Tall tales spun from sugar

WHEN YOU SEE a book enchantingly entitled The Queen of Subtleties, it’s difficult not to be intrigued. Part fact, part fiction, Suzannah Dunn’s novel tells the story of Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, narrated in alternate chapters by Boleyn herself and the King’s confectioner, Lucy Cornwallis - the Queen of Subtleties of the title.

By The Newsroom Wednesday, 26th January 2005, 12:00 am

Subtleties are, or rather were, intricate sugar sculptures and statues created as beautiful centrepieces for Medieval feasts - the beginnings of modern-day sugar craft, although this was rather more like sugar art. The exquisite adornments are thought to have been created in the early 15th century with subtleties appearing at the coronation feast of eight-year-old Henry VI in 1429.

As well as grand centrepieces, a subtlety could also take the shape of something more diminutive such as the rosebud Henry VIII asks Lucy Cornwallis to make in Dunn’s novel when he is wooing Anne Boleyn. Although this is a fiction by the author, Dunn believes that subtleties could well have been used in this way during Tudor times.

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"The subtleties were so-named because they tended to mean something to those who saw or received them; there was usually some reference to something that was happening in the court at the time. They were subtle allusions," she says. But these lovely sugar stallions, replica miniature castles and delicate flowers were a pleasure only for those in positions of wealth and privilege. Sugar was still a luxury when Henry VIII ruled, kept under lock and key by Hampton Court’s yeoman guard, along with exotic spices, nuts and fruits.

"The Tudors were a royal line all about show and food was also very important to them," explains Dunn, "so the two came together in the subtleties. As I understand it, the Tudors’ claim to the throne was a bit shaky, so they were all about showing off their power and wealth." She says that after the main Tudor feast, an elite set of courtiers would be invited to another special banquet of sweet things such as candied and bottled fruits, and comfits (sugar-coated spices, seeds and nuts) - all luxury goods newly arrived from Europe and prepared by the King’s confectioner. "You were really ‘in’ if you were invited to one of these banquets," Dunn says.

So who was Lucy Cornwallis? She was indeed Henry VIII’s confectioner during the time of Anne Boleyn, an employee the king clearly held in some esteem since he gave her a house in Aldgate in recognition of her services. Aside from the fact that she was the only female in a 200-strong kitchen staff, nothing else is known of Cornwallis, which is where Dunn’s imagination comes in. "Anne Boleyn was a woman living in a man’s world and I wanted to write her story a bit differently," explains Dunn. "I’d picked up a book on Tudor food and there was a throwaway remark about Lucy Cornwallis working alongside 200 men, and although she did have a kitchen of her own, she was another woman in a man’s world - so it was really her position that intrigued me.

"And, of course, I loved the idea of the subtleties because sugar was like gold dust."

In an age where so many of us are struggling to curb our sugar intake, it is difficult to appreciate the scarcity and value of this sweet commodity in Tudor times.

It wasn’t until 1319 that sugar started to arrive in England from Europe in quantities of note, selling for the equivalent of about 50 per pound. Even by the time Henry VIII began his reign in 1509, it was still prohibitively expensive. It wasn’t until the 18th century, by which time the sugar industry was dominated by plantations in the West Indies, that prices started to come down.

In her novel, Dunn has Cornwallis fretting that "the Chief Clerks hold me personally accountable for the most valuable substance in all the kitchens." The sugar of which she speaks did not come in the granulated form we know today. The ‘white gold’ arrived as hard conical-shaped sugar loaves, often wrapped in blue paper - it is from these that the world-famous Sugar Loaf Mountain above Rio de Janeiro takes its name.

From these loaves, Cornwallis would make sugar syrups, which were poured into various moulds to construct the subtleties. She could add dyes to the boiling sugar for colour, but sculptures were difficult to decorate when cool.

Dunn’s book covers a period of transition in the confectioner’s world in which Cornwallis moves from using moulds to hand-fashioning subtleties from sugar pastes. "This would be more like what we know as icing sugar paste," explains Dunn, "and it was a pioneering moment because you could paint on to it very easily or work the colour into the paste."

Cornwallis would also have used real gold leaf to decorate her work, especially when she was making marchpanes, of which Henry was very fond. Taking their name from the old English word for marzipan, marchpanes were fashioned from the sweet almond paste into disks the size of dinner plates then left to dry out, then decorated with royal coats of arms.

Subtleties eventually went out of fashion, but at least they were around long enough to secure the places of confectionery and sugar art forever. Today there are several trade associations, including the British Sugarcraft Guild, which holds regular exhibitions. And what occasion is complete these days without a cake bedecked in sugar-spun adornments?

In recreating the world of Lucy Cornwallis, Dunn has brought a fresh perspective on the tale of Anne Boleyn, while giving us an enchanting insight into the history of one of our most workaday commodities.