Was This Henry VIII's Hat?

I'm Historic Royal Palace's curator Matthew Storey and I'm here in the stores of the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection to look at one of our rarest and most unusual objects, the Bristow Hat. There's a legend that it was worn by Henry VIII but is that really true? Let's look at the evidence. Bristow Hat is in remarkably good condition. The colours are really vibrant and it's all pretty much intact although the feathers are very fragile and delicate. The reason for its good condition is most probably due to the fact that the Bristow family took very good care of it. It's not without wear and tear as can be seen around the brim of the hat. The hat is round with a plain wool base but has been tufted with pink silk threads which gives it this distinctive appearance with this thick pile. The brim is held up on two sides by little threads and this one has a silver button that's now tarnished to a dark grey. The look is completed with a tuft of bright green ostrich feathers. We've created a bespoke mount which provides support to the inside of the hat, keeps its shape and prevents it from collapsing. A story told about this hat since the 19th century is that Henry VIII wore it at the Siege of Boulogne in 1544. When the city fell, it is said, Henry threw the hat into the air in jubilation and he was caught by his courtier Nicholas Bristow who kept it. Unfortunately this story is completely unverifiable and just seems a little bit too good to be true. A more likely possibility is that as a trusted courtier and clerk of the wardrobe of robes, Nicholas Bristow had access to high status and royal clothing. We know Henry VIII gave away items of clothing as gifts, especially at the end of his life. So Bristow was certainly in the right place and at the right time to receive a gift of a high status piece of royal clothing. Historic royal palaces acquired the hat in 2014 from a direct descendant of Nicholas Bristow. It was treasured by them and kept in a wooden box out of the light which explains its extraordinary state of preservation. As historians we need to separate fact from fiction to piece together all the evidence available to understand an object like this. So what can we say about the hat? We know Tudor courtiers did wear brightly coloured hats, even trimmed with colourful feathers as people at the time condemned the extravagant fashions. The technique of silk tufting through a base fabric known as drumming was used for 16th century hats. The area in the worst condition is the silk lining. Natural sweats and dirt will have rubbed off onto the lining and of course it's also the area that receives the most abrasion where it's been taken on and off the head. Of course it would be really good to conserve the silk lining, however it would be quite invasive. We'd have to work on the hat upside down which would cause damage to the silk tufts and the feathers. So sometimes a conservation treatment isn't always the best solution and in this case the conservation team have taken a more preventative approach. The hat is sitting on a padded block which is covered in black silk which means when the hat is lifted off it slides easily and that damaged silk is not further abraded. Scientific analysis on the wool based fabric and the dye used for the silk undertaken before the hat came into our collection show that it was made before the 19th century and are right for a 16th century object. The tests were limited but they did find that the wool derived from primitive breeds of sheep. Sheep such as the Shetland and the White-faced Hill sheep. Their wool was commonly used during the medieval period and is still used today. There was also some dye analysis carried out which suggested that there was lichen purple used and also madderwort and these were used from the medieval period onwards. When the hat is exhibited it's essential that we keep the light levels low and that means that we will be able to maintain these gorgeous vibrant colours. So what conclusions should we come to about the Bristow hat? The expensive coloured silk show this was an elite item of clothing worn by somebody wealthy. We know Nicholas Bristow had access to high status royal clothing. The hat is certainly very old and is associated with a courtier of Henry VIII who had access to the king's clothing but was it actually worn by Henry VIII? Personally I don't think there's enough evidence to say for sure but what do you think?