Podcasts about catholic england

 On this week's episode, Bishop Burbidge:   Recaps his time on pilgrimage to Catholic England with the St. Paul Leadership Forum   Highlights the unity around our Eucharistic Lord and some of his favorite moments from the 10th National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis   Previews the upcoming livestream of the Mass dedicating the new altar of the Cathedral of St. Thomas More and an exclusive historical documentary of the diocese   Unpacks the recent excommunication of Archbishop Viganò and encourages all in prayer   Pleads with the faithful to pray for all public leaders and for an end to political violence following the assassination attempt on former President Trump and President Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race   He also answers the following question from the faithful:    I try to attend daily Mass, but some parishes have “worker-unfriendly” Mass times for full-time workers. How do I go about advocating for earlier Mass times?     

On this week's episode, Bishop Burbidge:    Introduces his new co-host and Chief Communications Officer for the diocese, Tom Shakely; read the announcement of his appointment here   Recaps his time with the youth of the diocese at WorkCamp 2024   Shares what he is most looking forward to while on pilgrimage to Catholic England this month with the St. Paul Leadership Forum   Previews the National Eucharistic Congress — the first of its kind in 83 years      He also answers the following questions from the faithful:    With the Fourth of July holiday weekend upon us, do you have any favorite Independence Day traditions?  What advice do you have for families, particularly fathers and mothers, on enjoying summer vacation time well? As Catholics, how can we spend vacation time together in a way that truly recharges us? 

239 BCE saw the death of someone who has been in the background of our Seleucid story for what feels like forever. As such, we should give him a proper sendoff. Say goodbye to Antigonus II... Sources for this episode: Bennett, J. E., Li, G., Foreman, K., Best, N., Kontis, V., Pearson, C., Hambly, P. and Ezzati, M. (2015), The future of life expectancy and life expectancy inequalities in England and Wales: Bayesian spatiotemporal forecasting. Lancet 386: 163-170. Bevan, E. R. (1902), The House of Seleucus (Vol. I). London: Edward Arthur. Bevan, E. R. (1914), A History of Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd. Harju, O. (2018), Male Heirs, Bastard King, Catholic England and Other Alternatives: A Counterfactual History Analysis of Henry VIII's Three Sons. Bachelor's thesis submitted to the University of Oulu. Keynes 2005 (reference to be updated) Volkmann, H., Encyclopedia Britannica (2024), Antigonus II Gonatas (online) (Accessed 27/02/2024). Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Antigonus II Gonatas (online) (Accessed 27/02/2024). Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Demetrius II Aetolicus (online) (Accessed 27/02/2024). Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), List of monarchs in Britain by length of reign (online) (Accessed 27/02/2024). Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Philip V of Macedon (online) (Accessed 27/02/2024).

