Podcasts about edward vi

What really happened to Tom Canty after he swapped places with Edward VI in Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper?In this conversation, I sit down with debut author Frederic Fahey to talk about his historical novel The Scoundrel's Son, a rich and imaginative continuation of Twain's classic tale—set in the heart of Tudor England. We chat about why Fred felt called to tell Tom's story, the real Tudor figures who make appearances (yes, including Lady Jane Grey!), and how a scientist-turned-author finds inspiration in friendship, identity, and loss.Also: the Wicked book cover connection, writing strong Tudor women, and the character who punches people in the nose when necessary. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Free from Henry at long last, and with Thomas Seymour home from his European duties, Catherine quickly, but discretely, found her way back to her old flame. They married in secret, which displeased both the new king, Edward VI, and Princess Mary, Catherine's good friend. Thomas's brother Edward - by then the 1st Duke of Somerset - was more or less running the country for his nephew, then nine or ten years old, and presented a foil to Thomas, and ultimately led to his downfall. This was a dicey period for Thomas Seymour, because upon his return to England, he fired off a letter to 14-year-old Princess Elizabeth proposing marriage. Catherine must not have known this when, once their marriage was public, she invited both Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey to live in their household, and it is here where Thomas's personality and proclivities take a dark turn. A member of their household would later testify about inappropriate visits he would make to Elizabeth's bed chamber, inappropriate touching, and, as a last straw, a time when Catherine discovered the pair in an embrace. Elizabeth was sent to live in another noble home in May 1548 - which was the last time she would ever see her much beloved stepmother. Catherine Parr gave birth to a daughter on the 30th of August, 1548, and died on September 5, 1548, of "childbed fever" - a catchall term for any of a number of post-partum infections that were common in the era. Her beloved, but betraying, husband only lived a few months longer. Thomas Seymour was arrested and charged with treason in February 1549, and executed on March 20 of that year. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. To advertise on this podcast, reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this day in Tudor history, 12th June 1567, Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich, died—and few figures in the Tudor era have earned the label "villain" quite like him. From betraying Sir Thomas More to personally torturing Protestant martyr Anne Askew, Rich's name is forever tied to some of the darkest episodes of Henry VIII's reign. But was he simply ruthless—or just a master of survival in a dangerous political landscape? In this podcast, I take a closer look at Richard Rich's life and legacy—from his legal rise and key government roles, to his shocking betrayals, opportunism, and his surprisingly charitable acts later in life. He served under Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I… but not Elizabeth I. And yet, his impact on Tudor England is undeniable. Let me know in the comments—Tudor villain or savvy survivor? Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more Tudor deep dives. #TudorHistory #RichardRich #AnneAskew #SirThomasMore #TudorVillains #OnThisDay #HistoryTube #16thCentury #TudorPolitics #Reformation #TudorDrama

