The UK National Archives has an on-line exhibition for the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s accession to the throne: Henry VIII – Power, Passion, Parchment. The exhibition features some documents that you can zoom in on and examine up close.
And here is an article from the Telegraph on the exhibition – Salacious claims of Anne Boleyn’s incest in Henry VIII documents placed online
AP photo
This is pretty cool… I can have both a history and tech geek-out!
From The Telegraph:
Scientists have managed to “virtually restore” the faded hues of his 28ft long tapestry using coloured light beams.
The Manchester University researchers looked at the back of the heavy wool and silk tapestry, which has been less affected by sunlight, to gauge what the original colours might have been.
They then measured the colour of every yarn on the front and used computer software to calculate how much of the original pigments of woad (blue), weld (yellow) and madder (red) had been lost.
High-definition projectors have now been used to beam two million pixels of different coloured light on to the tapestry.
Also check out the BBC story, with videos
The book for Henry VIII: Man and Monarch at the British Library will be released next week in the UK.
Here are the Amazon.co.uk order links (paperback and hardcover):
And the US order link (I think they will just be sending it from the UK, since it doesn’t look like there is specifically a US edition at this time):
The Queens Garden, one of the many lovely gardens at Sudeley Castle. May 1998.
The Banqueting Hall ruins can be seen to the right.
Hampton Court Palace‘s 500th anniversary events will start this Friday, and there is a lot going on!
Here are some highlights:
The Henry VIII talks at Hampton Court Palace
And of course, I have to link to the shopping. Here’s the web store for the Historic Royal Palaces – I love the “Divorced, Beheaded, Survived” charm bracelet. There is also a neat one with each of the wives’ badges.
This just goes to show you how many things may still be hiding in archives, libraries, attics, etc.
From The Guardian:
A drawing of Henry VIII’s famous victory over the French at the “Siege of Boulogne” in 1544 is to go on public display for the first time in more than 400 years after lying undiscovered and mislabelled in the British Library archives.
The image, drawn by a “war artist” commissioned to record the Tudor king’s military achievements, dates to 1545 and is one of four “views” documenting Henry’s second invasion of France.
For centuries art historians have pondered why there was never a final picture showing the surrender of the city. Just three drawings survived, one showing Henry landing in Calais, another of him on the way to Boulogne, and a third of the siege in progress.
“Everybody just assumed that the end of the siege had not been done,” Peter Barber, head of map collections at the British Library, told the Observer. But due to a cataloguing error the existence of a fourth drawing had gone unnoticed. It only came to light when Barber began re-cataloguing the manuscripts of Sir Robert Cotton, which had been left to the nation by his grandson, Sir John Cotton, in 1702 and passed to the British Museum on its founding in 1753.
The drawing will be on display at the British Library’s “Henry VIII: Man and Monarch” exhibition
Showtime has created a fun, tongue-in-cheek blog for “The Tudors” – Pop Tudors – History, recapped. No spoilers.
I particularly like the flowchart for 16th century marital dispute resolution. 🙂
Newly-discovered portrait by Matt Groening the Elder
[Yes, I know it’s lame to use something that I did a long time ago, but I didn’t have a chance to Photoshop something new for April Fools’ Day!]
