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Life at court wasn't much fun for the lance maker, armourer, falconer, fireworker, food taster, whipping boy, laundry woman, groom of the chamber, hall boy or the royal messenger.
But none had a job as rotten as the purple maker who created the colour of royalty. The task of creating the very emblem of the British monarchy - purple coronation robes - depended on the disgusting, dangerous job of the purple dyer, who extracted the colour by rotting shellfish in urine.
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