June 22: Saints John Fisher, Bishop and Martyr, and Thomas More, Martyr John Fisher: 1469–1535; Thomas More: 1478–1535 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of the Diocese of Rochester (Fisher) and of lawyers and politicians (More)  They would not bend to the marriage  In 1526 a German painter named Hans Holbein could not find work in Basel, Switzerland. The Reformation had come to town. It shattered the stained glass, burned the wooden statues, and sliced up the oil paintings. Protestants don't “do” great art. There were no more commissions. So Holbein went north, to Catholic England, in search of wealthy patrons for his craft. On his way, he passed through the Netherlands to procure letters of introduction from the great humanist Desiderius Erasmus. Erasmus was a friend of Sir Thomas More, an English humanist of the highest caliber. And thus it came to pass that one fine day, in England in 1527, Thomas More sat patiently while Holbein's brush worked its magic. Holbein's extraordinary portrait of Thomas More captures the man for all seasons, as one contemporary called More, at the pinnacle of his powers. More's head and torso fill the frame. There is no need for context, landscape, or a complex backdrop. More's mind is what matters. He is what matters. Nothing else. The shimmering velvet of his robes, the weighty gold chain of office resting on his shoulders, the detailed rose badge of the House of Tudor lying on his chest, all tell the viewer something important—this is not a frivolous man. He serves the King. His work is consequential. He also wears a ring. He is married and has children. He dons a cap. It is England, and he is cold. His stubble is visible. He is tired from overwork and did not have time to shave. He holds a small slip of paper—perhaps a bribe he rejected. His gaze, slightly off center, is earnest, serious, and calm. It is almost as if he is searching the room, attentive to any threat lurking behind the painter. He is watchful. The entirety of the work conveys that elusive quality that denotes great art—interior movement. The gears of More's brain are rotating. His personality has force. The viewer feels it. Saint Thomas More was the greatest Englishman of his generation. In a land with a highly educated aristocratic class, his erudition was unequalled. He was a devoted family man who carried out an extensive correspondence with his children and ensured that his daughters were as well educated as his sons. He served the English crown faithfully both at home and abroad. He charmed his many friends with a rich and engaging personality. He published scholarly works and communicated with other humanists of his era. Yet despite all of these accomplishments, the fraught times he lived in eventually overwhelmed him. He could not save his own head. More was a thoughtful and serious Catholic. He refused to bend to the will of King Henry VIII regarding divorce and Henry's self-appointment as head of the Church in England. For his silence, or lack of explicit support for Henry, More was brought to court, where a perjurer's words knifed him in the heart. More was condemned to death by beheading. This was a favor from the King, who admired More but could not brook his dissent. More had originally been sentenced to a far crueler form of capital punishment, but Henry decreed that his life end with one blow of the axe. So the unconquered Thomas More climbed a shaky scaffold on July 6, 1535, and had his head lopped off. His head was stuck on a pole on London bridge for one month afterward, a trophy to barbarity. More died a martyr to the indissolubility of marriage. Saint John Fisher was an academic who held various high positions at the University of Cambridge, one of the two universities in all of England, eventually becoming its Chancellor for life. He was a Renaissance humanist, like Thomas More, who encouraged the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Fisher was the personal tutor of Henry VIII when Henry was a boy, and he preached the funeral homily of Henry's father, Henry VII. John Fisher lived a life of extreme personal austerity and even placed a human skull on the table during meals to remind himself of his eventual end. He had many of the same qualities as More—great learning, personal uprightness, and academic accomplishments. But easy times don't make martyrs. When King Henry wanted to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Fisher became her most ardent supporter. He openly stated in court that he would die for the indissolubility of marriage, thus incurring the lasting wrath of his former pupil Henry. All the bishops of England, save Fisher and two others, lost their courage and acquiesced, without a fight, to Henry VIII's takeover of the Catholic Church in England. Their weakness brought to a sudden, crashing end a thousand years of Catholicism in England. The faith endured in some form, of course, but would never be the culture-forming force it had been for so many centuries. It is an embarrassment of Catholic history that almost all the bishops of England fell like dominoes, one after another, at one slight puff of the breath of King Henry VIII on their cheeks. After various nefarious machinations, John Fisher was imprisoned in the harshest of conditions for over a year, even being deprived access to a priest. During this time, the Pope named him a cardinal, although Henry refused him the ceremonial placing of the red hat on his head. After a brief trial with the usual perjury, Cardinal John Fisher was beheaded on June 22, 1535. In order to avoid inevitable comparisons between Cardinal Fisher and John the Baptist, King Henry moved the cardinal's execution to avoid any connection to June 24th's Feast of Saint John the Baptist. Both Johns were martyrs to marriage. But there was no silver platter for John Fisher. His head was placed on a pole on London bridge for two weeks, only to be replaced by Thomas More's head. Saints John Fisher and Thomas More were beatified in 1886 along with fifty-four other English martyrs. The two were canonized together in 1935. Saints John Fisher and Thomas More, through your intercession, give all Catholics courage to resist the pressure to conform to falsehood, to the broad way, to popular opinion. You were both thoughtful and granite-like in your resistance. Help us to be likewise when times call for such.

On this episode of Catholic Forum, after a Dialog news update with Joe Owens, we talk to local author, Elena Maria Vidal about her new novel, My Queen, My Love: A Novel of Henrietta Maria. The first in this new trilogy my Maryland Eastern Shore resident and parishioner of Saints Peter and Paul Church in Easton, Maryland, My Queen, My love, is the story of a French Catholic princess who would become the Queen Consort of anti-Catholic England.