There were two Elizabeth Brookes at the Tudor court—and they've been confusing historians ever since. One was the estranged wife of the poet Thomas Wyatt, accused of adultery and rumored to have caught Henry VIII's attention. The other was her niece, the Marchioness of Northampton, who was nearly queen-like under Edward VI, fell from favor under Mary I, and became one of Elizabeth I's closest courtiers.In this episode, we untangle their stories, clear up the confusion, and explore how two women with the same name found themselves at the center of love affairs, political power plays, and court gossip in Tudor England.Reserve your 2026 copy of the Tudor Planner here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/publishing-the-2026-tudor-planner/x/176575#/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was delighted to talk to the historian Helen Castor (who writes The H Files by Helen Castor) about her new book The Eagle and the Hart. I found that book compulsive, and this is one of my favourite interviews so far. We covered so much: Dickens, Melville, Diana Wynne Jones, Hilary Mantel, whether Edward III is to blame for the Wars of the Roses, why Bolingbroke did the right thing, the Paston Letters, whether we should dig up old tombs for research, leaving academia, Elizabeth I, and, of course, lots of Shakespeare. There is a full transcript below.Henry: Is there anything that we fundamentally know about this episode in history that Shakespeare didn't know?Helen: That's an extremely good question, and I'm tempted now to say no.Helen told me what is hardest to imagine about life in the fourteenth century.I think it's relatively easy to imagine a small community or even a city, because we can imagine lots of human beings together, but how relationships between human beings happen at a distance, not just in terms of writing a letter to someone you know, but how a very effective power structure happens across hundreds of miles in the absence of those things is the thing that has always absolutely fascinated me about the late Middle Ages. I think that's because it's hard, for me at least, to imagine.Good news to any publishers reading this. Helen is ready and willing to produce a complete edition of the Paston Letters. They were a bestseller when they were published a hundred years ago, but we are crying out for a complete edition in modern English.Henry: If someone wants to read the Paston Letters, but they don't want to read Middle English, weird spelling, et cetera, is there a good edition that they can use?Helen: Yes, there is an Oxford World's Classic. They're all selected. There isn't a complete edition in modern spelling. If any publishers are listening, I would love to do one. Henry: Yes, let's have it.Helen: Let's have it. I would really, really love to do that.Full TranscriptHenry: Today I am talking to the historian, Helen Castor. Helen is a former fellow of Sydney Sussex College in Cambridge. She has written several books of history. She is now a public historian, and of course, she has a Substack. The H Files by Helen CastorWe are going to talk mostly about her book, The Eagle and the Hart, which is all about Richard II and Henry IV. I found this book compulsive, so I hope you will read it too. Helen, welcome.Helen: Thank you very much for having me, Henry.Henry: You recently read Bleak House.Helen: I did.Henry: What did you think?Helen: I absolutely loved it. It was a long time since I'd read any Dickens. I read quite a lot when I was young. I read quite a lot of everything when I was young and have fallen off that reader's perch, much to my shame. The first page, that description of the London fog, the London courts, and I thought, "Why have I not been doing it for all these years?"Then I remembered, as so often with Dickens, the bits I love and the bits I'm less fond of, the sentimentality, the grotesquerie I'm less fond of, but the humour and the writing. There was one bit that I have not been able to read then or any of the times I've tried since without physically sobbing. It's a long time since a book has done that to me. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it, but--Henry: I'm sure I know what you mean. That's quite a sentimental passage.Helen: It is, but not sentimental in the way that I find myself objecting to. I think I really respond viscerally to this sentimentalising of some of his young women characters. I find that really off-putting, but I think now I'm a parent, and particularly I'm a parent of a boy [laughter]. I think it's that sense of a child being completely alone with no one to look after them, and then finding some people, but too late for a happy ending.Henry: Too late.Helen: Yes.Henry: You've been reading other classic novels, I think, Moby Dick?Helen: I'm in the middle of Moby Dick as we speak. I'm going very slowly, partly because I'm trying to savour every sentence. I love the sentence so much as a form. Melville is just astonishing, and also very, very funny in a way I hadn't expected to keep laughing out loud, sometimes because there is such humour in a sentence.Sometimes I'm just laughing because the sentence itself seems to have such audacity and that willingness to go places with sentences that sometimes I feel we've lost in the sort of sense of rules-based sentences instead of just sticking a semicolon and keep going. Why not, because it's so gorgeous and full of the joy of language at that point? Anyway, I'm ranting now, but--Henry: No, I think a lot of rules were instituted in the early 20th century that said you can and cannot do all these things, and writers before that point had not often followed those rules. I think what it has led to is that writers now, they can't really control a long sentence, in the sense that Melville and Dickens will do a long sentence, and it is a syntactically coherent thing, even though it's 60, 70 longer words. It's not just lots of stuff, and then, and then. The whole thing has got a beautiful structure that makes sense as a unit. That's just not obvious in a lot of writing now.Helen: I think that's exactly right. Partly, I've been reading some of the Melville out loud, and having just got onto the classification of whales, you can see I'm going very slowly. Those sentences, which are so long, but it's exactly that. If you read them out loud, and you follow the sense, and the punctuation, however irregular it might be in modern terms, gives you the breathing, you just flow on it, and the excitement of that, even or perhaps especially when one is talking about the classification of whales. Just joyful.Henry: Will we be seeing more very long sentences in your next book?Helen: I think I have to get a bit better at it. The habit that I was conscious of anyway, but became acutely so when I had to read my own audiobook for the first time is that I think I write in a very visual way. That is how I read because mostly it's silent.I discovered or rediscovered that often what I do when I want to write a very long sentence is I start the sentence and then I put a diversion or extra information within em dashes in the middle of the sentence. That works on the page because you can see spatially. I love that way of reading, I love seeing words in space.A lot of different kinds of text, both prose and poetry, I read in space like that. If you're reading to be heard, then the difficulty of breaking into a sentence with, whether it's brackets or em dashes or whatever, and then rejoining the sentence further down has its own challenges. Perhaps I ought to try and do less of that and experiment more with a Melvillian Dickensian onward flow. I don't know what my editor will think.Henry: What has brought you back to reading novels like this?Helen: I was wondering that this morning, actually, because I'm very aware having joined Substack, and of course, your Substack is one of the ones that is leading me further in this direction, very inspiringly, is discovering that lots of other people are reading and reading long novels now too. It reminded me of that thing that anyone with children will know that you have a baby and you call it something that you think only you have thought of, and then four years later, you call and you discover half the class is called that name. You wonder what was in the water that led everybody in that direction.I've just seen someone tweet this morning about how inspired they are by the builder next door who, on the scaffolding, is blasting the audiobook Middlemarch to the whole neighborhood.Henry: Oh my god. Amazing.Helen: It's really happening. Insofar as I can work out what led me as opposed to following a group, which clearly I am in some sense, I think the world at the moment is so disquieting, and depressing, and unnerving, that I think for me, there was a wish to escape into another world and another world that would be very immersive, not removed from this world completely. One that is very recognizably human.I think when I was younger, when I was in my teens and 20s, I loved reading science fiction and fantasy before it was such a genre as it is now. I'm a huge fan of Diana Wynne Jones and people like that.Henry: Oh, my god, same. Which one is your favorite?Helen: Oh, that is an impossible question to answer, partly because I want to go back and read a lot of them. Actually, I've got something next to me, just to get some obscurity points. I want to go back to Everard's Ride because there is a story in here that is based on the King's square. I don't know if I'm saying that right, but early 15th century, the story of the imprisoned King of Scotland when he was in prison in England. That one's in my head.The Dalemark Quartet I love because of the sort of medieval, but then I love the ones that are pure, more science fantasy. Which is your favorite? Which should I go back to first?Henry: I haven't read them all because I only started a couple of years ago. I just read Deep Secret, and I thought that was really excellent. I was in Bristol when I read it quite unwittingly. That was wonderful.Helen: Surrounded by Diana Wynne Jones' land. I only discovered many years into an obsession that just meant that I would read every new one while there were still new ones coming out. I sat next to Colin Burrow at a dinner in--Henry: Oh my god.Helen: I did sort of know that he was her son, but monstered him for the whole time, the whole course of sitting together, because I couldn't quite imagine her in a domestic setting, if you like, because she came up with all these extraordinary worlds. I think in days gone by, I went into more obviously imaginary worlds. I think coming back to it now, I wanted something big and something that I really could disappear into. I've been told to read Bleak House for so many decades and felt so ashamed I hadn't. Having done that, I thought, "Well, the whale."Henry: Have you read Diana Wynne Jones' husband's books, John Burrow? Because that's more in your field.Helen: It is, although I'm ashamed to say how badly read I am in medieval literary scholarship. It's weird how these academic silos can operate, shouldn't, probably don't for many, many people. I always feel I'm on horribly thin ground, thin ice when I start talking about medieval literature because I know how much scholarship is out there, and I know how much I haven't read. I must put John Burrow on my list as well.Henry: He's very readable. He's excellent.Helen: I think I can imagine, but I must go into it.Henry: Also, his books are refreshingly short. Your husband is a poet, so there's a lot of literature in your life at the moment.Helen: There is. When we met, which was 10 years ago-- Again, I don't think of myself as knowledgeable about poetry in general, but what was wonderful was discovering how much we had in common in the writing process and how much I could learn from him. To me, one of the things that has always been extremely important in my writing is the sentence, the sound of a sentence, the rhythm of a sentence folded into a paragraph.I find it extremely hard to move on from a paragraph if it's not sitting right yet. The sitting right is as much to do with sound and rhythm as it is to do with content. The content has to be right. It means I'm a nightmare to edit because once I do move on from a paragraph, I think it's finished. Obviously, my editor might beg to differ.I'm very grateful to Thomas Penn, who's also a wonderful historian, who's my editor on this last book, for being so patient with my recalcitrance as an editee. Talking to my husband about words in space on the page, about the rhythm, about the sound, about how he goes about writing has been so valuable and illuminating.I hope that the reading I've been doing, the other thing I should say about going back to big 19th-century novels is that, of course, I had the enormous privilege and learning curve of being part of a Booker jury panel three years ago. That too was an enormous kick in terms of reading and thinking about reading because my co-judges were such phenomenal reading company, and I learned such a lot that year.I feel not only I hope growing as a historian, but I am really, really focusing on writing, reading, being forced out of my bunker where writing is all on the page, starting to think about sound more, think about hearing more, because I think more and more, we are reading that way as a culture, it seems to me, the growth of audiobooks. My mother is adjusting to audiobooks now, and it's so interesting to listen to her as a lifelong, voracious reader, adjusting to what it is to experience a book through sound rather than on the page. I just think it's all fascinating, and I'm trying to learn as I write.Henry: I've been experimenting with audiobooks, because I felt like I had to, and I sort of typically hate audio anything. Jonathan Swift is very good, and so is Diana Wynne Jones.Helen: Interesting. Those two specifically. Is there something that connects the two of them, or are they separately good?Henry: I think they both wrote in a plain, colloquial style. It was very capable of being quite intellectual and had capacity for ideas. Diana Wynne Jones certainly took care about the way it sounded because she read so much to her own children, and that was really when she first read all the children's classics. She had developed for many years an understanding of what would sound good when it was read to a child, I think.Helen: And so that's the voice in her head.Henry: Indeed. As you read her essays, she talks about living with her Welsh grandfather for a year. He was intoning in the chapel, and she sort of comes out of this culture as well.Helen: Then Swift, a much more oral culture.Henry: Swift, of course, is in a very print-heavy culture because he's in London in 1710. We've got coffee houses and all the examiner, and the spectator, and all these people scribbling about each other. I think he was very insistent on what he called proper words in proper places. He became famous for that plain style. It's very carefully done, and you can't go wrong reading that out loud. He's very considerate of the reader that you won't suddenly go, "Oh, I'm in the middle of this huge parenthesis. I don't know how--" As you were saying, Swift-- he would be very deliberate about the placement of everything.Helen: A lot of that has to do with rhythm.Henry: Yes.Helen: Doesn't it? I suppose what I'm wondering, being very ignorant about the 18th century is, in a print-saturated culture, but still one where literacy was less universal than now, are we to assume that that print-saturated culture also incorporated reading out loud —Henry: Yes, exactly so. Exactly so. If you are at home, letters are read out loud. This obviously gives the novelists great opportunities to write letters that have to sort of work both ways. Novels are read out loud. This goes on into the 19th century. Dickens had many illiterate fans who knew his work through it being read to them. Charles Darwin's wife read him novels. When he says, "I love novels," what he means is, "I love it when my wife reads me a novel." [laughs]You're absolutely right. A good part of your audience would come from those listening as well as those reading it.Helen: Maybe we're getting back towards a new version of that with audiobooks expanding in their reach.Henry: I don't know. I saw some interesting stuff. I can't remember who was saying this. Someone was saying, "It's not an oral culture if you're watching short videos. That's a different sort of culture." I think, for us, we can say, "Oh yes, we're like Jonathan Swift," but for the culture at large, I don't know. It is an interesting mixed picture at the moment.Helen: Yes, history never repeats, but we should be wary of writing off any part of culture to do with words.Henry: I think so. If people are reporting builders irritating the neighbourhood with George Eliot, then it's a very mixed picture, right?Helen: It is.Henry: Last literary question. Hilary Mantel has been a big influence on you. What have you taken from her?Helen: That's quite a hard question to answer because I feel I just sit at her feet in awe. If I could point to anything in my writing that could live up to her, I would be very happy. The word that's coming into my head when you phrase the question in that way, I suppose, might be an absolute commitment to precision. Precision in language matters to me so much. Her thought and her writing of whatever kind seems to me to be so precise.Listening to interviews with her is such an outrageous experience because these beautifully, entirely formed sentences come out of her mouth as though that's how thought and language work. They don't for me. [chuckles] I'm talking about her in the present tense because I didn't know her, but I find it hard to imagine that she's not out there somewhere.Henry: She liked ghosts. She might be with us.Helen: She might. I would like to think that. Her writing of whatever genre always seems to me to have that precision, and it's precision of language that mirrors precision of thought, including the ability to imagine herself into somebody else's mind. That's, I suppose, my project as a historian. I'm always trying to experience a lost world through the eyes of a lost person or people, which, of course, when you put it like that, is an impossible task, but she makes it seem possible for her anyway and that's the road I'm attempting to travel one way or another.Henry: What is it about the 14th and 15th centuries that is hardest for us to imagine?Helen: I think this speaks to something else that Hilary Mantel does so extraordinarily well, which is to show us entire human beings who live and breathe and think and feel just as we do in as complex and contradictory and three-dimensional a way as we do, and yet who live in a world that is stripped of so many of the things that we take so much for granted that we find it, I think, hard to imagine how one could function without them.What I've always loved about the late Middle Ages, as a political historian, which is what I think of myself as, is that it has in England such a complex and sophisticated system of government, but one that operates so overwhelmingly through human beings, rather than impersonal, institutionalized, technological structures.You have a king who is the fount of all authority, exercising an extraordinary degree of control over a whole country, but without telephones, without motorized transport, without a professional police service, without a standing army. If we strip away from our understanding of government, all those things, then how on earth does society happen, does rule happen, does government happen?I think it's relatively easy to imagine a small community or even a city, because we can imagine lots of human beings together, but how relationships between human beings happen at a distance, not just in terms of writing a letter to someone you know, but how a very effective power structure happens across hundreds of miles in the absence of those things is the thing that has always absolutely fascinated me about the late Middle Ages. I think that's because it's hard, for me at least, to imagine.Henry: Good. You went to the RSC to watch The Henriad in 2013.Helen: I did.Henry: Is Shakespeare a big influence on this book? How did that affect you?Helen: I suppose this is a long story because Richard II and The Henriad have been-- there is Richard II. Richard II is part of The Henriad, isn't it?Henry: Yes.Helen: Richard II. Henry, see, this is-Henry: The two Henry IVs.Helen: -I'm not Shakespearean. I am. [laughs]Henry: No, it's Richard II, the two Henry IVs, and Henry V. Because, of course, Henry Bolingbroke is in Richard II, and it--Helen: Yes, although I never think of him as really the same person as Henry IV in the Henry IV plays, because he changes so dramatically between the two.Henry: Very often, they have a young actor and an old actor, and of course, in real life, that's insane, right?Helen: It's absolutely insane. I always separate Henry IV, parts I and II, and Henry V off from Richard II because it feels to me as though they operate in rather different worlds, which they do in lots of ways. My story with the Henry ad, now that we've established that I actually know what we're talking about, goes back to when I was in my teens and Kenneth Branagh was playing Henry V in Stratford. I grew up very near Stratford.At 15, 16, watching the young Branagh play Henry V was mind-blowing. I went a whole number of times because, in those days, I don't know how it is now, but you could go and get standing tickets for a fiver on the day. More often than not, if there were spare seats, you would get moved into some extraordinary stall seats at-- I was about to say halftime, I'm a football fan, at the interval.Henry V was the play I knew best for a long time, but at the same time, I'd studied Richard II at school. The Henry IV plays are the ones I know least well. I'm interested now to reflect on the fact that they are the ones that depart most from history. I wonder whether that's why I find them hardest to love, because I'm always coming to the plays from the history. Richard II and Henry V actually have a lot to show us about those kings. They bear very close relationships with a lot of the contemporary chronicles, whereas the Henry IV ones is Shakespeare doing his own thing much more.Particularly, as you've just said, making Henry IV way too old, and/or depending which angle we're looking at it from, making Hotspur way too young, the real Hotspur was three years older than Henry IV. If you want to make Hotspur and how-- your young Turks, you have to make Henry IV old and grey and weary with Northumberland.Back in 2013, the really intense experience I had was being asked to go for a day to join the RSC company on a school trip to Westminster Hall and Westminster Abbey at the beginning of their rehearsal process, so when David Tennant was playing Richard II and Greg Doran was directing. That was absolutely fascinating. I'd been thinking about Richard and Henry for a very long time. Obviously, I was a long way away from writing the book I've just written.Talking to actors is an extraordinary thing for a historian because, of course, to them, these are living characters. They want to know what's in their character's mind. They want to know, quite rightly, the chronological progression of their character's thought. That is something that's become more and more and more and more important to me.The longer I go on writing history, the more intensely attached I am to the need for chronology because if it hasn't happened to your protagonist yet, what are you doing with it? Your protagonist doesn't yet know. We don't know. It's very dramatically clear to us at the moment that we don't know what's happening tomorrow. Any number of outrageous and unpredictable things might happen tomorrow.The same certainly was true in Richard II's reign, goes on being true in Henry IV's reign. That experience, in the wake of which I then went to see Henry IV, parts 1 and 2 in Stratford, was really thought-provoking. The extent to which, even though I'd been working on this period for a long time, and had taught this period, I still was struggling to answer some of those questions.Then I'd just had the similarly amazing experience of having a meeting with the Richard II cast and director at the Bridge Theatre before the Nicholas Heitner production with Jonathan Bailey as Richard went on stage. That was actually towards the end of their rehearsal process. I was so struck that the actor playing Bolingbroke in this production and the actor playing Bolingbroke in the production back in 2013 both asked the same excellent first question, which is so hard for a historian to answer, which is at what point does Bolingbroke decide that he's coming back to claim the crown, not just the Duchy of Lancaster?That is a key question for Bolingbroke in Richard II. Does he already know when he decides he's going to break his exile and come back? Is he challenging for the crown straight away, or is he just coming back for his rightful inheritance with the Duchy of Lancaster? That is the million-dollar question when you're writing about Bolingbroke in 1399.It's not possible to answer with a smoking gun. We don't have a letter or a diary entry from Henry Bolingbroke as he's about to step on board ship in Boulogne saying, "I'm saying I'm coming back for the Duchy of Lancaster." The unfolding logic of his situation is that if he's going to come back at all, he's going to have to claim the crown. When he admits that to himself, and when he admits that to anybody else, are questions we can argue about.It was so interesting to me that that's the question that Shakespeare's Richard II throws up for his Bolingbroke just as much as it does for the historical one.Henry: Is there anything that we fundamentally know about this episode in history that Shakespeare didn't know?Helen: That's an extremely good question, and I'm tempted now to say no.Henry: When I left your book, the one thing I thought was that in Shakespeare, the nobles turn against Richard because of his excesses. Obviously, he really dramatizes that around the death of Gaunt. From your book, you may disagree with this, I came away thinking, well, the nobles wanted more power all the time. They may not have wanted the king's power, but there was this constant thing of the nobles feeling like they were owed more authority.Helen: I think the nobles always want more power because they are ambitious, competitive men within a political structure that rewards ambition and competition. The crucial thing for them is that they can only safely pursue ambition and competition if they know that the structure they're competing within will hold.The thing that keeps that structure rooted and solidly in place is the crown and the things that the crown is there to uphold, namely, particularly, the rule of law because if the rule of law starts to crumble, then the risk is that the whole structure collapses into anarchy. Within anarchy, then a powerful man cannot safely compete for more power because an even more powerful man might be about to roll into his estates and take them over. There have to be rules. There has to be fair competition. The referee is there on a football pitch for a reason.The king, in some senses, whether you want to see him as the keystone in an arch that supports a building or whether he's a referee on a football pitch, there are reasons why powerful men need rules because rules uphold their power. What goes wrong with Richard is that instead of seeing that he and the nobles have a common interest in keeping this structure standing, and that actually he can become more powerful if he works with and through the nobles, he sees them as a threat to him.He's attempting to establish a power structure that will not be beholden to them. In so doing, he becomes a threat to them. This structure that is supposed to stand as one mutually supportive thing is beginning to tear itself apart. That is why Richard's treatment of Bolingbroke becomes such a crucial catalyst, because what Richard does to Bolingbroke is unlawful in a very real and very technical sense. Bolingbroke has not been convicted of any crime. He's not been properly tried. There's been this trial by combat, the duel with Mowbray, but it hasn't stopped arbitrarily, and an arbitrary punishment visited upon both of them. They're both being exiled without having been found guilty, without the judgment of God speaking through this duel.Richard then promises that Bolingbroke can have his inheritance, even though he's in exile. As soon as Gaunt dies, Richard says, "No, I'm having it." Now, all of that is unlawful treatment of Bolingbroke, but because Bolingbroke is the most powerful nobleman in the country, it is also a warning and a threat to every other member of the political classes that if the king takes against you, then his arbitrary will can override the law.That