The Westminster Abbey choir will be performing a concert on Nov. 20 to mark the 450th anniversary of Mary I’s death and Elizabeth I’s accession to the throne, and will be releasing a CD of period music. More details here.
You can order the CD through Amazon US and UK here:
(Thanks to TudorRose for the info!)
I originally blogged about this item back in August, although the original auction date and estimated price have changed.
From The BBC:
The only known surviving chain of office from the time of Henry VIII is being put up for auction.
The king gave the gold Coleridge Collar to one of his closest advisers, Sir Edward Montagu, around 1546.
The chains showed allegiance to the monarch and the intricacy of the design and quality of the metal signified the status of the wearer.
It is expected to fetch £300,000 when it goes under the hammer at Christie’s in London on 6 November.
Full article (with photograph)
And a second article from The Telegraph with a couple of close-up photos.
Here’s a neat article from The Telegraph that caught my eye last week:
The grim and impressive ruined battlements of Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire seem an unlikely setting for a garden of fragrance. But if English Heritage’s latest restoration project goes to plan, visitors moving from the dank environs of the Norman Keep into the light will be greeted by a waft of spicy clove scent, just as Elizabeth I was when she visited in July 1575.
…
John Watkins, head of gardens and landscapes at English Heritage, is patiently unpicking the genetic profile of a prized carnation that will occupy pedestalled clay pots at the top and bottom of the stairs. His study of engravings of contemporary gardens by Dutchman Hans Vredeman de Vries revealed that urns bearing plant rarities appear in strategic spots - and in some he could discern a trelliswork of willow holding carnations at nose height.“The carnation was very much a fashionable plant at the time, introduced in 1540,” says Watkins. “It came over from the Turkish court and was probably Dianthus caryophyllus, the true carnation found in mountains around the Mediterranean. The true carnation has a very distinct, spicy nutmeg-clove fragrance. The pinks we know today are much sweeter.”
From the Kenilworth Weekly News:
Warwick author and reputable historian Professor Eric Ives will be challenging the written word during a history event this month.
The emeritus professor of English history at Birmingham University said he and his students have “turned everything upside down” about past accounts of the ‘nine days’ Tudor queen Lady Jane Grey.
…
He has spent the past ten years working on his forthcoming biography about the controversial Lady Jane. He said: “Some of it has been very frustrating and some of it has been fascinating.”
Spotted at the Lady Jane Grey Reference Guide blog
From Broadcastnow.co.uk:
David Starkey is to produce a four-part “psychological profile” of Henry VIII for Channel 4.
The as-yet-untitled series will go beyond the facts of Henry’s six wives and his split with the Catholic church to piece together a sense of his character and motivations.
The first 60-minute episode will show Henry as a highly intelligent child, while subsequent episodes will paint him as a brilliant “A-list celebrity” character with an over-developed ego and “solipsistic sense of self”.
Since today is Elizabeth’s birthday, I thought it would be a good day to repost the donation request to send flowers for Elizabeth’s accession anniversary.
Original post below:
My friend Heather Thomas, who runs ElizabethI.org, is making arrangements to have flowers sent to Hatfield to celebrate the 450th anniversary of Elizabeth I’s accession to the throne. If you would like to contribute, please visit her website for more information: http://www.elizabethi.org/flowers.html
That is, the 500th anniversary of him becoming king. Or the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry VII. Or both.
From the L.A. Times (and written by Susan James!):
Best known of the English kings, Henry VIII has usually been portrayed as a gargantuan party boy seducing court ladies, quarreling with the church, arresting friends and beheading wives. But he brought more to the throne than that.
Bright, cultured and handsome, Henry succeeded peacefully to the crown as he turned 18, securing the Tudor dynasty and making possible England’s golden age.
Next year marks the 500th anniversary of that accession, and a variety of special events will be held in and around London to explore his life and reign.
A major presentation at Hampton Court, Henry’s magnificent palace on the Thames, opens April 12 and runs daily through the year. It focuses on one day in the king’s life: July 12, 1543, the day he married his sixth queen, Catherine Parr.
…
Beginning Oct. 31, 2009, the palace will host a series of ghost tours through candlelighted rooms, including the Haunted Corridor where Henry’s fifth queen, Catherine Howard, ran screaming from guards sent to take her to the Tower.
Tudor Christmas (Dec. 27 to Jan. 1) will be celebrated with traditional music, dancing and live entertainment as well as an open-air ice rink.
Check out the full article for more upcoming events at Hampton Court and other places around England.
Both estimates are out of my price range, but would be interesting to have!
First up is a Tudor “Esses collar” that will be auctioned at Christie’s in December and is expected to go for £1,000,000 (about $1,850,000 US at today’s exchange rate).
From The Indpendent:
The merciless punishments Henry VIII meted out to his enemies have been well documented. Less is known about how, on the rarer occasions when the king was happy with the service of his courtiers or the country’s most eminent noblemen, he liked to give them a golden livery collar or heavy chain as a token of his gratitude.