Light that fuse! It's the silly boys (non) Explosive final chapter of The Gunpowder Plot!  Will Robert Catesby get that Catholic England he so badly craves? (no) Will Guido Fawkes be able to get the smell of smoke & carnage out of his clothes? (no need to worry about that Guy - you won't be able to use your hands!) Will boar hunting be ruined for King James? (I don't know if he even hunted Boar. It was probably Deer or Conspiracy Theories) The future of England will turn on the contents of this show dear listener. Musket fire, chops and plops (plus the music!) by those dirty traitors over at ZapSplat Doug Maxwell's head is on a spike for the use of his track Renaissance Castle An unmarked grave is on offer for Lord Fast Fingers for the intro music and another lick or two Want to Tip us? Other than "be better" or "pay for your haircuts maaaaaan"? Then you can on Ko-Fi Silly History Boys Come say hi on Insta, Facebook & Twitter Please do rate and review. It helps us enormously!   

A king. A cope. And a faith under siege. Intrigued? Today's episode covers all this and more. Our guest, Dr. Jan Graffius, the curator of collections at Stonyhurst College in the UK – the oldest surviving Jesuit school in the world – is our guide through a riveting history that traces the rise and fall of the Catholic Church in England through the lens of a single piece of art: a cope commissioned by Henry VII. Copes are common liturgical vestments. But this one – one of the most expensive items commissioned by a king – was meant to unite the power of Church and State to strengthen a dubious claim to the throne but ultimately became a symbol of Catholic resistance and was smuggled out of the country. This cope and the stories that surround it remind us of the power of art to point to both spiritual and temporal power – and the dangers therein. You can see this cope and more as it travels across the United States in the exhibition, “The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England.” The dates below let you know when the exhibition is in your area: • New York: 3 October 2022 – 8 January 2023 • Cleveland: 21 February 2023 – 14 May 2023 • San Francisco: 26 June 2023 – 24 September 2023 Learn more: • The Met: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2022/tudors • The Cleveland Museum of Art: https://www.clevelandart.org/exhibitions/tudors-art-and-majesty-renaissance-england • About Stonhurst: https://www.stonyhurst.ac.uk/about-us/stonyhurst-college-historic-collections/contact-us

