In the Tapestry room of St. James's Palace is a stone Tudor arched fireplace, sculptured with H. A. (Henry and Anne), united by a true lover's knot, surmounted by the regal crown and the lily of France, the portcullis of Westminster, and the rose of Lancaster.
By a record of 1511, it appears that the hall-fire was discontinued on Easter Day, then called God's Sunday. In the _Festival_, published in the above year, we read: "This day is called, in many places, _Goddes Sundaye_: ye know well that it is the maner at this daye to do the fire out of the hall, and the black wynter brondes, and all thynges that is foule with fume and smoke, shall be done awaye, and where the fyre was shall be gayly arayed with fayre floures, and strewed with grene rysshes all aboute." The andirons being cleared away, the space whereon the fire was made, on the hearth, was strewed with green rushes; whence the custom, in our time, of decorating, in the country, stove-grates with evergreens, and flowers, and paper ornaments, when they are not used for fires. Rushes were, at this time, much in use. At Canterbury, one of the oldest cities in England, at the end of Mercery-lane, is pointed out the site of the ancient _rush-market_, in which stood a great cross, painted and gilt. We still employ rushes made into matting, for the floors of churches.
Coal is first mentioned in 1245; but the smoke was supposed to corrupt the air so much, that Edward I. forbade the use of that kind of fuel by proclamation; and among the records in the Tower, Mr. Astle found a document, importing that in the time of Edward I. a man had been tried, convicted, and executed, for the crime of burning sea-coal in London.
Coal first came into general use in the north of England.[43] Wood billets, however, long remained the principal fuel of the south; and the contrivance for burning such fuel with economy was the first deviation in metal from the rude simplicity of the rere-dosse towards the close fire-grate. This consisted of useful iron trestles, called hand-irons, or andirons, formerly common in England, and yet occasionally to be met with in old mansions and farm-houses, under the appellation of _dogs_. Originally, these articles were not only found in the houses of persons of good condition, but in the bedchamber of the king himself. Strutt, writing in 1775, says: "These awnd-irons are used at this day, and are called cob-irons: they stand on the hearth, where they burn wood, to lay it upon; their fronts are usually carved, with a round knob at the top; some of them are kept polished and bright; anciently many of them were embellished with a variety of ornaments." In another place, giving an inventory of the bedchamber of Henry VIII. in the palace of Hampton Court, including awnd-irons, with fire-fork, tongs, and fire-pan, Strutt adds, "of the awnd-irons, or as they are called by the moderns, cob-irons, myself have seen a pair which in former times belonged to some noble family. They were of copper, highly gilt, with beautiful flowers, enamelled with various colours disposed with great art and elegance." At Hever Castle in Kent,--the family seat of the Boleyns, as well as the property of Anne of Cleves, and which Henry VIII. with matchless cupidity claimed in right of a wife from whom, previously to her being beheaded, he had been divorced,--is a pair of elegant andirons, bearing the royal initials H. A. and surmounted with a royal crown. And, in an inventory of Henry's furniture in the Tower of London, we find mentioned "two round pairs of irons, upon which to make fire in, and for conveying fire from one apartment to another."