palace of Placentia during this period for, set amidst gardens
laid out with flower beds, sparkling fountains, ornamental summer
houses and surrounded by a superb park, it contained everything
that money could buy or thought could devise to add to its
grandeur. Floors were heavily caroeted; rooms, furnished from
the dis-established monasteries and churches, were richly decorated,
and the genius of the world's greatest painters was expended