Henry VIII only awarded around 20 of the chains. They were all engraved with the characters SS, referring to the Latin religious creed, Spiritus Sanctus (Holy Spirit), though none were believed to have survived in their entirety.
Now, however, the first complete “collar of the Esses”, as they were known, has been discovered in the family home of the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The collar was presented to Edward Montagu, the then Lord Chief Justice, by King Henry in the 1540s.
And second is another clipping of hair, this time from Mary Queen of Scots. This one is expected to fetch about £3000. You can see the item here at the website of the Lyon and Turnbull auction house.
Update: The lock of hair ended up selling for £7200, purchased by an anonymous bidder.
My friend Heather Thomas, who runs ElizabethI.org, is making arrangements to have flowers sent to Hatfield to celebrate the 450th anniversary of Elizabeth I’s accession to the throne. If you would like to contribute, please visit her website for more information: http://www.elizabethi.org/flowers.html
A very interesting diplomat in Tudor history… check out his bio for free this week!
Claude of France was the Queen Anne and Mary Boleyn served during their time at the French court. Her prayer book went on display at the Morgan Library & Museum back in May.
From the article:
In May, a tiny, exquisite volume went on display at the Morgan Library & Museum: a prayer book made for Queen Claude of France, who was born in the penultimate year of the fifteenth century. Claude, a near-contemporary of Anne Boleyn, who served her at the French court as a prepubescent lady-in-waiting, was betrothed at the age of six to her cousin François, the Duke of Angoulême and heir-presumptive to the French throne. She was wed at fourteen. She went on to bear seven royal children, including a son who became Henry II of France, and she died at twenty-four.
The name of the artist, of whose works only about a dozen survive, is lost to history, but scholars speak of the Claude Master, because of the quality of this, his greatest work. His palette tends toward soft roses and mauves—in an image of the Virgin’s coronation, Christ and his mother wear matching amethyst-colored gowns, trimmed in gold—and the brushwork is stippled, as if it were the effort of a mouse-size Seurat. “It’s an amazing creation,” Wieck said. “And, of course, Claude’s eyes were very young.”
Tip o’ the French Hood to Foose for the link
From The Telegraph:
Forensic examination of the crew’s skulls, which were found next the 16th century wreck in The Solent, has revealed that Henry VIII’s flagship was mainly crewed by foreign sailors, thought to be either mercenaries or Spanish prisoners of war.
Historians have always believed that the warship sank when it performed a sharp turn during a battle with the French in July 1545 and heeled so steeply that water flooded through the open gun ports.
But the new theory suggests that the gun ports may only have been open because the crew spoke little English and did not understand orders to close them as the ship’s commander, Admiral George Carew, took evasive action.
…
The theory has been put forward by Professor Hugh Montgomery, of University College London, whose research team was given access by the Mary Rose Trust to the remains of 18 crewmen.
Forensic anthropologist Lynne Bell examined their skulls to determine where they had lived, and discovered that about 60 per cent were of southern European origin.Scientists can determine roughly which region a person grew up in by analysing the chemical composition of their teeth, which retain the type of water molecule they consumed while growing up.
Full article with a photo of Dr. Montgomery examining a skull
And another article, from The Daily Mail, with some photos of the ship.
It’s too late if you missed Henry Fitzroy, but now you can read Francis Drake’s biography for free this week!
[Edited to update link per comment below]
On the occasion of the anniversary of his heath, Henry Fitzroy is featured at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Lives of the week. Catch it while it’s free this week!
Well, I’m not, but I wish I was since I’m really tired of the hot and dry summer here in Texas.
From the BBC:
Seven horse riders in period costume are aiming to retrace the route taken by Henry Tudor more than 500 years ago from Pembrokeshire to Leicestershire.
On Sunday they started the journey taken by Henry Tudor which culminated in the defeat of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.
Setting off from Dale near Milford Haven, the riders plan to take six days to travel more than 100 miles.
The Henry Tudor Ride aims to raise over £50,000 for the Army Benevolent Fund.
And here’s a second article with a larger photo of the riders in costume.
There have been a lot of news stories about this floating around, so I randomly chose the one from The Guardian to link to and quote here.
A tale of greed, woe and comic folly - not unlike those contained within its ancient pages – appeared to be nearing its final act today after the recovery of a “priceless” edition of Shakespeare’s plays stolen a decade ago.
The first folio edition, printed in 1623, was among a number of books and manuscripts taken from Durham University library in December 1998.
…
Durham police said a 51-year-old man, claiming to be an international businessman who had acquired the volume in Cuba, had showed the folio to staff at a library in Washington, DC and asked them to verify it was genuine.In a moment of apparent foolhardiness, he agreed to leave it with librarians, whose research revealed it as stolen.
After a search involving the FBI, the British embassy in Washington DC alerted Durham police to the find.
…
Also stolen were two handwritten manuscripts from the late 14th or early 15th century, one bearing an English translation of the New Testament and the other being a fragment of a poem by the Canterbury Tales author, Geoffrey Chaucer.A Beowulf edition printed in 1815 and two editions of the Old English epic by the 10th century scholar Aelfric, one printed in 1566 and the other in 1709, were also taken.
