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the opportunity to stay in the widest bed in England. 4 The bed measures 326cm in width: a current super king
size bed in the UK is around 200cm. Poster beds were hung with curtains, between the posts and/or back panel,
creating an insular space. The quality of the fabric depended on the wealth of the owner, but as few beds
survive with materials, it is difficult to suggest exactly how these fabrics appeared, and how they varied. Lady
Ann Fanshaw recorded that one house which she and her husband occupied was ‘richly furnished, both my
husband’s quarter and mine, the worst bed and chamber of my apartment being furnished with damask, in
which my chambermaid lay.’ 5 Damask was a fabric of the wealthy, and one can presume that bed curtains
varied in quality the further down the social ladder one went, although precious materials were inherited
through even poor families. The bedding was secured within the oak frame: mattresses could be stuffed with
down, (such as the Great Bed of Ware), or with whatever materials were to hand, such as hay, leaves and the
like. 6 The stuffing was held in place by a fabric cover, referred to as the ‘tick.’ On a poster bed, this mattress was
usually secured by ropes underneath, which provided tension, and was more comfortable to sleep upon than a
solid surface. This also allowed the bedding to breathe.
There were relatively few poster beds (probably not even one hundred) in 1600 but they had become more
common by the start of the seventeenth-century. (Worsely, p. 8) The canopy and curtains kept in warmth,
provided a limited degree of privacy, and kept out falling straw and other unwanted bodies from floors or
rafters above. The ‘walls’ of the bed may have also regulated unwanted smells from other parts of the
household. The afore-mentioned Lady Ann Fanshaw left us a glimpse into the private sphere of her bed, during
one of her minor arguments with her husband: ‘So we went to bed, I cried and he went to sleep. Next morning
early as his custom was, he called to rise, but began to discourse with me first, to which I made no reply; he
rose, came on the other side of the bed and kissed me, and drew the curtains softly, and went to court.’ 7 While
Lady Ann’s words may resonate as a recognisable domestic falling-out, they also demonstrate how the curtains
provided an intimate space for husband and wife, and insulated their argument from the eyes of servants and
others. Perhaps Richard Fanshawe (her husband) drew the curtains to keep the heat within, and perhaps he
drew them to contain Lady Ann’s ill humour. 8
The intimate space which beds provided was one reason why people recorded how they enjoyed simply being
within their beds. When Dorothy Osborne (who would become Lady Temple) wrote a letter to the diplomat,
William Temple (an educated politician, whom she would go on to marry after a long engagement), she said
‘SIR,–I am so great a lover of my bed myself that I can easily apprehend the trouble of rising at four o'clock
these cold mornings [to get the post and her letters]. In earnest, I am troubled that you should be put to it, and
have chid the carrier for coming out so soon.’ 9 For others, the enclosed space was an area of calm reflection: in
Lucy Hutchinson’s memoir to her husband, she described how he was troubled, with an ‘anxiety of mind [that]
affected him so, that it sent him to his bed that aftenoone, which indeed he tooke to entertaine his thoughts
alone that night, and having fortified himselfe with resolution, he gate [got] up.’ 10 For John Hutchinson, the bed
was a place of reflection, where he went to seek quiet isolation.
Some scholars have suggested that even the poor spent large amounts of money on beds, and the cupboard bed
was likely to have been popular choice for poorer people. 11 These were beds which were built into wooden
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