diagnosis is there in Shakespeare. It's the Duke of York, who in reality was just a completely hopeless, wet figure, but he says, and I've got it written down, keep it beside me.Henry: Very nice.Helen: Kind of ridiculous, but here it is. York says to Richard, "Take Herford's rights away and take from time his charters and his customary rights. Let not tomorrow then ensue today. Be not thyself, for how art thou a king, but by fair sequence and succession?" In other words, if you interfere with, and I know you've written about time in these plays, it's absolutely crucial.Part of the process of time in these plays is that the rules play out over time. Any one individual king must not break those rules so that the expected process of succession over time can take place. York's warning comes true, that Richard is unseating himself by seeking to unseat Bolingbroke from his inheritance.Henry: We give Shakespeare good marks as a historian.Helen: In this play, yes, absolutely. The things he tinkers with in Richard II are minor plot points. He compresses time in order to get it all on stage in a plausible sequence of events. He compresses two queens into one, given that Richard was married to, by the time he fell, a nine-year-old who he'd married when he was six. It's harder to have a six-year-old making speeches on stage, so he puts the two queens into one.Henry: You don't want to pay another actor.Helen: Exactly.Henry: It's expensive.Helen: You don't want children and animals on stage. Although there is a wonderful account of a production of Richard II on stage in the West End in 1901, with the Australian actor Oscar Asche in it, playing Bolingbroke. The duel scene, he had full armour and a horse, opening night. It was a different horse from the one he rehearsed with. He gives an account in his autobiography of this horse rearing and him somersaulting heroically off the horse.Henry: Oh my god.Helen: The curtain having to come down and then it going back up again to tumultuous applause. You think, "Oscar, I'm wondering whether you're over-egging this pudding." Anyway, I give Shakespeare very good marks in Richard II, not really in the Henry IV plays, but gets back on track.Henry: The Henry IV plays are so good, we're forgiven. Was Richard II a prototype Henry VIII?Helen: Yes. Although, of course, history doesn't work forwards like that. I always worry about being a historian, talking about prototypes, if you see what I mean, but--Henry: No, this is just some podcast, so we don't have to be too strict. He's over-mighty, his sense of his relationship to God. There are issues in parliament about, "How much can the Pope tell us what to do?" There are certain things that seem to be inherent in the way the British state conceives of itself at this point that become problematic in another way.Helen: Is this pushing it too far to say Richard is a second son who ends up being the lone precious heir to the throne who must be wrapped in cotton wool to ensure that his unique God-given authority is protected? Also describes Henry VIII.Henry: They both like fancy clothes.Helen: Both like fancy clothes. Charles I is also a second son who has to step up.Henry: With wonderful cuffs and collars. He's another big dresser.Helen: And great patrons of art. I think we're developing new historical--Henry: No, I think there's a whole thing here.Helen: I think there is. What Henry does, of course, in rather different, because a lot has changed thanks to the Wars of the Roses, the power of the nobility to stand up independently of the crown is significantly lessened by the political effects of the Wars of the Roses, not at least that a lot of them have had their heads cut off, or died in battle, and the Tudors are busy making sure that they remain in the newly subjected place that they find themselves in.Henry then finds to go back to Hilary Mantel, a very, very able political servant who works out how to use parliament for him in rejecting those extra English powers that might restrain him. I do always wonder what Richard thought he was going to do if he'd succeeded in becoming Holy Roman Emperor, which I take very seriously as a proposition from Richard.Most other historians, because it's so patently ridiculous, if you look at it from a European perspective, have just said, "Oh, he got this idea that he wanted to become Holy Roman Emperor," but, of course, it was never going to happen. In Richard's mind, I think it was extremely real. Whether he really would have tried to give the English crown to Rutland, his favorite by the end of the reign, while he went off in glory to be crowned by the Pope, I don't know what was in his head. The difference with Henry is that the ambitions he eventually conceives are very England-focused, and so he can make them happen.Henry: Is there some sort of argument that, if the king hadn't won the Wars of the Roses, and the nobility had flourished, and their sons hadn't been killed, the reformation would have just been much harder to pull off here?[silence]Helen: I wonder what that would have looked like, because in a sense, the king was always going to win the Wars of the Roses, in the sense that you have to have a king. The minute you had someone left standing after that mess, that protracted mess, if he knew what he was doing, and there are arguments about the extent to which Henry VII knew what he was doing, or was doing something very different, whether or not he knew it was different, but there was always going to be an opportunity for a king to assert himself after that.Particularly, the extent to which the lesser landowners, the gentry had realized they couldn't just rely on the nobility to protect them anymore. They couldn't just follow their lord into battle and abdicate responsibility.Henry: Okay.Helen: That's an interesting--Henry: How much should we blame Edward III for all of this?Helen: For living too long and having too many sons?Henry: My argument against Edward is the Hundred Years' War, it doesn't actually go that well by the end of his reign, and it's cost too much money. Too many dukes with too much power. It's not that he had too many sons, he elevates them all and creates this insane situation. The war itself starts to tip the balance between the king and parliament, and so now you've got it from the dukes, and from the other side, and he just didn't manage the succession at all.Even though his son has died, and it really needs some kind of-- He allowed. He should have known that he was allowing a vacuum to open up where there's competition from the nobles, and from parliament, and the finances are a mess, and this war isn't there. It's just… he just leaves a disaster, doesn't he?Helen: I think I'd want to reframe that a little bit. Perhaps, I'm too much the king's friend. I think the political, and in some senses, existential dilemma for a medieval king is that the best of all possible worlds is what Edward achieves in the 1340s and the 1350s, which is, fight a war for reasons that your subjects recognize as in the common interest, in the national interest. Fight it over there so that the lands that are being devastated and the villages and towns that are being burned are not yours. Bring back lots of plunder. Everybody's getting richer and feeling very victorious.You can harness parliament. When things are going well, a medieval king and a parliament are not rivals for power. An English king working with parliament is more powerful than an English king trying to work without parliament. If things are going well, he gets more money, he can pass laws, he can enforce his will more effectively. It's win-win-win if you're ticking all those boxes.As you're pointing out, the worst of all possible worlds is to be fighting a war that's going badly. To fight a war is a big risk because either you're going to end up winning and everything's great, or if it's going badly, then you'd rather be at peace. Of course, you're not necessarily in a position to negotiate peace, depending on the terms of the war you've established.Similarly, with sons, you want heirs. You want to know the succession is safe. I think Edward's younger sons would argue with you about setting up very powerful dukes because the younger ones really-- York and Gloucester, Edmund of Langley and Thomas of Woodstock, really didn't have much in the way of an estate given to them at all, and always felt very hard done by about that. John of Gaunt is set up very well because he's married off to the heir of the Duke of Lancaster who's handily died, leaving only daughters.Henry: That's the problem, isn't it, creating that sort of impact? John of Gaunt is far too rich and powerful.Helen: You say that, except he's unfeasibly loyal. Without Gaunt, disaster happens much, much, much earlier. Gaunt is putting all those resources into the project of propping up the English state and the English crown for way longer than Richard deserves, given that Richard's trying to murder him half the time in the 1380s.Henry: [laughs] For sure. No, I agree with you there, but from Edward III's point of view, it's a mistake to make one very powerful son another quite powerful son next to-- We still see this playing out in royal family dynamics.Helen: This is the problem. What is the perfect scenario in a hereditary system where you need an heir and a spare, but even there, the spare, if he doesn't get to be the heir, is often very disgruntled. [laughs] If he does get to be the heir, as we've just said, turns out to be overconvinced of his own-Henry: Oh, indeed, yes.Helen: -specialness. Then, if you have too many spares, you run into a different kind of problem. Equally, if you don't have a hereditary system, then you have an almighty battle, as the Anglo-Saxons often did, about who's actually going to get the crown in the next generation. It's a very tricky--Henry: Is England just inherently unstable? We've got the Black Death, France is going to be a problem, whatever happens. Who is really going to come to a good fiscal position in this situation? It's no one's fault. It's just there wasn't another way out.Helen: You could say that England's remarkably-- See, I'm just playing devil's advocate the whole time.Henry: No, good.Helen: You could say England is remarkably stable in the sense that England is very unusually centralized for a medieval state at this point. It's centralized in a way that works because it's small enough to govern. It's, broadly speaking, an island. You've got to deal with the Scotts border, but it's a relatively short border. Yes, you have powerful nobles, but they are powerful nobles who, by this stage, are locked into the state. They're locked into a unified system of law. The common law rules everyone. Everyone looks to Westminster.It's very different from what the King of France has been having to face, which has been having to push his authority outward from the Île-de-France, reconquer bits of France that the English have had for a long time, impose his authority over other princes of the realm in a context where there are different laws, there are different customs, there are different languages. You could say that France is in a much more difficult and unstable situation.Of course, what we see as the tide of the war turns again in the early 15th century is precisely that France collapses into civil war, and the English can make hay again in that situation. If Henry V had not died too young with not enough sons in 1423, and particularly, if he'd left a son who grew up to be any use at all, as opposed to absolutely none-- what am I saying? I'm saying that the structure of government in England could work astonishingly well given the luck of the right man at the helm. The right man at the helm had to understand his responsibilities at home, and he had to be capable of prosecuting a successful war abroad because that is how this state works best.As you've just pointed out, prosecuting a successful war abroad is an inherently unstable scenario because no war is ever going to go in your direction the entire time. That's what Richard, who has no interest in war at all is discovering, because once the tide of war is lapping at your own shores, instead of all happening over there, it's a very, very different prospect in terms of persuading parliament to pay for it, quite understandably.You talk about the Black Death. One of the extraordinary things is looking at England in 1348, 1349, when the Black Death hits. Probably, something approaching half the population dies in 18 months. If you're looking at the progress of the war, you barely notice it happened at all. What does the government do? It snaps into action and implements a maximum wage immediately, in case [chuckles] these uppity laborers start noticing there are fewer of them, and they can ask for more money.The amount of control, at that stage at least, that the government has over a country going through an extraordinary set of challenges is quite remarkable, really.Henry: Did Bolingbroke do the right thing?Helen: I think Bolingbroke did the only possible thing, which, in some senses, equates to the right thing. If he had not come back, he would not only have been abandoning his own family, his dynasty, his inheritance, everything he'd been brought up to believe was his responsibility, but also abandoning England to what was pretty much by that stage, clearly, a situation of tyranny.The big argument is always, well, we can identify a tyrant, we have a definition of tyranny. That is, if a legitimate king rules in the common interest and according to the law, then a tyrant rules not in the common interest, and not according to the law. But then the thing that the political theorists argue about is whether or not you can actively resist a tyrant, or whether you have to wait for God to act.Then, the question is, "Might God be acting through me if I'm Bolingbroke?" That's what Bolingbroke has to hope, because if he doesn't do what he does in 1399, he is abandoning everything his whole life has been devoted to maintaining and taking responsibility for. It's quite hard to see where England would then end up, other than with somebody else trying to challenge Richard in the way that Henry does.Henry: Why was he anointed with Thomas Becket's oil?Helen: Because Richard had found it in the tower, [chuckles] and was making great play of the claims that were made for Thomas. This is one of the interesting things about Richard. He is simultaneously very interested in history, and interested in his place in history, his place in the lineage of English kings, going all the way back, particularly to the confessor to whom he looks as not only a patron saint, but as in some sense, a point of identification.He's also seeking to stop time at himself. He doesn't like to think about the future beyond himself. He doesn't show any interest in fathering an heir. His will is all about how to make permanent the judgments that he's made on his nobles. It's not about realistically what's going to happen after his death.In the course of his interest in history, he has found this vial of oil in the tower somewhere in a locked drawer with a note that says, "The Virgin gave this to Thomas Becket, and whoever is anointed with this oil shall win all his battles and shall lead England to greatness," et cetera. Richard has tried to have himself re-anointed, and even his patsy Archbishop of Canterbury that he's put in place after exiling the original one who'd stood up to him a bit.Even the new Archbishop of Canterbury says, "Sire, anointing doesn't really work like that. I'm afraid we can't do it twice." Richard has been wearing this vial round his neck in an attempt to claim that he is not only the successor to the confessor, but he is now the inheritor of this holy oil. The French king has had a holy oil for a very long time in the Cathedral of Reims, which was supposedly given to Clovis, the first king of France, by an angel, et cetera.Richard, who is always very keen on emulating, or paralleling the crown of France, is very, very keen on this. If you were Henry coming in 1399 saying, "No, God has spoken through me. The country has rallied to me. I am now the rightful king of England. We won't look too closely at my justifications for that," and you are appropriating the ceremonial of the crown, you are having yourself crowned in Westminster Abbey on the 13th of October, which is the feast day of the confessor, you are handed that opportunity to use the symbolism of this oil that Richard has just unearthed, and was trying to claim for himself. You can then say, "No, I am the first king crowned with this oil," and you're showing it to the French ambassadors and so on.If we are to believe the chroniclers, it starts making his hair fall out, which might be a contrary sign from God. It's a situation where you are usurping the throne, and what is questionable is your right to be there. Then, any symbolic prop you can get, you're going to lean on as hard as you can.Henry: A few general questions to close. Should we be more willing to open up old tombs?Helen: Yes. [laughs]Henry: Good. [laughs]Helen: I'm afraid, for me, historical curiosity is-- Our forebears in the 18th and 19th century had very few qualms at all. One of the things I love about the endless series of scholarly antiquarian articles that are-- or not so scholarly, in some cases, that are written about all the various tomb openings that went on in the 18th and 19th century, I do love the moments, where just occasionally, they end up saying, "Do you know what, lads? Maybe we shouldn't do this bit." [chuckles]They get right to the brink with a couple of tombs and say, "Oh, do you know what? This one hasn't been disturbed since 1260, whatever. Maybe we won't. We'll put it back." Mostly, they just crowbar the lid off and see what they can find, which one might regret in terms of what we might now find with greater scientific know-how, and et cetera. Equally, we don't do that kind of thing anymore unless we're digging up a car park. We're not finding things out anyway. I just love the information that comes out, so yes, for me.Henry: Dig up more tombs.Helen: Yes.Henry: What is it that you love about the Paston Letters?Helen: More or less everything. I love the language. I love the way that, even though most of them are dictated to scribes, but you can hear the dictation. You can hear individual voices. Everything we were saying about sentences. You can hear the rhythm. You can hear the speech patterns. I'm no linguistic expert, but I love seeing the different forms of spelling and how that plays out on the page.I love how recognizable they are as a family. I love the fact that we hear women's voices in a way that we very rarely do in the public records. The government which is mainly what we have to work with. I love Margaret Paston, who arrives at 18 as a new bride, and becomes the matriarch of the family. I love her relationship with her two eldest boys, John and John, and their father, John.I do wish they hadn't done that because it doesn't help those of us who are trying to write about them. I love the view you get of late medieval of 15th-century politics from the point of view of a family trying to survive it. The fact that you get tiny drops in letters that are also about shopping, or also about your sisters fall in love with someone unsuitable. Unsuitable only, I hasten to add, because he's the family bailiff, not because he isn't a wonderful and extremely able man. They all know those two things. It's just that he's a family bailiff, and therefore, not socially acceptable.I love that experience of being immersed in the world of a 15th-century gentry family, so politically involved, but not powerful enough to protect themselves, who can protect themselves in the Wars of the Roses in any case.Henry: If someone wants to read the Paston Letters, but they don't want to read Middle English, weird spelling, et cetera, is there a good edition that they can use?Helen: Yes, there is an Oxford World's Classic. They're all selected. There isn't a complete edition in modern spelling. If any publishers are listening, I would love to do one. [chuckles]Henry: Yes, let's have it.Helen: Let's have it. I would really, really love to do that. There are some very good selections. Richard Barber did one many years ago, and, of course, self-advertising. There is also my book, now more than 20 years old, about the Paston family, where I was trying to put in as much of the letters as I could. I wanted to weave the voices through. Yes, please go and read the Paston Letters in selections, in whatever form you can get them, and let's start lobbying for a complete modernized Paston.Henry: That's right. Why did you leave academia? Because you did it before it was cool.Helen: [laughs] That's very kind of you to say. My academic life was, and is very important to me, and I hate saying this now, because the academic world is so difficult now. I ended up in it almost by accident, which is a terrible thing to say now, people having to-- I never intended to be an academic. My parents were academics, and I felt I'd seen enough and wasn't sure I wanted to do that.I couldn't bear to give up history, and put in a PhD application to work with Christine Carpenter, who'd been the most inspiring supervisor when I was an undergraduate, got the place, thought, "Right, I'm just going to do a PhD." Of course, once you're doing a PhD, and everyone you know is starting to apply for early career jobs, which weren't even called early career jobs in those days, because it was a million years ago.I applied for a research fellowship, was lucky enough to get it, and then applied for a teaching job, utterly convinced, and being told by the people around me that I stood no chance of getting it, because I was way too junior, and breezed through the whole process, because I knew I wasn't going to get it, and then turned up looking for someone very junior.I got this wonderful teaching job at Sidney Sussex in Cambridge and spent eight years there, learned so much, loved working with the students. I was working very closely with the students in various ways, but I wasn't-- I'm such a slow writer, and a writer that needs to be immersed in what I was doing, and I just wasn't managing to write, and also not managing to write in the way I wanted to write, because I was becoming clearer and clearer about the fact that I wanted to write narrative history.Certainly, at that point, it felt as though writing narrative history for a general audience and being an early career academic didn't go so easily together. I think lots of people are now showing how possible it is, but I wasn't convinced I could do it. Then, sorry, this is a very long answer to what's [crosstalk] your question.Henry: That's good.Helen: I also had my son, and my then partner was teaching at a very different university, I mean, geographically different, and we were living in a third place, and trying to put a baby into that geographical [chuckles] setup was not going to work. I thought, "Well, now or never, I'll write a proposal for a book, a narrative, a book for a general readership, a narrative book about the Paxton family, because that's what I really want to write, and I'll see if I can find an agent, and I'll see if I," and I did.I found the most wonderful agent, with whose help I wrote a huge proposal, and got a deal for it two weeks before my son was due. At that point, I thought, "Okay, if I don't jump now, now or never, the stars are aligned." I've been a freelance medieval historian ever since then, touching every wood I can find as it continues to be possible. I am very grateful for those years in Cambridge. They were the making of me in terms of training and in terms of teaching.I certainly think without teaching for those years, I wouldn't be anywhere near as good a writer, because you learn such a lot from talking to, and reading what students produce.Henry: How do you choose your subjects now? How do you choose what to write about?Helen: I follow my nose, really. It's not very scientific.Henry: Why should it be?Helen: Thank you. The book, bizarrely, the book that felt most contingent, was the one I wrote after the Paston book, because I knew I'd written about the Pastons in my PhD, and then again more of it in the monograph that was based on my PhD. I knew having written about the Pastons in a very academic, analytical way, contributing to my analysis of 15th-century politics. I knew I wanted to put them at the center and write about them. That was my beginning point.The big question was what to do next, and I was a bit bamboozled for a while. The next book I ended up writing was She-Wolves, which is probably, until now, my best-known book. It was the one that felt most uncertain to me, while I was putting it together, and that really started from having one scene in my head, and it's the scene with which the book opens. It's the scene of the young Edward VI in 1553, Henry VIII's only son, dying at the age of 15.Suddenly, me suddenly realizing that wherever you looked on the Tudor family tree at that point, there were only women left. The whole question of whether a woman could rule was going to have to be answered in some way at that point, and because I'm a medievalist, that made me start thinking backwards, and so I ended up choosing some medieval queens to write about, because they've got their hands on power one way or another.Until very close to finishing it, I was worried that it wouldn't hang together as a book, and the irony is that it's the one that people seem to have taken to most. The next book after that grew out of that one, because I found myself going around talking about She-Wolves, and saying repeatedly, "The problem these queens faced was that they couldn't lead an army on the battlefield."Women couldn't do that. The only medieval woman who did that was Joan of Arc, and look what happened to her. Gradually, I realized that I didn't really know what had happened to her. I mean, I did know what--Henry: Yes, indeed.Helen: I decided that I really wanted to write about her, so I did that. Then, having done that, and having then written a very short book about Elizabeth I, that I was asked to write for Penguin Monarchs, I realized I'd been haunted all this time by Richard and Henry, who I'd been thinking about and working on since the very beginning of my PhD, but I finally felt, perhaps, ready to have a go at them properly.It's all been pretty organic apart from She-Wolves, which was the big, "What am I writing about next?" That took shape slowly and gradually. Now, I'm going to write about Elizabeth I properly in a-Henry: Oh, exciting.Helen: -full-scale book, and I decided that, anyway, before I wrote this last one, but I-- It feels even righter now, because I Am Richard II, Know Ye Not That, feels even more intensely relevant having now written about Richard and Henry, and I'm quite intimidated because Elizabeth is quite intimidating, but I think it's good, related by your subjects.[laughter]Henry: Have you read the Elizabeth Jenkins biography?Helen: Many, many years ago. It's on my shelf here.Henry: Oh, good.Helen: In fact, so it's one of the things I will be going back to. Why do you ask particularly? I need--Henry: I'm a big Elizabeth Jenkins fan, and I like that book particularly.Helen: Wonderful. Well, I will be redoubled in my enthusiasm.Henry: I look forward to seeing what you say about it. What did you learn from Christine Carpenter?Helen: Ooh. Just as precision was the word that came into my head when you asked me about Hilary Mantel, the word that comes into my head when you ask about Christine is rigor. I think she is the most rigorous historical thinker that I have ever had the privilege of working with and talking to. I am never not on my toes when I am writing for, talking to, reading Christine. That was an experience that started from the first day I walked into her room for my first supervision in 1987.It was really that rigor that started opening up the medieval world to me, asking questions that at that stage I couldn't answer at all, but suddenly, made everything go into technicolor. Really, from the perspective that I had been failing to ask the most basic questions. I would sometimes have students say to me, "Oh, I didn't say that, because I thought it was too basic."I have always said, "No, there is no question that is too basic." Because what Christine started opening up for me was how does medieval government work? What are you talking about? There is the king at Westminster. There is that family there in Northumberland. What relates the two of them? How does this work? Think about it structurally. Think about it in human terms, but also in political structural terms, and then convince me that you understand how this all goes together. I try never to lose that.Henry: Helen Castor, thank you very much.Helen: Thank you so much. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk/subscribe