June 22: Saints John Fisher, Bishop and Martyr, & Thomas More, MartyrJohn Fisher: 1469–1535; Thomas More: 1478–1535Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: RedPatron Saint of the Diocese of Rochester (Fisher) and of lawyers and politicians (More) They would not bend to the marriage In 1526 a German painter named Hans Holbein could not find work in Basel, Switzerland. The Reformation had come to town. It shattered the stained glass, burned the wooden statues, and sliced up the oil paintings. Protestants don't “do” great art. There were no more commissions. So Holbein went north, to Catholic England, in search of wealthy patrons for his craft. On his way, he passed through the Netherlands to procure letters of introduction from the great humanist Desiderius Erasmus. Erasmus was a friend of Sir Thomas More, an English humanist of the highest caliber. And thus it came to pass that one fine day, in England in 1527, Thomas More sat patiently while Holbein's brush worked its magic.Holbein's extraordinary portrait of Thomas More captures the man for all seasons, as one contemporary called More, at the pinnacle of his powers. More's head and torso fill the frame. There is no need for context, landscape, or a complex backdrop. More's mind is what matters. He is what matters. Nothing else. The shimmering velvet of his robes, the weighty gold chain of office resting on his shoulders, the detailed rose badge of the House of Tudor lying on his chest, all tell the viewer something important—this is not a frivolous man. He serves the King. His work is consequential. He also wears a ring. He is married and has children. He dons a cap. It is England, and he is cold. His stubble is visible. He is tired from overwork and did not have time to shave. He holds a small slip of paper—perhaps a bribe he rejected. His gaze, slightly off center, is earnest, serious, and calm. It is almost as if he is searching the room, attentive to any threat lurking behind the painter. He is watchful. The entirety of the work conveys that elusive quality that denotes great art—interior movement. The gears of More's brain are rotating. His personality has force. The viewer feels it.Saint Thomas More was the greatest Englishman of his generation. In a land with a highly educated aristocratic class, his erudition was unequalled. He was a devoted family man who carried out an extensive correspondence with his children and ensured that his daughters were as well educated as his sons. He served the English crown faithfully both at home and abroad. He charmed his many friends with a rich and engaging personality. He published scholarly works and communicated with other humanists of his era. Yet despite all of these accomplishments, the fraught times he lived in eventually overwhelmed him. He could not save his own head.More was a thoughtful and serious Catholic. He refused to bend to the will of King Henry VIII regarding divorce and Henry's self-appointment as head of the Church in England. For his silence, or lack of explicit support for Henry, More was brought to court, where a perjurer's words knifed him in the heart. More was condemned to death by beheading. This was a favor from the King, who admired More but could not brook his dissent. More had originally been sentenced to a far crueler form of capital punishment, but Henry decreed that his life end with one blow of the axe. So the unconquered Thomas More climbed a shaky scaffold on July 6, 1535, and had his head lopped off. His head was stuck on a pole on London bridge for one month afterward, a trophy to barbarity. More died a martyr to the indissolubility of marriage.Saint John Fisher was an academic who held various high positions at the University of Cambridge, one of the two universities in all of England, eventually becoming its Chancellor for life. He was a Renaissance humanist, like Thomas More, who encouraged the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Fisher was the personal tutor of Henry VIII when Henry was a boy, and he preached the funeral homily of Henry's father, Henry VII. John Fisher lived a life of extreme personal austerity and even placed a human skull on the table during meals to remind himself of his eventual end. He had many of the same qualities as More—great learning, personal uprightness, and academic accomplishments.But easy times don't make martyrs. When King Henry wanted to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Fisher became her most ardent supporter. He openly stated in court that he would die for the indissolubility of marriage, thus incurring the lasting wrath of his former pupil Henry. All the bishops of England, save Fisher and two others, lost their courage and acquiesced, without a fight, to Henry VIII's takeover of the Catholic Church in England. Their weakness brought to a sudden, crashing end a thousand years of Catholicism in England. The faith endured in some form, of course, but would never be the culture-forming force it had been for so many centuries. It is an embarrassment of Catholic history that almost all the bishops of England fell like dominoes, one after another, at one slight puff of the breath of King Henry VIII on their cheeks.After various nefarious machinations, John Fisher was imprisoned in the harshest of conditions for over a year, even being deprived access to a priest. During this time, the Pope named him a cardinal, although Henry refused him the ceremonial placing of the red hat on his head. After a brief trial with the usual perjury, Cardinal John Fisher was beheaded on June 22, 1535. In order to avoid inevitable comparisons between Cardinal Fisher and John the Baptist, King Henry moved the cardinal's execution to avoid any connection to June 24th's Feast of Saint John the Baptist. Both Johns were martyrs to marriage. But there was no silver platter for John Fisher. His head was placed on a pole on London bridge for two weeks, only to be replaced by Thomas More's head. Saints John Fisher and Thomas More were beatified in 1886 along with fifty-four other English martyrs. The two were canonized together in 1935.Saints John Fisher and Thomas More, through your intercession, give all Catholics courage to resist the pressure to conform to falsehood, to the broad way, to popular opinion. You were both thoughtful and granite-like in your resistance. Help us to be likewise when times call for such.

The team returns to tackle another variant of English history around Henry VIII.What might have happened if Henry had not survived his January 1536 jousting accident and a decidedly different course of succession had come to be including a wedding among half-siblings, a Catholic England, and the influence on not only England by the interaction of continental Europe and the whole world?Two hours that could have changed centuries?You can follow A Fork In Time on….Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aforkintimeTwitter: @AFITPodcastPinterest: www.pinterest.com/aforkintimeOur YouTube ChannelIf you enjoy the podcast and want to support it financially, you can help by:Supporting us monthly via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aforkintime....or, make a one-time donation via Podfan to A Fork In Time or The Room Where It HappenedWebsite: www.aforkintimepodcast.comE-Mail: aforkintimepodcast@gmail.comDirect Link to Listener Survey: https://www.aforkintimepodcast.com/listenersurveyCheck Out The Room Where It Happened, our other podcast where the focus is on "real" history:https://www.aforkintimepodcast.com/theroomwhereithappenedTheme Music: Conquer by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.comSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/aforkintime)

