Image credit: Christie’s Images Ltd 2010.
From artdaily:
LONDON.- Christie
* Bosworth Battlefield Anniversary Re-enactment at the Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre and Country Park on August 21 and 22nd. Also, if you are descended from someone who fought at the Battle of Bosworth, the Centre wants to hear from you! Here’s an article about the search for descendants: Visitor Centre curators in search to locate descendants of men from the Battle of Bosworth, as well as this article with the headline that seems to imply they only want people from Richard III’s side, even though the article explains further: Did your ancestors fight for Richard III?
[Added August 9 – Here’s another article on this that I had to add. Apparently someone at BBC Leicester thinks “ancestor” and “descendant” are interchangeable terms: Search for ancestors of Battle of Bosworth soldiers]
[Updated August 10 – The BBC article has now been corrected.]
* An update on the development plans for Westminster Abbey that I blogged about back in 2009. Unfortunately they will not be going ahead with the plan to add a corona to the Abbey at this time but they will be finishing the new cafe and the plans to open the Triforium (which I’m really looking forward to seeing one day!).
* An interesting article from the Guardian about accuracy in historical fiction: The lying art of historical fiction
* Little Miss Sunnydale has posted a neat Mary I themed tour of London on her Mary Tudor: Renaissance Queen blog
* And finally, Philippa Gregory’s latest novel, The Red Queen came out last week in the US and will be out in a couple of weeks in the UK. It continues her look at the Wars of the Roses, this time from the perspective of Margaret Beaufort. I haven’t read any of Gregory’s books, but I’m tempted to pick this up since Margaret is one of my Tudor interests and I’m curious to see how she fares in the author’s hands, especially since she hasn’t been featured very often in fiction. Standard Amazon links below:
Here are several things that stacked up during my very busy week!
* Turkey presents Ottoman Sultan’s letter to Elizabeth I to UK
* Cash boost to restore Tudor dynasty church on Anglesey (This is the church that I’ve blogged about before here and here.)
* Restoration work at Stirling castle on Youtube – and here’s a link to the YouTube channel for Historic Scotland. The project is restoring parts of the castle to their appearance in the 1540s.
* A new website from the UK National Archives: legislation.gov.uk launched last week.
* Giant maze to open in Trafalgar Square – the hedge maze will be in the Square from August 2 to 6.
* And finally – the fourth and final season of The Tudors will be out on DVD in October in the US (I haven’t heard a UK release date yet, but I’ll update when I find out). Here’s a pre-order link through my Amazon affiliate account for anyone so inclined. 🙂
* The dig at Shakespeare’s New Place that I’ve mentioned previously has a website where you can follow the excavation and see what they’ve been finding: http://www.digforshakespeare.com/
* Little Miss Sunnydale has posted photos from a visit to Ludlow Castle, along with information on Princess Mary’s time there.
* Gareth Russell has been blogging the fall of Anne Boleyn as it happened in 1536.
The posts so far:
May 1st, 1536: May Day and May 2nd, 1536: The Queen’s Arrest
A few more links that I hadn’t gotten around to posting yet:
The UK National Archives has a page on Flickr which includes, among other interesting images, the infamous “Culpepper Letter” of Kathryn Howard.
Last But Not Least: The Enduring Fascination of Katherine Parr – Guest post by Linda Porter for The Anne Boleyn Files
Leith restages its biggest ever drama 450 years on
London museums: four new openings – including the opening of Discover Greenwich which among other things, will have some displays on and artifacts from the Tudor palace.
I guess I’m sort of debuting a new blog feature in this post. I’ve done news round-up/catch-up posts in the past, but I thought I would give them an official name. Sometimes they might be “Saturday short takes” instead, but they will probably always be one of the weekend days since that’s when I have time and both Saturday and Sunday start with “s” and I get to use an alliterative title. 🙂
* You Tube video of the commemoration service for Catherine of Aragon at Peterborough Cathedral. I never got around to posting about this year’s event, but here is a link to a past post about it.
* Rosary from the Mary Rose featured at the BBC’s A History of the World
* Reconstructed face from the Mary Rose goes on display (BBC article). This is the reconstruction that I linked to an article about last March. Additional articles from the Times Online and The Telegraph
* Stirling Castle carvings will be on display at the castle until Feb. 21 (BBC article). This is a continuation of the project that I’ve blogged about a few times (most recently here). The carvings will soon be painted and put in place as part of the project to reconstruct the renaissance royal palace inside the castle. You can learn more at the official Stirling Castle website
* Snack food of Shakespearean theater-goers (Discovery News article). I’m not a fan of seafood but the nuts and dried fruit sounds good. I’ll probably stick with popcorn and Junior Mints though.
* Help Romeo collect flowers for Juliet (appropriate for Valentine’s Day!) in the Shakespeare Game from Shakespeare Country Tourism
Because it’s getting late and I’m tired, here are the other three things I wanted to post tonight, all in one post:
* Alison Weir, Arguing the Case for Anne Boleyn – Interview and book excerpt at NPR
* The British Library’s new Timelines: Sources from History – Neat timelines with document images, and the few that I looked at included links where you could print or download a PDF of the documents.
* Middle Temple Hall launched a new website with some cool virtual tours. The Hall is one of the Inns of Court and was constructed between 1563 and 1572. It was also the site of the first performance of Twelfth Night in 1602.
This is very cool! I first saw mention of this collaboration in this Birmingham Post article:
Solihull National Trust property added to Google street view
It was a case of try before you buy but now you can see before going.
