Entrance to Hampton Court Palace. Photo June 2000.
This view looked a lot different today – and not just the gorgeous blue sky! This was the setting for the start and medal ceremonies for the Olympic cycling time trial events today, which I watched on an internet stream. There were some great aerial shots of the Palace and gardens, really showing off the area’s beauty.
Time for another round-up of upcoming books (no events or exhibitions this month) – only two this time since a couple of books I originally had down for coming out in August have been moved back.
First up on August 7 in the UK and the US, Susan Ronald’s Heretic Queen: Queen Elizabeth I and the Wars of Religion
And second is The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I by Stephen Alford, which is out August 30 in the UK but not until November 13 in the US.
* Chance to get involved in Woking Palace history dig – A free ‘Dig for a Day’ scheme will be run at the monument in Carters Lane, Old Woking, with heritage teams on site from September 13 until the end of the month and the weekends open to let the community try their hand at archaeology. (Sounds like fun!)
* Wolsey’s Gate in Ipswich covered in graffiti – A piece of Tudor Ipswich, built by Henry VIII’s chancellor, has been covered in graffiti. (I will never understand people who vandalize…)
And finally, on a lighter note, the Olympic Torch and the Hampton Court maze –
Winding stairs inside the Great Keep of Pembroke Castle. Photo May 2003.
Since a lot of stuff piled up while I was traveling for work (and then recovering from a cold I brought back with me) there will be a lot of links today!
There were several articles about the discovery of medieval underwear in an Austrian castle last week. The items are of interest since they show that these types of undergarments are older than had been generally thought.
* Discovered in a castle vault, the scraps of lace that show lingerie was all the rage 500 years ago – From The Daily Mail
* Medieval lingerie – From History Extra
* Medieval lingerie from Lengberg Castle, East-Tyrol – From Universit
Moat and outer wall of Beaumaris Castle on the Isle of Anglesey in north Wales. Photo May 2000.
The Tudor connection is a little bit of a stretch, although not *too* much since Beaumaris is near (or maybe was part of?) the Tudor ancestral lands in north Wales. But this is one of my favorite photos from my visit there, so I had to use it eventually.
I’ll be headed out to our observatory in west Texas for a few days and while I should have good internet access, I don’t think I’m going to have a whole lot of time to spend on the computer! So apologies in advance for any delays in approving blog comments and the lack of posts until early next week.
Stained glass window of Miles Coverdale, Lady Jane Grey, and John Lord Chandos in St. Mary’s Chapel at Sudeley Castle. Photo May 1998.
Only two items this week, but I especially wanted to make sure the second one got posted!
* WEYMOUTH: Henry VIII’s castle is open to the public once again – Henry VIII
The Mound of Warwick Castle. Photo 1998.
Well, sort of, by one way of counting.
On July 1, 1997, I launched the stand-alone version of this site, which had previously been part of my personal homepage for a couple of years. As more and more people were contacting me about that part of my homepage, it became obvious that it was time to split it off into its own site. I moved everything to tudor.simplenet.com and re-routed all the traffic from the cumbersome address I had on the webserver at work (which was actually running on the desktop machine I was working on!). Three years later I bought tudorhistory.org and moved everything again, and that is where it has been ever since.
For grins, here is a screen cap of the site as it looked before I moved it off the old server:
(I’m still not sure why the first version of the vine had all-red flowers and not a proper red-and-white Tudor rose! Later I changed it from this four-petal version you see here to a better five-petal one.)
And here’s a link to the archive post on the blog from the move: Archive post: What’s New July 1997.
(This is one of the posts that I migrated over from the “What’s New?” and “Tudor News and Events” pages I used to run before I moved it over to a real blogging platform in March 2005.)
And while I’m at it, here’s a short update of what I’m working on at the moment: Some of you might have noticed that some of the pages have been (slowly) switching over to a slightly different design. I needed to update some of the search box code, so I took it as an opportunity to tweak a few things. I’m still slogging through the Glossaries and Who’s Who sections (which have the most pages to update) but I should have it finished by the end of the summer. Once that is done I’ll get back to working on adding more real content! I have a lot of research on title holders (church, nobility and government) and I’ve been compiling a portrait database for ages and am working on a good way to get that info on to the site. I’m also working on getting more illustrations and entries into the glossaries section. And of course, for everything I update I think of about 10 other things I want to do! As anyone who has developed and run a website knows, it is never truly “complete”.