The Execution of George van Parris under Edward VI   The reign of Edward VI is often seen as a time of Protestant reform, but it was also a period of religious persecution. On 24th or 25th April 1551, George van Parris was burned at the stake—not for being Catholic, but for holding radical Protestant beliefs.   A Flemish surgeon living in London, van Parris was condemned for Arianism, the belief that Jesus was created by God rather than being divine. His case was debated by some of the most powerful reformers of the time, including Archbishop Cranmer and Bishop Ridley. Even King Edward VI recorded his execution in his journal.   His story is one of forgotten Tudor executions, showing that even in a Protestant England, straying too far from accepted doctrine could cost you your life. Was this execution justified, or a step too far? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!   Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for more Tudor history deep dives!   #TudorHistory #EdwardVI #ReligiousPersecution #GeorgeVanParris #Heretic #TudorExecutions #Cranmer #Ridley #TudorEngland #History

Henry is Dead, Long live King Edward! Tudor King Henry VIII died in 1547 leaving England’s Crown to his son Edward VI (1537-47-53) whose short reign led to the royal ascension of his two sisters and the imminent exploration and colonization of America. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/6HMXrkWhERg which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. England History books available at https://amzn.to/4526W5n British Kings & Queens books available at https://amzn.to/430VOo0 Age of Discovery books available at https://amzn.to/3ZYOhnK Age of Exploration books available at https://amzn.to/403Wcjx ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 Twitter: https://twitter.com/HistoricalJesu Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's Books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credit: Monarchy From the Middle Ages to Modernity written and narrated by D. Starkey. Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Henry VIII's marital saga was as much a tale of personal ambition and passion as it was one of statecraft and religious upheaval. From the outset of his reign, Henry was fixated on securing a male heir—a goal driven by both the turbulent precedents of medieval succession and the very real fear of dynastic collapse. His own father, Henry VII, had claimed the throne through force rather than clear hereditary right, and Henry knew that a secure male successor was essential to solidify the Tudor legacy and avoid further civil strife.