Baddesley Clinton, near Solihull, is one of the newest National Trust properties which has been added to Google Street View, available through Google Maps.
The atmospheric house dates from 15th century and visitors can discover the priest
I know this is already old news, but I still wanted to post about it.
The new Medieval and Renaissance Galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London opened last week. Here’s a video and article from the Guardian.
And here’s a link to the page for the new galleries at the V&A website.
Yet another interesting property up for sale to add to the list that I’ve blogged about. It’s probably a good thing I don’t have a ton of money, since I’d never be able to decide what place to buy! 🙂
From the BBC:
Henry VIII’s love nest for sale
A property where newlywed Henry VIII stayed with his second wife Anne Boleyn has gone on the market after being rebuilt from a state of near collapse
The gatehouse on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent is all that remains of Shurland Hall, the Tudor palace owned by a courtier of the King, Thomas Cheyney.
It was probably built especially for Henry and Anne’s visit, when the King spent three days hunting.
The Spitalfields Trust has restored it and put it up for sale for
The exhibition that I mentioned in this post from August is now open. Here is the website for the Elmbridge Museum, which is hosting the exhibition.
Here’s an excerpt from an article in the Surrey Comet about the exhibition:
Oatlands Underfoot: Stones and Stories From a Forgotten Palace, was opened on September 26 by the mayor of Elmbridge, Councillor James Vickers.
It reveals the story of Oatlands Palace, which was built by Henry VIII and once stood near the centre of Weybridge.
Coun Vickers said:
I’ve posted about this ongoing investigation a few times in the past and I’m not too surprised that it is now looking like the traditional site for the battle is incorrect. Some of the early results were pointing in that direction. I’m looking forward to reading the final report!
From The Telegraph:
For hundreds of years history followers have visited Ambion Hill in Leicestershire, believing it to be the site of the Battle of Bosworth, which marked the end of the War of the Roses and the beginning of the reign of the Tudors.
… Richard Knox, curator of Bosworth Battlefield, said it was now likely that the proper site was on low-lying ground between the villages of Shenton, Stoke Golding and Dadlington, first proposed by the historian Peter Foss in 1990.
The key to the mystery is likely to be finding the former marshland that Henry is said to have used to his advantage to attack the vastly larger army of his enemy from the flanks.
Investigations there have found ancient names given to the area such as Fenn Hole and Fenn Meadow, and a team is currently scouring the area with metal detectors.
Mr Knox said:
Yeah, it’s time for another catch-up post since I’ve been busy and I wasn’t feeling well for a few days, which is always a bad combination for productivity!
* Leanda deLisle has an article in the September issue The New Criterion entitled Faking Jane about the Spinola letter which purported to have an eyewitness description of Lady Jane Grey. Some of you might be able to access it through libraries, but you can also buy the individual article for $3. There has also been some discussion of the article over on the Q&A blog.
* Dame Judi Dench is looking to recreate The Rose theater in the north of England with the set from Shakespeare in Love. I think I had a news article about her saving the set back in the pre-blog days, but it apparently didn’t make it over when I switched from the old “News and Events” page to the blog.
* A rare Elizabethan hammerbeam roof in a barn at Westenhanger Castle has been restored by English Hertiage.
* And finally – a neat story from The Telegraph about How two Tudor lion statues came home to Hampton Court. Many years ago someone sent me some photos of some similar statues that they were looking for more information on and unfortunately now I can’t find the email or photos. I had to go through and clear out a lot of that stuff at one point so I might have deleted them. But it makes me wonder how many other things like this are still out there waiting to be found!
Because several articles have stacked up and I don’t want to make these in to separate posts, here’s a quick round up:
** Henry VIII talks from the Historic Royal Palaces (podcasts)
** Mary Rose 500 – a final fundraising appeal from the Mary Rose Trust and info on how you can “join the crew” by helping to raise money for the new museum
** From The Surrey Comet:
Elmbridge Museum holds exhibition on Oatlands Palace
Elmbridge Museum is holding an exhibition starting next month on the now destroyed Oatlands Palace in Weybridge.
The museum, which is based in Church Street, Weybridge, is holding the exhibition called Oatlands Underfoot: Stones and Stories from a Forgotten Palace, which will attempt to bring to life one of Henry VIII
From The Times Online:
St Paul
From The Gazette:
A TUDOR house where Henry VIII once stayed has opened to the public for the summer season.
Acton Court, in Iron Acton, is open for 60 days until August 23 for guided tours and a programme of special events.
Lisa Kopper, resident artist and manager of the house, said: “We are open every day except Monday and when special events are planned so people can just turn up for tours or call us to make sure.”
The house offers rare examples of 16th century royal d
BBC News video:
Additional articles:
The Guardian: Kenilworth Castle garden reopens
The Independent: Recreated, the Tudor garden where an ambitious earl wooed the Virgin Queen
From the BBC:
Images from Scotland’s national collections are available online for the first time.
The photographs, many of which are previously unpublished, can now be downloaded for licensed use.
The images on www.scotlandsimages.com are from the National Archives of Scotland and other collections.
Culture Minister Linda Fabiani said: “I’m delighted that our unique National Collections which capture so much of our nation’s story, are now available.”
She added: “The new website features images ranging from people, places and objects, to maps, plans, drawings and iconic documents offering a remarkable illustration of the life, history and culture of Scotland and the wider world.”
From Worcester News:
Worcester Cathedral is to be given