Thanks for indulging me in this little trip down memory lane. 🙂
Time for another monthly round-up of upcoming events! Feels like I was just doing the last one…
Books
* David Loades’ Mary Rose, which came out in May in the UK, is still listed as due in July in the US. No specific date is listed on Amazon though. The US Kindle edition is available now.
* Maria Hayward is coming out with another great inventory work that she has edited, and this time it is actually relatively reasonably priced! (I still would like to find a copy of some of her other works like Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII for under $100!). This one is The Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII and is due out on July 19 in both the US and UK.
Events
Eastbury Manor House (which I mentioned back in March) will be having a Tudor Games day on July 7 as part of the Cultural Olympiad.
On Saturday 7th July 10.00 -16.00 Eastbury Manor House welcomes you to join us in a day of Tudor sports and pastimes as part of the celebration of the Cultural Olympiad.
There will be birds of prey to stroke, archery to watch and try, craft activities and some small Tudor games inside the house. A family ticket only costs
Leeds Castle peeking over the trees, on the path from the car park to the entrance. Photo May 2003.
* 16th century French queen’s pin found in toilet – A hairpin belonging to 16th century French Queen Catherine de Medici has been discovered at a royal residence outside Paris. What has conservators scratching their heads is exactly where it was found: down a communal toilet.
Stained glass window in the Chapter House of Canterbury Cathedral. Photo May 2003
You’ll notice Henry VIII second from left on the bottom row.
Wider view of the astronomical clock at Hampton Court Palace. Photo June 2000.
I featured a closer view way back in Picture of the Week #7.
* The remains of The Curtain have been found in London – here are several articles about the find:
Shakespeare’s Curtain theatre unearthed in east London
Shakespeare’s Curtain Theatre remains found (with video)
Does the rediscovery of Shakespeare’s Curtain theatre matter? Absolutely
* Mary Rose sailors ate diet of salt beef and biscuits, bone analysis shows
* Thomas Cromwell letter to Henry VIII before Anne of Cleves marriage discovered
* Woking Palace attacked by arsonists for a second time – During the Tudor period, Woking Palace was an important residence. Henry VIII spent considerable sums of money on Woking during his reign.
* Fort on St Catherine’s Island, Tenby, could reopen as visitor attraction – Once owned by Henry VII’s uncle Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, the island was sold by Tenby Corporation to the War Office in the 1860s to house a fort.
* Alice Simpson’s artist book The Dancing Chancellor about Sir Christopher Hatton is complete and now for sale. I’ve been exchanging emails with the artist for years and it is wonderful to see the final product. It’s gorgeous!
And finally, a humorous video for your enjoyment:
Sunny day at the Tower of London with the Bloody Tower in the center and the top of Tower Bridge off to the left in the background. Photo May 1998.
Sorry that I’m a little late on the June round-up, I’ve been really busy and things got away from me!
Several books that have already been out in one place are now out in others, including Catherine Fletcher’s Our Man in Rome which is published as The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican in the US and will be out June 19. I have a review copy of the book but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet (I’m still working on another review book!). Also, Patrick Williams’ Catherine of Aragon: A Life has been out for a while in the US and is now out in the UK.
David Loades’ Mary Rose about Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk, came out a few weeks early and is now out in the UK. It is due in July in the US.
Next up is Tudor Survivor: The Life and Times of William Paulet by Margaret Scard. I thought I had posted about this when the hardback came out but I didn’t see it, so here are links for the paperback:
Several more volumes of the “Queenship and Power” series are out soon:
A Monarchy of Letters: Royal Correspondence and English Diplomacy in the Reign of Elizabeth I by Rayne Allinson
Mary I: Gender, Power and Ceremony in the Reign of England’s First Queen by Sarah Duncan
And finally The Last Plantagenet Consorts: Gender, Genre, and Historiography, 1440-1627 by Kavita Mudan Finn:
In the fiction arena…
Alison Weir’s A Dangerous Inheritance about Katherine Grey is out on June 21 in the UK and will be out in October in the US.
And Susan Higginbotham’s Her Highness, The Traitor about Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland and Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk is out in the US and will be out at the end of the month in the UK.
Exhibitions
Double Take: Versions and Copies of Tudor Portraits will run at the National Portrait Gallery, London from June 26 to September 9.
From the website:
This display brings together five pairs of near identical portraits in order to explore how and why multiple versions and copies of portraits were made in the sixteenth century. Portraits of prominent Tudor sitters from the Gallery