Imagine this—England's most infamous king is dead. His nine-year-old son is set to inherit the throne, but behind closed doors, a secretive power struggle is already unfolding. For three days, Henry VIII's death was kept hidden while his advisors scrambled to secure control.   Enter Edward Seymour, the young king's ambitious uncle. As Henry VIII's body grew cold, Seymour was already positioning himself as the true ruler of England. But was this a necessary move to protect the realm, or a ruthless grab for power?   - What really happened in those crucial days? - How did Seymour outmanoeuvre the other councillors? - And why did the public have no idea what was going on?   This is the dramatic beginning of Edward VI's reign—one shaped by secrecy, political intrigue, and ambition. Don't miss this deep dive into a moment that changed Tudor England forever.   Listen now to uncover the truth!   #TudorHistory #HenryVIII #EdwardVI #OnThisDay #HistoryUncovered #TheTudors #RoyalIntrigue #16thCentury

In this episode we'll look at the rise and downfall of Edward Seymour, who became England's most powerful man under the reign of his nephew Edward VI. Books to dig deeper: Tombland by CJ SamsonThe Path to Somerset by Janet WertmanSupport the podcast on Patreon for extra episodes and more at https://www.patreon.com/englandcast and thank you! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Story of Three Kings   28th January is a date packed with significance for the Tudors—marking the birth of Henry VII, the death of Henry VIII, and the accession of Edward VI.   From Henry VII's rise from exile to establish the Tudor dynasty, to Henry VIII's dramatic reign that forever changed England, and Edward VI's short but impactful time as the Boy King—this day is a snapshot of Tudor triumphs, transformations, and tragedies.   How did these three events shape history? And what legacies did these kings leave behind?   Discover the stories of ambition, reform, and succession in today's podcast!   #TudorHistory #HenryVII #HenryVIII #EdwardVI #OnThisDay #HistoryLovers

In today's episode, Minister Artie and Deputy Minister Anna dive into the fascinating yet often overlooked reign of Edward VI. Though his rule lasted just six years—cut short by his death at age 15—Edward left an indelible mark on England's history.As a devout Protestant, Edward spearheaded significant reforms, including the introduction of an English-language Bible—a move so controversial it sparked rebellion. Under his rule, England took major strides toward becoming a firmly Protestant nation. And let's not forget his dramatic decision to alter the line of succession, naming his cousin Lady Jane Grey as his heir to bypass his Catholic sister, Mary.But why was Edward so passionately Protestant? Who wielded real power while he was still a child? And what drove him to gamble with the crown's future?Join us as we uncover the answers to these questions and explore the brief but transformative reign of England's boy king.This episode is available to watch as a video on YouTube.The Ministry of History offers more than just podcast episodes! Check out our blog for engaging historical insights, access transcripts of episodes, subscribe to our newsletter for updates and early access to posts, and explore our digital content. Planning a trip to Berlin? You can even book a history tour with Artie himself! To find all this, simply head to our website. You can also follow us on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.Artwork by Leila Mead. Check out her website and follow her on Instagram. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, ruled England as Lord Protector during Edward VI's reign, wielding power like a king—but his story ended on the scaffold.   From his meteoric rise as Henry VIII's trusted brother-in-law and a staunch Protestant reformer to the catastrophic rebellions and political rivalries that sealed his fate, Somerset's journey is one of ambition, betrayal, and leadership gone awry.   How did this once-powerful man lose it all? And was his downfall due to his own flaws, or the cutthroat politics of the Tudor court?   Explore the dramatic highs and devastating lows of Edward Seymour's life in this fascinating Tudor tale.   #TudorHistory #EdwardSeymour #LordProtector #TowerHill #Rebellion #EdwardVI #HenryVIII #HistoricalDrama #TudorCourt #HistoryLovers

