Alice Loxton

Of course, Charles is quite an extravagant man.

He's got a lot of mistresses and he is known as the king of partying.

So they are quite a kind of strange couple in some ways, this mousy girl from Portugal.

But nonetheless, the key thing is that Catherine of Braganza, she is the new wife of Charles II and she joins the English court.

And in one sense, she's this great outsider because she's remained a Catholic while the English court's religion is Protestantism.

And she dresses in the Portuguese style.

She has some quite funny habits, which do actually catch on.

She brings the fork in, which is, you know, a useful implement.

She introduced marmalade.

Again, very grateful for that.

But most importantly, she popularizes tea.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, we're very similar in many ways.

Now, as part of her dowry, Portugal provided a chest of tea.

And this was already a very popular drink in the Portuguese court.

This is partly because Portugal had established trade routes with the Far East and, importantly, China, which is where the tea leaves come from.

Now, she serves this tea to her ladies-in-waiting and the ladies at court.

So this sets a trend in England for the elites drinking tea.

And we know that she would go and visit aristocratic families and drink tea at their houses, places like Ham House, which is on the outskirts of London on the River Thames, which is a beautiful house.

I have been there.