The Clerks of the Greencloth were the officers of the household who checked and paid for the provisions coming into Henry VIII’s kitchens, and their financial prudence is still in evidence in today’s Finance Department.  The court and courtiers were often wasteful of the king’s goods.   ‘What should I trouble myself to husband his Majesty’s money?’ asked Viscount Wimbledon.  ‘More men prosper with spending and getting the King’s money than by saving it’.   Courtiers were entitled to a daily allowance of bread, beer, candles and fuel for their fires.  If they were caught selling these outside the court (as often happened) they had their allowance docked for a month. 

Collecting rent

William Wentworth (1604) advises a man never to employ a woman in estate management ‘for flattering tenants will soon seduce a woman, who neither is like to have a true intelligence of the matter, nor so sound a judgement as the wiser sort of men have’.

In 1694, work on the re-building of Hampton Court Palace ground to a halt.  One reason was the death of Mary II, but another was royal penury.  William and Mary had been spending at twice the rate of their predecessor, Charles II, and owed 16 months’ salary to their servants below stairs.  Work had to pause for three years while debts were paid off and the books balanced.