Tudor King Henry VIII died in 1547 leaving England’s Crown to his son Edward VI (1537-47-53) whose short reign led to the royal ascension of his two sisters and the imminent exploration and colonization of America. Prior to King Henry’s death he had built the Mary Rose (1511-45), a technologically advanced sailing vessel that contributed to the future world domination of the English Navy, including the vast waters surrounding the North American continent. While she lay on the sea bed since 1545, the wreck of the Mary Rose and its contents were preserved in silt for centuries prior to being located in 1971 and raised in 1982 in one of the most complex and expensive maritime salvage projects in history. Enjoy this HISTORICAL JESUS Extra — The STORY of AMERICA. Check out the YouTube version of this episode which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams at: https://youtu.be/8IrCyL_Cf3E https://youtu.be/6HMXrkWhERg England History books available at https://amzn.to/4526W5n British Kings & Queens books available at https://amzn.to/430VOo0 Age of Discovery books available at https://amzn.to/3ZYOhnK Age of Exploration books available at https://amzn.to/403Wcjx ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 Twitter: https://twitter.com/HistoricalJesu Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio Credit: Witness Podcast with Susan Hulme (The Raising Of The Mary Rose 2017/10/03 BBC World Service); Monarchy From the Middle Ages to Modernity by D. Starkey. Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Step into the tumultuous world of the Tudor court with this riveting episode of History Rage. Host Paul Bavill is joined by Heather Darsie, author of "Anna: Duchess of Cleves" and "Children of the House of Cleves," as well as the upcoming "Stuart Spouses," to debunk the myths surrounding Anne of Cleves and shed light on the reality of her life and legacy. The Misunderstood Queen:- Heather Darsie tackles the persistent and unfair label of Anne of Cleves as the "Flanders Mare," revealing the true origins and inaccuracies of this nickname.Historical Catfishing Unveiled:- Discover the truth behind Henry VIII's annulment from Anne, including the political and personal motivations that led to this decision, and why Anne was never actually called "ugly" by Henry.Anne's Early Life and Education:- Heather delves into Anne's upbringing in the German court, debunking myths about her education and revealing the rich cultural context of her youth.Political Intrigues and Alliances:- Explore the complex political landscape of the Holy Roman Empire and how Anne's marriage was intended to solidify alliances, rather than being a simple Protestant match.Life After the Annulment:- Learn about Anne's life post-annulment, her status as Henry's "beloved sister," and her relationships with Mary I and Elizabeth I, as well as the challenges she faced during Edward VI's reign.Reevaluating Anne's Legacy:- Heather calls for a more nuanced understanding of historical figures, urging listeners to see Anne of Cleves as a real person with a complex life, rather than a caricature.Join us for this enlightening episode as we strip away the layers of myth and misrepresentation to reveal the true story of Anne of Cleves. For those eager to dive deeper, Heather's books offer a treasure trove of insights and are available through the History Rage bookshop.Order Anna, Duchess of Cleves: The King's 'Beloved Sister'Follow Heather on Twitter @hdarsiehistory, and on Instagram at hdarsiehistory. You can also read her articles at maidensandmanuscripts.com.Support our quest for historical truth on Patreon. For £5 per month, gain early access to episodes, livestreams, entry into prize draws, the chance to pose questions to future guests, and the coveted History Rage mug. Subscribe at patreon.com/historyrage. Stay informed, stay passionate, and most importantly, stay angry! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this talk Dr Jessica Sharkey considers why Henry VIII is buried in relative obscurity, why Edward VI was cast as a sickly Lord Fauntleroy and why Elizabeth I refused to be married to her winding sheet. You can also watch this talk on our website: https://www.rcpe.ac.uk/heritage/talks/sad-stories-death-kings-end-tudors Twitter: twitter.com/RCPEHeritage Instagram: instagram.com/physiciansgallery/ Facebook: facebook.com/PhysiciansGallery TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@physiciansgallery

I'm kicking off a new series on Henry VIII, the second Tudor monarch who ruled from 1509 until his death in 1547. He's a figure that fascinates and divides opinion, often seen as either a tyrant or a complex ruler who achieved much during his reign.

The Tudors are Britain's most famous royal dynasty. They ruled over England from 1485 until 1603, and included England's two arguably most influential monarchs - Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. However, the Tudor dynasty also included many other fascinating and consequential monarchs such as Henry VII (the first Tudor monarch), Edward VI and Mary I (England's first female monarch).In this twelve-part series, I am joined by recurring history buff and someone who studied the Tudor dynasty, Anna Morris. She is a familiar face on the podcast, having joined me to discuss the Empress Sissi of Austria all the way back in the first series.We will cover everything from the end of the Battle of Bosworth Field and beginning of the Tudor Dynasty in 1485 all the way up to Elizabeth I's death at the end of her so-called Golden Age.In this first episode, we will talk about the end of the Wars of the Roses—a series of civil wars fought between the houses of Lancaster and York for control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. We will discuss how Henry Tudor, a plucky Welsh-born descendant of John of Gaunt with a fairly tenuous claim to the English throne, ended up winning it on the blood-spattered field of Bosworth in 1485.You can watch the video of the episode on Youtube.For more content and if you'd like to sign up to our mailing list to be notified whenever we release a new episode, then head over to The History Buff website. You can find more History Buff content on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook.Artwork by Leila Mead. Check out her website and follow her on Instagram.Music: As History Unfolds by Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

fWotD Episode 2615: Thomas Cranmer Welcome to Featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia’s finest articles.The featured article for Tuesday, 2 July 2024 is Thomas Cranmer.Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build the case for the annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which was one of the causes of the separation of the English Church from union with the Holy See. Along with Thomas Cromwell, he supported the principle of royal supremacy, in which the king was considered sovereign over the Church within his realm.During Cranmer's tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, he established the first doctrinal and liturgical structures of the reformed Church of England. Under Henry's rule, Cranmer did not make many radical changes in the Church due to power struggles between religious conservatives and reformers. He published the first officially authorised vernacular service, the Exhortation and Litany.When Edward came to the throne, Cranmer was able to promote major reforms. He wrote and compiled the first two editions of the Book of Common Prayer, a complete liturgy for the English Church. With the assistance of several Continental reformers to whom he gave refuge, he changed doctrine or discipline in areas such as the Eucharist, clerical celibacy, the role of images in places of worship, and the veneration of saints. Cranmer promulgated the new doctrines through the prayer book, the Homilies and other publications.After the accession of the Catholic Mary I, Cranmer was put on trial for treason and heresy. Imprisoned for over two years and under pressure from Church authorities, he made several recantations and reconciled himself with the Catholic Church. While this would have customarily absolved him, Mary wanted him executed, and he was burned at the stake on 21 March 1556; on the day of his execution, he withdrew his recantations, to die a heretic to Catholics and a martyr for the principles of the English Reformation. Cranmer's death was immortalised in Foxe's Book of Martyrs and his legacy lives on within the Church of England through the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles, an Anglican statement of faith derived from his work.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:52 UTC on Tuesday, 2 July 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Thomas Cranmer on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm neural Niamh.

Iain Dale talks to historian Elizabeth Norton about the life and reign of King Edward VI, a king who few know anything about.

Do you keep a journal? If so, you have something in common with many Tudors, including Edward VI. Let's talk about the rise of journal and diary keeping in the 16th century. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Now we get to the Queen Mary I of England everyone knows. In the span of just over two years, Mary burned more heretics than Edward VI or Henry VIII combined. All of this was an effort to reunite England with the Papal See. Reginald Pole, the papal legate, remained confident in the project. But the enthusiasm in England for a return to the age before Henry's schism was waning and time was very much running out.WebsitePatreon Support

With the death of Edward VI and the failure of Jane Grey to seize the throne, Queen Mary's ascent seemed likely to mean there would be a dramatic and immediate change in religious policy. The evangelical faction was now firmly out of power - many would flee to the continent in fact. But at least initially Mary and her court was a bit hesitant to push too hard too fast. For decades now the people of England had heard nothing but criticism of the Pope, it seemed unlikely they would forget all that overnight. Besides, Mary had to deal with the practical issues of being queen. Namely, she was not a young woman, was not married, and had no children. The proverbial clock, in other words, was ticking.WebsitePatreon Free Trial

The English Reformation really heats up between 1551 and 1553. Unfortunately, the boy king, Edward VI, dies young leaving the dream of a final evangelical nation unfulfilled. Edward attempts to cut his half-sisters out of the inheritance and leaves the throne to Lady Jane Grey. but England isn't having it. WebsitePatreon Support

Lady Jane Grey - Queen of England for just nine days - was executed at the Tower of London on 12th February, 1554. Edward VI, who had died aged 15, named the teenager as his successor in his will, even though Henry VIII's daughters Mary and Elizabeth had a more direct connection to the throne. The protestant Jane fainted upon hearing she had been made monarch, and declared that Mary was the rightful heir. When the privy council changed their mind and declared Mary (despite her Catholicism) to be Queen anyway, Jane was sent to the Tower. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain why it was Jane's own father - not ‘Bloody' Mary herself - who was ultimately responsible for Jane's beheading; reveal how even in the last moments of her life Mary conspired to get Jane converted to Catholicism; and discover that it's *never* a good idea to put on a blindfold before you put your head on the chopping block…  Further Reading: • ‘Lady Jane Grey: Tower of London' (Historic Royal Palaces): https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/lady-jane-grey/#gs.og751i • ‘Lady Jane Grey: Facts About The Nine-Day Queen's Life & Execution' (HistoryExtra, 2021): https://www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/who-was-lady-jane-grey-facts-about-nine-day-queen-execution-death/ • ‘Lady Jane Grey, The Teenager Who Ruled England For Nine Days' (Weird History, 2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaKjBiG0e6E This episode first premiered in 2022, for members of

In this episode, we return to England. Edward VI is still a teenager and not in control of his own realm. His uncle, the Lord Protector Somerset, is trying his best to maintain power. But his brother, Seymour, the Lord Admiral, is making life difficult for him. Today it all comes to a head.WebsitePatreon Free Trial

Now it's time to get back to politics. When we last left off, the deaths of Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V and Sulieman the Magnificent left Europe with a major power void. To an extent, that is going to be the case for a while. Those long-reigning monarchs will be replaced with a series of heirs who will, with the exception of Philip II of Spain, die relatively quickly. Case in point: Edward VI. Today, we return to Tudor England. Website Patreon SupportThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5553835/advertisement

Celebrating Christmas was a big event in Tudor times, just as it is today. Dr.James Taffe joins us to explore the fascinating ways Tudors experienced everything from joy to gluttony to melancholy during the 12 Days of Christmas and beyond.Carol Ann Lloydwww.carolannlloyd.com@shakeuphistorypatreon.com/carolannlloydThe Tudors by Numbers, published by Pen and SwordJames Taffe@tudortaffeServing the Tudors (coming in 2024)Christmas with the TudorsCourting Scandal: The Rise and Fall of Jane BoleynCreative Director: Lindsey LindstromMusic: History by Andy_Grey via Audio Jungle, Music Broadcast LicenseLet's shake up history together!@shakeuphistory

I'm joined by the Marquess of Anglesey to discuss his fascinating new book "The Great Survivor of the Tudor Age," about his ancestor Sir William Paget. Paget was Jane Seymour's secretary, and Anne of Cleves', an adviser to Henry VIII, Edward VI made him a baron, he supported Lady Jane Grey but then served Mary I, and died in the reign of Elizabeth. 

