Securing the long-term survival and status of the family has always been the principal concern of the English aristocracy and gentry. Central to that ambition has been the successful management of their landed estates, whilst failure in this regard could spell ruination for an entire family. In the sixteenth century, the task became more difficult as price inflation reduced the value of rents; improved management skills were called for. In Norfolk, estates began to change hands rapidly as the un...
The Queen's Child by Sunday Times bestselling historian Alison Weir is an e-short and companion piece to the captivating final novel in the Six Tudor Queens series, Katharine Parr: The Sixth Wife. 'I look at her, playing happily with not a care in the world, and wonder how God can have inflicted so many tragedies on an innocent' Mary Seymour is just a few weeks old when her mother, the Dowager Queen Katharine Parr, dies from childbed fever. She cannot know the tragedy that has befallen their h...
Medieval churchwardens' accounts give invaluable details about parish life on the eve of the Reformation and during the changes which followed in the sixteenth century. They tell us about donations made to the church for prayers,devotional objects and books which were bought for the parish church, money spent on special festivals, the cost of repairs and many more everyday details of parish life. These accounts from Ashburton in Devon run from the late fifteenth century to the Elizabethan period...
Festive Enterprise (ReFormations: Medieval and Early Modern)
by Jill P. Ingram
Festive Enterprise reveals marketplace pressures at the heart of dramatic form in medieval and Renaissance drama. In Festive Enterprise, Jill P. Ingram merges the history of economic thought with studies of theatricality and spectatorship to examine how English Renaissance plays employed forms and practices from medieval and traditional entertainments to signal the expectation of giving from their audiences. Resisting the conventional divide between medieval and Renaissance, Festive Enterprise t...
The raising of the _Mary Rose_ in 1982 was a remarkable feat of archaeology and her subsequent preservation and display at Portsmouth a triumph of technical skill and imagination. She is more than a relic, however. She has a story to tell, and her sinking in the Solent in 1545, when under attack by the French, and the reasons for it, have intrigued historians for generations. With the benefit of access to her remains, archaeologists have been able to slowly unravel the mystery of her foundering...
The Tudors are one of history's most infamous families and the era over which they reigned still captures the public's interest without rival. 'Tudor England' in itself has become a well known phrase that covers many aspects of the era, particularly architecture, arts and the lifestyle. What is often overlooked however is that the Tudors, whilst coming to encompass all that is considered great about England, were a Welsh dynasty with their roots firmly entrenched in the hills across Offa's Dyke....
The first ever biography of Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third wife, who died in childbirth giving the king what he craved most - a son and heir.Jane Seymour is often portrayed as meek and mild and as the most successful, but one of the least significant, of Henry VIII's wives. The real Jane was a very different character, demure and submissive yet with a ruthless streak - as Anne Boleyn was being tried for treason, Jane was choosing her wedding dress. From the lowliest origins of any of Henry's w...
This enthralling study of the man behind the mask gives also a unique picture of the 16th-century mind and milieu.
From the bloody Wars of the Roses to Queen Elizabeth I's iconic rule, the Tudor Dynasty was a period of sex, scandal, and intrigue. Monarchs such as Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I have become a part of modern pop culture, resulting in endless parodies, satires, rumors, and urban legends that grace our television screens. But as with all urban legends and parodies, facts surrounding the lives of these rulers are greatly exaggerated. In this entertaining guide, Barb Alexander serves to debunk th...
The Tudor period has long gripped our imaginations. Because we have consumed so many costume dramas on TV and film, read so many histories, factual or romanticised, we think we know how this society operated. We know they did' romance but how did they do sex? In this affectionate, informative and fascinating look at sex and sexuality in Tudor times, author Carol McGrath peeks beneath the bedsheets of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century England to offer a genuine understanding of the ro...
'A rattling good read' - The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu 2020 sees the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower - the ship that took the Pilgrim Fathers to the New World. It's a foundational event in American history, but it began as an English story, which pioneered the idea of religious freedom. The illegal underground movement of Protestant separatists from Elizabeth I's Church of England is a story of subterfuge and danger, arrests and interrogations, prison and executions....
Rodger embarks on a mission to Florence, in search of an elusive assassin...In his fourth journal, A Brood of Vipers, Roger Shallot encounters treacherous conspiracies and terrible murders as he journeys from Tudor London to Florence. Paul Doherty's Tudor mysteries are perfect for fans of Susannah Gregory and C. J. Sansom.Spring 1523. Benjamin Daunbey and his rapscallion servant, Roger Shallot, are summoned to London. A Florentine envoy, Lord Francesco Abrizzi, has been murdered and King Henry i...
Bosworth 1485 (Campaign) (Osprey Military Campaign S., #66)
by Christopher Gravett
The Battle of Bosworth is one of the most important events in English history. It effectively put an end to the dynastic struggle known as the Wars of the Roses, and planted the Tudor house on the throne of England. Since his death in battle against Henry Tudor argument has raged around the figure central to the story, the controversial King Richard III. Christopher Gravett cuts through the myth and propaganda to detail the course of this pivotal campaign. The Battle of Bosworth is one of the...
Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2018 A Book of the Year for the Evening Standard and the Observer A black porter publicly whips a white Englishman in the hall of a Gloucestershire manor house. A Moroccan woman is baptised in a London church. Henry VIII dispatches a Mauritanian diver to salvage lost treasures from the Mary Rose. From long-forgotten records emerge the remarkable stories of Africans who lived free in Tudor England... They were present at some of the defining moments o...
1520 explores the characters of two larger-than-life kings, whose rivalry and love-hate relations added a feisty edge to European relations in the early sixteenth century. What propelled them to meet, and how did each vie to outdo the other in feats of strength and yards of gold cloth? Everyone who was anyone in 1520 was there. But why was the flower of England's nobility transported across the Channel, and how were they catered for? What did this temporary, fairy-tale village erected in a Frenc...
The Field of Cloth of Gold was one of the greatest courtly spectacles of the sixteenth century. A carefully-orchestrated meeting outside Calais between Henry VIII and Francis I, it encapsulated Henry's imperial ambitions and confirmed the role of the tournament in international diplomacy. Here, Keith Dowen and Scot Hurst reveal the glamour and excitement of the Field of Cloth of Gold. Using surviving artefacts and important archival material, they illustrate how England began the transition fr...
From Joseph Papp, American’s foremost theater producer, and writer Elizabeth Kirkland: a captivating tour through the world of William Shakespeare. Discover the London of Shakespeare's time, a fascinating place to be—full of mayhem and magic, exploration and exploitation, courtiers and foreigners. Stroll through narrow, winding streets crowded with merchants and minstrels, hoist a pint in a rowdy alehouse, and hurry across the river to the open-air Globe Theater to see that latest play writte...
`Leanda de Lisle brings the story of nine days' queen, Lady Jane Grey and her forgotten sisters, the rivals of Elizabeth I, to vivid life in her fascinating biography' Philippa Gregory The dramatic untold story of the three tragic Grey sisters, all heirs to the Tudor throne, all victims to their royal blood. Lady Jane Grey is an iconic figure in English history. Misremembered as the `Nine Days Queen', she has been mythologized a...