For about 300 years, Catholic priests and lay people in England were persecuted, and even martyred, for the practice of their Faith. But before this period of brutality, Catholicism had been vibrant in England. And after it, Catholic England would flourish once again. Joseph Pearce, acclaimed biographer and author of the new book FAITH OF OUR FATHERS: A HISTORY OF TRUE ENGLAND, joins us in this episode to discuss “true England”—the England in which the Catholic Faith thrived before its violent suppression by the Tudor monarchs; the England that maintained the Faith through a bitter period of anti-Catholic bigotry; and the England that flowered again in the literary and spiritual revivals of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In a series of highly political and pro-English history plays known as his “Henriad” performances, Shakespeare uses a variety of figurative words and expressions to describe the “Turks” or members of the Ottoman Empire. Almost all of Shakespeare's references are rather negative towards the Ottomans, which at face value may lead you to believe that Shakespeare and his contemporaries were opposed to, or perhaps at war with, the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. However, historical exploration into the real political situation of England towards the then-called Ottoman Turks was far from negative. In fact, Elizabeth I saw the Ottoman Empire as an essential ally in her post-Catholic England currently at war with Spain. So how do we reconcile the essential nature of the Ottoman Empire under Elizabeth I with Shakespeare's negative references to them by the characters in his history plays? Our guest this week, Aisha Hussain, is here to take us back to the 16th century and introduce us to the Ottoman Empire, what it meant to be Turkish, and what we need to know about the Ottomans in Shakespeare's plays.

Sophie (age 7) & Ellie (age 5) are missing fireworks and Bonfire Night because of Coronavirus. So they tell the story of Guy Fawkes, the Gunpowder Plot, and how Bonfire Night came to be celebrated.----more----   England is Protestant. But Guy Fawkes and his Catholic friends dream of a Catholic England. They hope that the new King James will be kinder to Catholics because his mother had been a Catholic. But James is a Protestant and does not like Catholics.   Guy Fawkes and his friends decide to kill King James, his nobles and his bishops by blowing up Parliament. They carefully gather gunpowder and store it in a cellar under Parliament.   However, they are worried that some Catholic nobles will also be killed so they write to one of them to warn him to stay away. That noble might have been a Catholic but he was also a loyal subject of the King. He immediately went and told the King’s spies. The Kings soldiers burst into the cellar and find Guy Fawkes with the gunpowder and a trail ready to be lit. They capture him. But they still do not know who the other plotters are.   Guy Fawkes is taken before the King but he tells the King nothing. After days of torture Guy Fawkes finally tells the names of the other conspirators. They are rounded up, tried and horribly executed.   Every year since people in England have celebrated Bonfire Night on the 5th November by lighting Bonfires and setting off Fireworks and even burning a stuff “Guy”.   Patrons’ Club   We also talk about our Patron’s Club. There are three tiers of membership and you can get exclusive episodes, choose and episode or be in an episode. Links are here: www.patreon.com/historystorytime.com     If you liked this episode about Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night you might also like our episode on the Spanish Armada which talks about Protestant England. https://www.historystorytime.com/e/the-spanish-armada-1541460413/   Or if you liked this episode about Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night you might like our Jamestown and Pocahontas episode about how the colony of Jamestown was founded (and named after King James) https://www.historystorytime.com/e/the-jamestown-settlement-and-the-real-pocahontas/

Theater began in England as a way for the church to share messages about the Bible with the public. Written in Latin, the Bible was not accessible to parishioners outside of mass and Catholic England relayed the tales of heroism and miracles found in the Bible through dramatic productions. This tradition came with some particular approaches to storytelling, theater, and stagecraft. As with much of what the Church did in the Middle Ages, they had rules about what was acceptable to perform which was the gold standard for public performances for centuries. After the dissolution of the monasteries and the establishment of the Church of England, the nation as a whole redefined much of its’ culture, including its’ approach to theater. For William Shakespeare, he was born as the nation was still trying to figure out where it was going to stand in terms of defining good theater and rules about performance, and in many ways, the stage was set during his infancy for the bard to take the world by storm through theater. We can see influences of the biblical mystery plays in Shakespeare’s works, and the bard was known to heavily consult poets from the medieval period like Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower in writing plays like The Two Noble Kinsmen, and Pericles. But do these influences mean Shakespeare’s plays are products of the humanist movement in which he was living, or does his work build on the medieval foundations that preceded him? Our guest this week, Dr. Helen Cooper, argues that Shakespeare’s London really ought to be called “Medieval London in the age of Shakespeare” and we are delighted to have her here to share with us how she came to this conclusion. 