Redan före den unge kungen Edward VI avled hade intriger och maktkamp om tronen påbörjats. Utsedd tronföljare är kungens kusindotter Jane Grey, en sann protestant precis som kungen själv, men hade han inte systrar också? Jo just det, Maria, dotter till Henrik VIII är högst intresserad av sin rätt till tronen, hon är emellertid katolik. Konflikten är snart fullt utblommad! Lyssna på våra avsnitt fritt från reklam: https://plus.acast.com/s/historiepodden. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fashion for the royal family has long been one of their most powerful weapons. Every item of their clothing is imbued with meaning, history and majesty, telling a complex tale of the individuals who wore them and the houses they represented. The Royal Wardrobe: Peek Into the Wardrobes of History's Most Fashionable Royals (Headline, 2023) by Rosie Harte introduces readers to this world. From the draping of a fabric to the arrangements of jewels, the clothing worn by royals is anything but coincidental. King at just nine years old, Edward VI's clothes were padded to make him seem stronger and more manly; and the ever-conscious Elizabeth II insisted her coronation gown include all the representative flora of the commonwealth nations, and not just that of the United Kingdom. Yet reigning monarchs are not the only ones whose fashion sensibilities could mean make or break for the crown. Original and enlightening, Rosie Harte's complete history delicately weaves together the fashion faux pas and Vogue-worthy triumphs that chart the history of our royals from the Tudors to the Victorians right through to King Charles III and our twenty-first-century royal family. Travelling far beyond the bounds of the court, The Royal Wardrobe reveals the economic, social and political consequences of royal apparel, be it breeches, tiara, wig or waistcoat. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Fashion for the royal family has long been one of their most powerful weapons. Every item of their clothing is imbued with meaning, history and majesty, telling a complex tale of the individuals who wore them and the houses they represented. The Royal Wardrobe: Peek Into the Wardrobes of History's Most Fashionable Royals (Headline, 2023) by Rosie Harte introduces readers to this world. From the draping of a fabric to the arrangements of jewels, the clothing worn by royals is anything but coincidental. King at just nine years old, Edward VI's clothes were padded to make him seem stronger and more manly; and the ever-conscious Elizabeth II insisted her coronation gown include all the representative flora of the commonwealth nations, and not just that of the United Kingdom. Yet reigning monarchs are not the only ones whose fashion sensibilities could mean make or break for the crown. Original and enlightening, Rosie Harte's complete history delicately weaves together the fashion faux pas and Vogue-worthy triumphs that chart the history of our royals from the Tudors to the Victorians right through to King Charles III and our twenty-first-century royal family. Travelling far beyond the bounds of the court, The Royal Wardrobe reveals the economic, social and political consequences of royal apparel, be it breeches, tiara, wig or waistcoat. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Fashion for the royal family has long been one of their most powerful weapons. Every item of their clothing is imbued with meaning, history and majesty, telling a complex tale of the individuals who wore them and the houses they represented. The Royal Wardrobe: Peek Into the Wardrobes of History's Most Fashionable Royals (Headline, 2023) by Rosie Harte introduces readers to this world. From the draping of a fabric to the arrangements of jewels, the clothing worn by royals is anything but coincidental. King at just nine years old, Edward VI's clothes were padded to make him seem stronger and more manly; and the ever-conscious Elizabeth II insisted her coronation gown include all the representative flora of the commonwealth nations, and not just that of the United Kingdom. Yet reigning monarchs are not the only ones whose fashion sensibilities could mean make or break for the crown. Original and enlightening, Rosie Harte's complete history delicately weaves together the fashion faux pas and Vogue-worthy triumphs that chart the history of our royals from the Tudors to the Victorians right through to King Charles III and our twenty-first-century royal family. Travelling far beyond the bounds of the court, The Royal Wardrobe reveals the economic, social and political consequences of royal apparel, be it breeches, tiara, wig or waistcoat. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fashion for the royal family has long been one of their most powerful weapons. Every item of their clothing is imbued with meaning, history and majesty, telling a complex tale of the individuals who wore them and the houses they represented. The Royal Wardrobe: Peek Into the Wardrobes of History's Most Fashionable Royals (Headline, 2023) by Rosie Harte introduces readers to this world. From the draping of a fabric to the arrangements of jewels, the clothing worn by royals is anything but coincidental. King at just nine years old, Edward VI's clothes were padded to make him seem stronger and more manly; and the ever-conscious Elizabeth II insisted her coronation gown include all the representative flora of the commonwealth nations, and not just that of the United Kingdom. Yet reigning monarchs are not the only ones whose fashion sensibilities could mean make or break for the crown. Original and enlightening, Rosie Harte's complete history delicately weaves together the fashion faux pas and Vogue-worthy triumphs that chart the history of our royals from the Tudors to the Victorians right through to King Charles III and our twenty-first-century royal family. Travelling far beyond the bounds of the court, The Royal Wardrobe reveals the economic, social and political consequences of royal apparel, be it breeches, tiara, wig or waistcoat. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

Fashion for the royal family has long been one of their most powerful weapons. Every item of their clothing is imbued with meaning, history and majesty, telling a complex tale of the individuals who wore them and the houses they represented. The Royal Wardrobe: Peek Into the Wardrobes of History's Most Fashionable Royals (Headline, 2023) by Rosie Harte introduces readers to this world. From the draping of a fabric to the arrangements of jewels, the clothing worn by royals is anything but coincidental. King at just nine years old, Edward VI's clothes were padded to make him seem stronger and more manly; and the ever-conscious Elizabeth II insisted her coronation gown include all the representative flora of the commonwealth nations, and not just that of the United Kingdom. Yet reigning monarchs are not the only ones whose fashion sensibilities could mean make or break for the crown. Original and enlightening, Rosie Harte's complete history delicately weaves together the fashion faux pas and Vogue-worthy triumphs that chart the history of our royals from the Tudors to the Victorians right through to King Charles III and our twenty-first-century royal family. Travelling far beyond the bounds of the court, The Royal Wardrobe reveals the economic, social and political consequences of royal apparel, be it breeches, tiara, wig or waistcoat. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Willy Willy Harry Stee, Harry Dick John Harry Three, One Two Three Neds, Richard Two, Henry's Four Five Six.........then who? Edward Four Five...Dick The Bad, Harry's Twain and Ned The LadHenry VIII's only legitimate son is crowned King at 9 years old and as Charlie Higson discovers, his should have been the perfect reign, but it will come as no surprise to find out that things didn't go according to plan. Helping Charlie is this episodes proper historian, Stephen Alford who wrote about Edward for Penguin Books 'Monarch' series as well as authoring his highly acclaimed book 'The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth' Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Streamed live, we covered some history anniversaries falling this week: * Raising the Mary Rose on 11th October 1982, and some surprising facts about how it was nearly blown up in the 19th century! * Henry VIII is given the title 'Fidei Defensor' by Pope Leo X, on 11th October 1521 * 12th October 1537, Edward VI is born, my visit to the room in which Jane Seymour gave birth. . Also mentioned: Get your tickets to this Autumn's Online History Festival 'The Tudors' at www.thetudors2023.eventbrite.co.uk Join my substack for free at www.philippab.substack.com Join my Patreon for early access to content, membership of the Book Club and 10% off the Tudor Online History Festival tickets at www.Patreon.com/BritishHistory. Get full access to British History at philippab.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode we look at how Edward Seymour became the Protector in England, during the reign of his nephew, Edward VI. Thanks so much for your listenership and support, friends! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most of those executed for their beliefs under Philip and Mary 1555-58 came from places with a long history of religious dissidence. It matches European evidence that many – perhaps most – of those burned at the stake were not Protestants, but ‘anabaptists' or people with similar beliefs – usually poor - whom both Protestants and Catholics were persecuting. The government of Edward VI had already begun before Mary came to the throne. But why so many in England? We discover literature appearing from the late 1540s that openly encouraged dissenters to die for their beliefs. And we explore the possibility that so many died because the English uniquely insisted on public hearings, in which there was no room for quiet, face-saving compromises.

England in the mid-1550s was being governed by a joint monarchy: Philip and Mary and a select council of extremely able English politicians. Almost all of them had experience in government stretching back through the violently protestant regime of Edward VI. To all appearances they had for years been living as active protestants. And yet here they were in a government that was conducting a campaign against religious heresy that we have always understood to be a Catholic campaign to stamp out Protestantism.

I'd like to introduce my book, The Tudors by Numbers! I'm thrilled to have heard from some earlier readers, and I'm so grateful for the wonderful reviews I've received. Now it's available in the US and the UK, I want to give it a proper launch. So here's the story of The Tudors by Numbers!Carol Ann Lloydwww.carolannlloyd.com@shakeuphistorypatreon.com/carolannlloydThe Tudors by Numbers, published by Pen and SwordCreative Director: Lindsey LindstromMusic: History by Andy_Grey via Audio Jungle, Music Broadcast LicenseLet's shake up history together!@shakeuphistory

In this episode we dive into the reign of Edward VI, which is often overlooked, sandwiched as it was between that of his father, and his sister, unkindly remembered as Bloody Mary. But it was still really important! Massive religious changes! Poor laws! Whitewashing all the medieval history out of churches! Rebellions! Let's dig in...The book I talked about with Kett's Rebellion is Tombland by CJ Samson. Grab your Tudorcon Streaming Tickets at https://www.englandcast.com/TudorconOnlineAnd THANK YOU for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Books belonging to Henry VIII, Richard III, Mary I and Edward VI are among the treasures in the historic library of the Archbishops of Canterbury, one of the oldest public libraries in England. In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb takes a tour of just a few items from Lambeth Palace Library's priceless collection with the librarian archivist Giles Mandelbrote.There are pictures of all of the items featured in this podcast on Suzannah's social media accounts - @sixteenthCgirl - on Facebook, Twitter, Threads, and Instagram. This episode was produced by Rob Weinberg.Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians including Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code TUDORS. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up here >You can take part in our listener survey here >For more Not Just The Tudors content, subscribe to our Tudor Tuesday newsletter here > Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Parliament declared Jane a usurper. She was tried on charges of high treason and found to be guilty for having signed official documents as ‘Jane the Queen'. She was beheaded the following ...

The story of King Henry VIII is famous, as are the stories of his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. King Henry's only son, the sickly Edward VI, had a short reign, often overlooked and too often ignored. Sign up for Dana's history writing course! Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Merch! — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's episode you'll hear me learn about how to pronounce this week's topic correctly—it is the Huguenots (and not Huguenots as I had been saying and which you may have been tempted to say as well). This week we're exploring the arrival of Huguenots to England in Shakespeare's lifetime. During Catherine de Medici's reign as Queen consort in France, the country was anything but hospitable to Protestants. The St. Bartholomew Day's Massacre in the late 16th century saw thousands of Huguenots rounded up and slaughtered. That was only one event where Huguenots were proven unwelcome, and in danger, to remain in France. Throughout the reigns of Edward VI, Elizabeth I, and on into the 18th century reigns of James II, and beyond, England as a Protestant nation became a safe haven for refugee French Calvinists. During Shakespeare's lifetime, the impact of the arrival of Huguenots seems to have been significant, with Shakespeare writing about “strangers” over 70 times across his works, often using the term to describe someone from another country, who may not speak English, and is simultaneously in need of a welcome, and to be viewed with necessary suspicion. We see plays like Hamlet extending a hand of friendship when Hamlet says in Act I “And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.” And yet, in Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, Rosaline being much less accomodating, saying, “Since you are strangers and come here by chance, We'll not be nice“ While these references could refer to any international Immigrant, many believe that Shakespeare commented directly on the plight of the Huguenots from France, with one impassioned speech about how to treat so called Strangers, that is given in the historical play Sir Thomas More. Furthermore, we know that William Shakespeare had direct personal connections to Huguenots, having lived for a time as a lodger in London with Christopher and Mary Mountjoy, a French Huguenot couple. Here today to tell us more about the plight of refugee French Calvinists in the life of William Shakespeare is our guest and Fellow of the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Joyce Hampton.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After the hopeful reign of King Edward VI, Mary I took the throne of England and violently returned the kingdom to Roman Catholicism. Today, Michael Reeves details why she would come to be known as "Bloody Mary." Get Michael Reeves' Teaching Series 'The English Reformation and the Puritans' on DVD and the Digital Study Guide for Your Gift of Any Amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/2661/english-reformation-puritans Don't forget to make RenewingYourMind.org your home for daily in-depth Bible study and Christian resources.

