Meaning of Groom of the Stool | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Originally an official responsible for helping the English monarch use the toilet; later a senior official who was allowed access to the monarch's privy chamber and served as a personal secretary.
   British, historical
2. Alternative letter-case form of Groom of the Stool.
   alt-of

Equivalents

Examples

“Holonym: royal household”

“The leſſer Corporations were [...] his Majeſties gratuities to the Lord of, &c. Marqueſs, &c. Q[ueen] Mother, Lady Nurſe, Groom of the ſtool, that is, the Cloſe ſtool, whether King or Queen (high and advantageous honours) and this diſcended to outlandiſh, as in Land commodities; yea, to pins and brooms; and it was ſaid, to Rags for paper, and Marrow-bones for Kitchin-ſtuff, or greaſe; [...]”

“The King hath thirteen Gentlemen of the Bed-Chamber, who conſiſt uſually of the Prime Nobility of England, whereof the firſt is call'd Groom of the Stool [...] The meaning is a Groom or Servant of the Robe or Veſtment. He hath the Office and Honour to put on his Majeſties Shirt every morning, and to order the things of the Bed-Chamber[.]”

New English Grammar, Enriched with Curious Dialogues Touching the State & the Court of England. […]

“[T]he Statute enjoyns the Clergy-man to be reſident in and upon his Living, that is, his Parſonage or Vicarage-Houſe, if he have any, and not at any other Houſe in the Pariſh; [...] But the Chaplains of the Chancellor of the Dutchy, Augmentations, Firſt-fruits, Maſter of the Wards, Surveyor General, Treaſurer of the Chamber and Augmentations, and Groom of the Stool, are to be Reſident twice in a year at leaſt, Eight days at each time: [...]”

“MONTMORENCY (Anne de) firſt baron, peer, mareſchal, high-ſteward, conſtable of France; knight of St. Michael, and of the garter, groom of the ſtool, and governor of Languedoc, &c. was ſecond ſon to William lord of Montmorency.”

“The Queen then rises and goes to the faldstool, at which she is to be anointed and crowned, placed between King Edward's chair and the steps of the altar, where the Groom of the Stool to her Majesty (with the two Ladies of her Bedchamber) take off her rich circlet or coronet; when the Queen kneels down, and the Archbishop pours the holy oil on the crown of her head, in the form of a cross, using these words, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, let the anointing of this oil increase thine honour," &c.”

“It is the king's pleasure that Mr Norris shall be in the room of Sir William Compton, not only giving his attendance as groom of the stool but also in his bedchamber and other privy places as shall stand with his pleasure. And the king's express command is that none other of the said six gentlemen [of the privy chamber] presume to enter or follow his Grace into the said bedchamber, or any other secret place, unless he shall be called and admitted thereunto by his said grace.”

“As David Starkey has delineated in great detail, one of Henry [VIII]'s major administrative achievements was the centralization of court administration in a collection of younger gentry in bodily service to the King. Grooms of the Chamber, Grooms of the Stool, Esquires of the Body – these were the titles granted men who ministered to Henry's private functions, and as Starkey argues, it is this new sense of intimacy that recalibrates the English body politic into a politics of the King's body.”

“The title of Groom of the Stool derived from that gentleman's privilege of attending his sovereign whenever he used the close stool; his duties were to provide him with a flannel "to wipe his nether end" and to summon a Yeoman of the Chamber to empty and clean the pot. Sir Thomas Heneage, Groom of the Stool from 1536 to 1546, was witness to the King's chronic constipation and his efforts to relieve it, [...]”

“As cloacal factotum, the Groom of the Stool presides over the offices of royal excretion; he maintains the royal close-stool and examines its products for signs of health or distemperature; he serves, in this sense, both as a royal confidant and an intermediary between the royal self in its private and public capacities. The Groom's office, in short, involves an "exquisite combination of intimacy, degradation, and privilege" (Paster 1993: 32); [...]”

“The exaltation of a monarch was such that few were fit to dine with one. Meanwhile, as many as eight "grooms of the stool" waited on kings when at privy. A king sat alone at the table and in company at the "throne."”

“The leſſer Corporations were [...] his Majeſties gratuities to the Lord of, &c. Marqueſs, &c. Q[ueen] Mother, Lady Nurſe, Groom of the ſtool, that is, the Cloſe ſtool, whether King or Queen (high and advantageous honours) and this diſcended to outlandiſh, as in Land commodities; yea, to pins and brooms; and it was ſaid, to Rags for paper, and Marrow-bones for Kitchin-ſtuff, or greaſe; [...]”

“It is the king's pleasure that Mr Norris shall be in the room of Sir William Compton, not only giving his attendance as groom of the stool but also in his bedchamber and other privy places as shall stand with his pleasure. And the king's express command is that none other of the said six gentlemen [of the privy chamber] presume to enter or follow his Grace into the said bedchamber, or any other secret place, unless he shall be called and admitted thereunto by his said grace.”

“As the secretariat moved more and more under the aegis of the grooms, as the keeping of the seal itself became entrusted to men such as William Compton and Henry Norris, and as Henry [VIII] signed in the odd moments between eating or attending mass or (one assumes, since these men were grooms of the stool) privy ministrations, it was quite possible that documents passed under his hand of which "he wottith nat what."”

“At the first sound indicating that the king [Henry VIII of England] was actually awake, only one gentleman, Henry Norris, who had the senior role of groom of the stool, was allowed to enter the bedchamber 'and other privy places'. None of the others was to presume to enter or follow the king into the bedchamber or 'any other secret place'. What this meant was that the groom of the stool was responsible for helping the king go to the toilet – 'when he goeth to make water in his Bedchamber'.”

“Sir Thomas Erskine of Gogar, later earl of Kellie, was captain of the yeoman of the guard from 1603 to 1617, a sensitive office that from 1605 he combined with the groom of the stool, giving him crucial influence over access to the king [James VI and I].”

“The exaltation of a monarch was such that few were fit to dine with one. Meanwhile, as many as eight "grooms of the stool" waited on kings when at privy. A king sat alone at the table and in company at the "throne."”

“The groom of the stool also assisted the monarch in other aspects of daily life, such as dressing and eating. The position of groom of the stool originated in the fifteenth century, with the introduction of the close-stool, a stool holding a chamber pot. The office of Yeoman of the Stool emerged in the reign of Henry VI (r[eigned] 1422–1471). The Groom of the Stool appears in the records around 1495, with the founding of the Privy Chamber by Henry VII (r. 1485–1509).”

“[T]he privy chamber now comprised just six grooms led by a groom of the stool. And in choosing them, Henry [VII of England] was guided not by rank or status, but by who he thought would 'best content the king'. Chief among them was Hugh Denys, groom of the stool, a Gloucestershire gentleman who had married into the influential family of Ros (or Roos), whose Lancastrian connections were strong. Born around 1440, Denys was one of the oldest members of Henry's entourage and his loyalty had already been well proved.”

CEFR level