…
He said there was no suggestion at the moment that the house contained the other seven books and manuscripts taken from the library.The Shakespeare edition is in the care of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC until it is returned to Durham. The university’s vice-chancellor, Prof Chris Higgins, said security had been significantly improved in the past decade.
I meant to post this earlier today but things just got away from me.
Go to Executed Today for More (yes, horrible pun intended).
The following email and videos are courtesy of Dave Postles (originally posted to H-ALBION and then forwarded to my Tudor list and sent to me directly by kb)
Bradgate House and Lady Jane Grey
The house is paradigmatic of a late-medieval courtyard house, constructed c.1490-1505 by Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, grandfather of Lady Jane Grey who was born in this house. Brick, but with stone quoins, from local Triassic clay with diaper work in vitrified brick. It was left to decay from 1739, the parkland and house bought in 1928 by Charles Bennion and entrusted to the City of Leicester.
The parkland is partly located in a small gorge. The pre-Cambrian rock which is the bedrock is the oldest in Britain. It was overlaid by Triassic clay. The R. Lin eroded the clay, encountering below the pre-Cambrian rock, cut a smaller channel, creating the small gorge - what geomorphologists call superimposed drainage. Despite its smallness, the Lin here represents all the elements of the cycle of erosion in this superimposed drainage system.
The vill of Bradgate was removed outside the park to the new site of Newtown Linford, a linear or street village along the edge of the park. Several cruck or raised cruck cottages are dispersed in this ‘new’ village.
The southern extension of the park was deer park, with the park pale still discernible on the boundary with the adjacent parish of Anstey.
The video clips are designed to illustrate all these features.
1 The small gorge at the Linford entry to the park
2 The deer park on the south bank of the Lin
5 The end of the gorge, opening out of the park and house in the distance
6 One of the many exposed outcrops of pre-Cambrian rock
[Copyleft - i.e. copyright-free]
Be sure to check out his other videos!
[July 1 - corrected quoted email to read "Thomas Grey ... grandfather of Lady Jane Grey"]
This was sent to me by Councillor Fletcher. Sounds like a neat idea!
27 June 2008
Henry VIII’s flagship to sail again?
Heritage plans set out by Conservative Councillor
Henry the Eighth’s great flagship could sail again from Woolwich if an idea set out this week gets enough support. Greenwich Councillor Nigel Fletcher made the suggestion at a meeting of Greenwich Council during a debate on the Borough’s heritage.
Cllr. Fletcher, who is Greenwich Conservatives’ spokesman for Culture, had tabled a motion calling on the Council to draw up plans to celebrate the rich history of the Borough of Greenwich, and in particular to devise plans to mark properly the 500th anniversary of the accession of Henry VIII, who came to the throne in 1509. In an unusual move, the ruling Labour Group on the Council agreed to support the Conservative motion, which then passed unanimously. During the debate, Cllr Fletcher suggested the possibility of rebuilding the Tudor warship ‘Henri Grace a Dieu’ , which was launched at Woolwich in 1514 and was popularly known as ‘The Great Harry.
Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Fletcher said:
‘I think an idea like this could make a real positive contribution to the life of our Borough, and I hope people will support it. It would tie together all the various elements of our history: the Royal heritage and maritime tradition, but also the history of the people of the borough. The Royal Dockyard at Woolwich was founded for the building of the Great Harry, so 500 years on I think it would be a fitting way to mark the regeneration of the area today.
‘Businesses and private donors could help raise the finance to build the ship, whilst trade apprentices could benefit from helping with the design and building. It could showcase local arts and crafts, and schoolchildren could be involved in projects to learn about it during the process. When it’s finished, it could be used as a sail training vessel, helping disadvantaged young people and others to learn new skills and work together in a team - there are many charities which do amazing work turning round young lives with such activities.
‘Beyond all that, we would have a great asset we could take pride in and celebrate, in time for the anniversary of the launch of the original ship in 2014. Income from tourists and corporate functions would be able to support its charitable work, and it would be great to have a fully sailing flagship for Woolwich to complement the much-loved Cutty Sark at Greenwich, and add to our heritage offer by bringing alive the Tudor period.’
Anyone wishing to register their support or interest is asked to contact Cllr. Fletcher directly at nigel@nigelfletcher.org
Here’s just a taste:
From The Times Online:
The Tudors” and “the Tudor Age” are among the staples of English history. How can we do without them? Not only are the monarchs themselves referred to, individually and collectively – in books, articles, plays, films, television series and exhibitions – by their patronymic, but their subjects become “Tudor men and women”. In fifty years of studying sixteenth-century England, it did not occur to me to question the convention. Nor, apparently, did it occur to other historians. But how much was the “Tudor” word used at the time? Did the monarchs from Henry VII to Elizabeth I think of themselves as a “Tudor dynasty”? Did their subjects think of themselves as “Tudor people” living in “Tudor England”?