Natalie Grueninger speaks with Stephanie Kline about her new book, 'Edward VI: Henry VIII's Overshadowed Son'.  Visit Stephanie's blog. https://thetudorenthusiast.weebly.com/ Find out more about your host at https://www.nataliegrueninger.com Buy Talking Tudors merchandise at https://talkingtudors.threadless.com/ Support Talking Tudors on Patreon! Musical break courtesy of Jon Sayles.

Edward VI is dead - but who will succeed him on the throne? In the first of two episodes, Tom and Dominic discuss the succession question that surrounded the reign of Edward VI, the sole male heir of Henry VIII - and how a 15-year-old Lady Jane Grey ended up Queen of England and Ireland.Tune in to hear about svengalis, the deeply embedded memory of Henry VIII, and why the people of Guildford are the true victims in this incredible story.*The Rest Is History Live Tour April 2023*:Tom and Dominic are going on tour in April 2023 and performing in London, Edinburgh, and Salford! Buy your tickets here:https://robomagiclive.com/the-rest-is-history/Join The Rest Is History Club (www.restishistorypod.com) for ad-free listening to the full archive, weekly bonus episodes, live streamed shows and access to an exclusive chatroom community.Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Tyndaleand the English Reformation • Philip Schaff called the Reformation of the sixteenth century “the turning point of modern history.”• He added the Reformation was, “next to the introduction of Christianity, the greatest event in history...thechief propelling force in the history of modern civilization.” PRE-REFORMERS INITIATE1330—John Wycliffe born in England• Oxford professor• Became leading intect in England, Europe1382—Wycliffe Bible translated into English• from Latin into Middle English,• Stiff, wooden translation, handcopied1384—Wycliffe dies, Lutterworth, England1401—"On the Burning of Heretics”• legislation passes by Parliament• Translating, owning English Bible, death• Attempts to suppress the influence of Wycliffe1408—"Constitutions of Oxford”• It's a “dangerous thing” to translate Scripture in English1415—Council of Constance• John Hus burned as martyr• Leader of Bohemian church• Pastored Bethlehem Chapel, Prague Steven J. LawsonMen's Bible StudyEnglish Reformation 2 • Wycliffe condemned, body exhumed• Wycliffe removed from sacred ground in church yard1428—Wycliffe's body dug up, burned• Ashes scattered into Swift River1450—Johannes Gutenberg perfects printing press1455—Gutenberg Bible printedREFORMERS BORN1483—Martin Luther born, Eisleben, Germany1483—Ulrich Zwingli born, Switzerland1494—William Tyndale born, near Gloustershire, England1506—Tyndale enters Magdalen Hall, Oxford• Age 12, normal for that time• Studies here for next ten years1509—John Calvin born, Navon, France• His father, lawyer in the Catholic Church• Raised in Catholic church, to be priest1512—Tyndale earns Bachelor of Arts, Oxford1514—John Knox born, Scotland1515—Tyndale earns Master of Arts, Oxford• Stunningly brilliant, linguistic genius• Would become proficient in eight languagesREFORMATION BEGINS1516—Erasmus compiles Greek New Testament• Leading humanist of his day Steven J. LawsonMen's Bible StudyEnglish Reformation 3 • Cambridge professor• Travels Europe, collects Greek manuscripts1516—Tyndale studies at Cambridge• Continues intellectual pursuit1517—Pope Leo X authorizes indulgences1517—Luther posts 95 Theses• In response to sale of indulgences by Rome1519—Luther converted reading Greek New Testament1520—Tyndale joins White Horse Inn• Small group Bible study• Studying Luther's writings• Called “Little Germany”• Produced leaders of English Reformation• 8 martyrs from this group• Tyndale converted, becomes Reformed1521—Luther, Diet of Worms• Stands heresy trial before authorities• Condemned as heretic, death sentence1521—Tyndale becomes private tutor• Leaves Cambridge to study the Scripture more carefully• Realizes all England is lost• Must translate Bible into English• “plough boy in field know more than pope” Steven J. LawsonMen's Bible StudyEnglish Reformation 4 1522—Luther translates New Testament into German• Produced while he was kidnapped in Wartburg Castle1523—Tyndale denied translation into English• Travels to London to receive permission• Refused, must leave England• Businessman agrees to support himTYNDALE DEPARTS1524—Tyndale leaves England for Europe• Nowhere in England to do the work• Never to return, never to marry1524—Tyndale arrives in Hamburg, Germany1524—Tyndale travels to Wittenberg1525—Tyndale translates English New Testament, Cologne, Germany• Largest city in Germany, easiest to hide• Finished New Testament• Raid on print shop at Matthew 22:131526—Tyndale publishes English New Testament, Worms, Germany• Travels to Worms, Germany on Rhine River into North Sea• Smuggles Bibles into England, Scotland1528—Tyndale writes The Parable of the Wicked Mammon• Teaches justification by faith1528—Tyndale writes The Obedience of a Christian Man• Teaches obedience to the king Steven J. LawsonMen's Bible StudyEnglish Reformation 5 1528—Three agents dispatched, find Tyndale• Returns empty handed without Tyndale1528—John West dispatched, find Tyndale• Returns without Tyndale1529—Tyndale translates Pentateuch into English, Antwerp• Monumental effort1529—Tyndale sails for Elbe River, shipwrecked, translation lost1529—Tyndale retranslates the Pentateuch, Hamburg, Germany• Reunited with Miles Coverdale, Cambridge classmate• Requires ten months to complete the project1529—Tyndale moves to Antwerp, Belgium• Remains elusive, anonymous1529—More, A Dialogue Concerning Heresies• Sir Thomas More unleashed brutal public attack• Called Tyndale captain of English heretics, hell-bound in devil's kennel, new Judas, worse thanSodom and Gomorrah, idolater, devil-worshipper, beast out of whose brutish, beastly mouthcomes filthy foam1530—Tyndale publishes Pentateuch in English, Antwerp• Uses pseudonym Hans Luft, Marburg• Includes glossaries, introductions• Smuggled into England, distributed1530—Tyndale, The Practice of Prelates• Attacks rites, doctrines, corruptions of Rome1530—Stephen Vaughan dispatched, find Tyndale• English merchants, sympathetic to Reformed cause Steven J. LawsonMen's Bible StudyEnglish Reformation 6 • Offered Tyndale safe passage back to England, salary• Tyndale agreed on one condition• If Henry VIII choose another translator1531—Vaughan returns empty handed• “I always find him always singing one note”1531—Sir Thomas Elyot dispatched to Europe• Apprehend Tyndale, return him to the king• Tyndale not to be found1531—Tyndale translates Jonah into English• Desires it be preached to England• “Forty day, London destroyed”1531—Tyndale writes Answer, defends translation1532—More, Confutation of Tyndale's Answer• Massive writing, half million words• Calls Tyndale traitor to England, heretic1534—Henry VIII named Head of Church of England• Denied annulment of his marriage• Pulls England out of Catholic Church• Parliament passes Act of Supremacy, monarch head of church1534—Tyndale moves into house of English merchants, Antwerp• John Rogers joins Tyndale, Coverdale• Rogers converted under Tyndale's witness• Rogers will complete Tyndale's translation Steven J. LawsonMen's Bible StudyEnglish Reformation 7 1534—Tyndale revises Pentateuch, Antwerp1534—Tyndale revises New Testament, Antwerp• 4000 edits to his 1526 printing• Called “the glory of his life's work”1535—Tyndale re-edits New Testament, Antwerp• Makes yet more edits, though fewer1535—Tyndale translates Joshua-2 Chronicles• Completes historical section of Old TestamentTYNDALE MARTYRED1535—Henry Phillips dispatched, find Tyndale• Had gambled away father's estate• Church of England promises to repay1535—Tyndale arrested, Antwerp1535—Tyndale imprisoned, Vilvoorde Castle, Belgium• Held 500 days, 18 months in castle• Miserable conditions1535—Coverdale Bible published• Unknown to Tyndale, Coverdale completes Old Testament• But not from Hebrew1536—Tyndale tried, charged, martyred• Mock trial, charged with heresy• God, open the eyes of the king• Tyndale hung, burned, blown up Steven J. LawsonMen's Bible StudyEnglish Reformation 8 REFORMATION SPREADS1536—Calvin writes Institute of the Christian Religion• Greatest work of Reformation• Explains true Christianity to French King1536—Calvin enters Geneva• Road detour, unintentional destination• Recognized as author, Institutes• Charged to stay or be cursed1537—Rogers publishes Matthew Bible• Edits Old Testament portions translated by Coverdale• Publishes entire Bible, Tyndale's work, his edits1538—Calvin expelled from Geneva• For fencing Lord's Table• Departs for Geneva1541—Calvin returns to Geneva• Geneva begs Calvin to return• Begins with next verse of last exposition• Preaches there for next 23 years 1545—Council of Trent meets• Meeting of Roman Catholic leaders• Launches Counter Reformation• Produces first Catholic doctrinal statement• Declares anathema on Reformers, believers of gospels of grace Steven J. LawsonMen's Bible StudyEnglish Reformation 9 1546—Luther dies in Germany• “I want to be as well known in hell as in heaven”• Preaches last sermon in Eisleben• “God put the power in the Word.”1547—King Henry VIII dies1547—Edward VI, King of England• Boy king, age 9• Protestant king, makes Reformed policies1549—Book of Common Prayer published1549—Act of Uniformity passed1553—Edward VI dies• Dies at age 15• Reformed cause halted1553—Mary I, Queen of England• Bloody Mary assumes throne• Staunch Catholic• Begins martyrdom of Protestants1553—John Knox leaves England for Europe1555—Rogers martyred, Smithfield, London• Charged with heresy• Fist Marian martyr1555—Latimer, Ridley martyred, Oxford• Burned to death at same stake Steven J. LawsonMen's Bible StudyEnglish Reformation 10 • Latimer, “Play the man Master Ridley”1558—Mary I dies, age 42• A mercy of relief to Reformed believers1558—Elizabeth I, Queen of England• Half-sister assumes throne• Chooses halfway house, compromise• Combines Reformed truth, Catholic worship1559—John Knox returns to Scotland• Launches Scottish Reformation1560—Geneva Bible published• Translated into English• First English Bible with chapter divisions• Included study notes1560s—Puritan Age begins• Attempt to purify worship within Church of England1564—Calvin dies in Geneva• Concludes 25 years pastorate1572—St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre1603—Elizabeth I, dies, age 691603—James I becomes King of England1611—King James Version• 90% of New Testament was Tyndale's work1618—Synod of Dort, refutes Arminianism