Truth is more amazing than fiction. Especially when Jesuits write about what they will endure for the love of Christ. The Hunted Priest is an autobiography of John Gerard, a priest who dared and defied a savagely anti-Catholic England under Elizabeth I. At first he disguised himself as a country gentlemen and traveled about secretly administering the sacraments to underground Catholics. When he was found out, he hid in a series of the infamous “priest holes”, emerging once a day to say Mass and perform the sacraments. Captured, he was condemned to be tortured to death in the Tower of London. Listen to what happened next for that was only the beginning of his story.

Listen to Part 2 of the amazing and true life story of Father John Gerard. This is an except from “The Hunted Priest”, the autobiography of John Gerard, a Jesuit priest, who risked all in a savagely anti-Catholic England under Elizabeth I. He had been condemned to be tortured to death in the Tower of London yet managed to make a incredible escape. He survived to live a long life, multiplying generously his granted portion of God’s love.

Anne Boleyn lost her head. Everyone knows that. Little else is known about the infamously short-lived second wife of King Henry VIII. Largely because her husband all but erased her memory from the history books, scraping her name from all monuments, burning her pictures, making it a crime to speak her name aloud—all of which, of course, came after he had her head chopped off. In Howard Brenton’s perceptive and audacious comedy-drama ‘Anne Boleyn’—running through May 7th at Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley—the award-winning author indulges his own meticulously researched speculations about ‘Anne Boleyn’s’ life, resulting in an intelligent, funny, and probably not all that historically accurate collision of sex, politics and religion. Directed with confidence and creativity by Jasson Minadakis, Brenton’s play fills in the missing bits of history with gutsy glee and a perceptive understanding of how politics and religion work. It’s fun, too.In the opening scene, Anne Boleyn’s ghost appears, bloody but unbowed, clutching a bag we assume contains her severed head. “You want to see it?” she asks the audience. You bet we do. What happens next, though, is a bit of a surprise, a good one, and it’s just the first of many in Brenton’s clever, intelligent tale of blood, sex, and faith, as Anne Boleyn returns from the dead to tell her side of the story. Bouncing between the16th century court of King Henry VIII and that of the 17th Century King James I (both played brilliantly by Craig Marker), the play eventually suggests that the world might not have ended up with the King James Bible, had not a deeply religious Boleyn strategically employed her sexual charms to force a break between her king and the Catholic Pope. Thus did one of history’s most notorious home-wreckers purposefully pave the way for the Protestant reformation—of which she was a kind to freelance secret agent—which was subsequently allowed to gain a foothold in a staunchly Catholic England. Unable to provide a male heir to the King, Boleyn’s machinations eventually make enough enemies that, well, her head’s removed. Oops. But not before giving birth to Elizabeth, who will eventually succeed her father on the throne, and will eventually be succeeded herself by James of Scotland. Did I mention there’s a lot of historical detail? In the King James parts of the story, having discovered Boleyn’s secretly hidden and thoroughly forbidden Protestant Bible, King James hits on a way to unify his fractured kingdom, by commissioning a new translation of the word of God, a Bible that will ultimately bear his own name. It’s a bit thick with information, yes, and there are a number of lengthy conversation about the meaning of variation scriptures, but Minadakis is masterful at keeping the story clipping along and not forgetting that, we the audience, want to see lots of sex and slinky stuff along with the bits about the Bible. As Anne, Liz Sklar is magnificent, playing so many spot-on emotional notes you’d think she was auditioning for the symphony instead of giving the performance of her career. Aided by a jaw dropping set by Nina Ball and era-blurring fashions by Ashley Holvick, the large cast, able and energetic, swaps costumes and characters almost as frequently as Henry swapped wives. ‘Anne Boleyn’ runs Tuesday–Sunday through May 8 at Marin Theatre Company. Marintheater.org. I’m David Templeton, Second Row Center, for KRCB.

Dennis gets to discuss his favorite topic of the Tudors and Henry the 8th. What if Henry had a son with Catherine of Aragon? What would a Catholic England look like? Would England ever become a superpower? What if there was never a reign of Queen Elizabeth? Would we be in a French speaking New World?