A talk about the discovery of the marriage bed of Henry VII

This seminar presents the Paradise Bed: a substantially intact, once richly painted and grained, Baltic oak bedframe that emerged in 2010 when it was sold as a nineteenth-century antique.

Research demonstrates that it dates over three centuries earlier- and its iconography is specifically that of the marriage bed of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Having escaped destruction by remaining in Lancashire after 1495, this sole survivor of English medieval royal palace furniture is of seminal importance as an historic artifact, one which offers a much fuller understanding of the self-image of the first Tudor monarchs as prophetic redeemers of the nation