Category: Site Updates and News

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.

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. 🙂

I know it’s silly to keep marking these anniversaries but I just can’t help it. 🙂

On March 14, 2005 I took the plunge into the blogging world and replaced the old “What’s New” and “Tudor News and Events” page with a proper blog.

On a related note, I was looking back over some old records for a project I’m assisting on and was trying to figure out what date to use as the anniversary for the site as a whole. Some parts of the site actually date back to 1995 when it was part of my personal homepage for a while before it split off into what it is now. So I have mostly settled on July 1, 1997 since that was when I moved everything over to a dedicated for-pay webhost with it’s own URL (I bought the domain name three years later). So, I guess that means that I’ll be reaching 15 years this summer!

It’s that time again! This is the fourth year that I’ve gone through all of the questions that came in to the Q&A blog the previous year and pulled together some general info on popular topics.

The number of questions that came in were roughly similar to 2010 (about 250, most posted but some answered directly by me), although posts really slowed down in the second half of the year. I’m guessing it was a combination of the end of “The Tudors” in the various countries it was still airing in, that a lot of people’s questions had already been asked, and that other Tudor history blogs have also started taking questions (which is great – the more the merrier!). Comments still come in on older posts too, which indicates to me that people are still interested in some of the topics that have already been covered.

General observations – people weren’t quite as morbid in 2011 and there weren’t as many questions about death, burials, bodies, etc. There were still a few questions that came along on those topics, but it seemed to be down from previous years.

The wives of Henry VIII and their families were still very popular. I think the Boleyns still had the most questions, but it wasn’t as much of a landslide as previous years and was more evenly spread out.

There were quite a few questions about specific people beyond the monarchs and the Six Wives. Questions on Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I were overshadowed by their father, who I think got the most specific questions (both about him and what life was like in his reign). There were a few more about the earlier Tudors – Henry VII, Elizabeth of York and Margaret Beaufort in particular. I’m guessing this has to do with novels about the end of the Wars of the Roses that have come out recently.

The rest were a hodge-podge, including county history, primary sources, modern connections, PhD and higher education studies and book recommendations.

The biggest overall trend that I noticed were a lot of questions that started with “I’ve read that…” but often didn’t have a reference to a specific author or work. I’m kind of frustrated by that, although I understand that a lot of people read lots of books on the Tudors (or may have read it a long time ago) and don’t have the reference at hand. Still, it would be nice to know where some of these questions are coming from.

That’s it for this year! It will be interesting to see what 2012 brings. You can see last year’s round-up here (along with links to the two previous).

Three months have gone by, so it’s time to rotate the blog header! As I’m sure at least some of you will recognize, this new one is from the Field of the Cloth of Gold (painted c. 1545, although the event itself occurred in 1520).

Sorry there haven’t been a lot of posts here over the holidays! I had intended to do at least one news round-up over the break but the hard drive on my main computer at home finally cratered (thankfully it was under warranty and I had a full back-up) and although I love my little, fast laptop, it really doesn’t have the screen real estate for the way I do my news posts. And of course any hopes of continuing to re-do and update pages on the static part of the site was out of the question since all of my design software is on the desktop. But, enough of my technological woes…

I expect the first six weeks of 2012 to be pretty busy, so I don’t know that I’ll be able to do a whole lot more blogging than what you’ve all probably become accustomed to, but hopefully after mid-February I’ll have more time. (For anyone who is curious – the next six weeks include the American Astronomical Society meeting, the start of the academic semester, our annual board meeting and doing some much-needed maintenance on the telescopes I oversee at work, which didn’t get done in December due to poor weather. So that means most of January and the first half of February will probably be a big blur.) My plans for 2012 include more writing on lots of things – Tudor and non-Tudor – and I really hope this is a resolution I’ll be able to keep!

Best wishes for 2012 everyone!

Just wanted to post a short note apologizing if anyone has had trouble accessing the blog today. I was messing around with some stuff “under the hood” and it made the WordPress database hiccup a little. Everything seems to be working okay now, but let me know if there are any problems. There is a small chance it will do it again while I’m playing around with stuff, but if there is any downtime it shouldn’t be for more than half an hour.

Thanks for your patience!

When I debuted the new blog header a few months ago I mentioned that I had put four together initially and would change them periodically. So I thought while I was off for a four-day-weekend I would switch it out to a new one. This new one is a slice from a painting of Richmond Palace and the Thames from the early 17th century by an unknown artist. It is currently in The Fitzwilliam Museum at The University of Cambridge.

I’ve gotten some great questions through email and blog comments but if you still have something you want to ask Sandra there is still time! I meant to close off questions last weekend but since I didn’t post a reminder I’m extending it another week. So if you still have something you want to ask, put it in the comments on this thread: http://tudorhistory.org/blog/2011/03/15/questions-for-sandra-worth-again/ or send me an email at lara@tudorhistory.org.

I still have a lot of catching up to do – life has been a big blur since the start of March, but I’m taking off this week since it’s spring break and will try to catch up. But before I forget, I wanted to mention that this is the sixth anniversary of the start of this blog as an actual blog (it was just a manually updated “News and Events” page before that, going back to 1997). As I always say, thanks so much to the readers and commenters! I’m sorry that I don’t have the output of a lot of other sites, at least not lately, and that I can’t always reply to comments. But I do really appreciate everyone who stops by, whether they leave a comment or not.

Thanks again everyone!

Yes, once again I’ve gone through all of last year’s emails for the Q&A Blog (including both the posted questions and ones I answered directly) and have looked for trends and themes.

The overall number of questions was down from last year – 250 for 2010 compared to 465 in 2009. Some of this may have had to do with “The Tudors” ending its run in the US in the first half of the year and the 4th season not airing in the UK until 2011. It also could be that more people are searching through the archives and finding that their questions had already been answered.

So, the data:

– Anne Boleyn and her family still lead the pack for the people who have been asked about the most. I think some of the topics of interest in Anne and her family have changed somewhat and in the case of Anne, more were about her life than her death. Although her death and burial was definitely still a topic of interest! And her daughter, Elizabeth I, is probably the most asked about of the monarchs.

– I think Catherine of Aragon came in a close second for number of questions. I’m not sure if that is up from previous years, but if it is, it might be due in part to the new biography of her by Giles Tremlett. The rest of the wives were asked about as well, of course, but not as much as #1 and #2. (I think Anne of Cleves would rank third in questions about the wives.)

– There seemed to be an increase in people looking for primary sources, which is a great thing. And there were still quite a few people trying to find out the truth behind some of the fictional portrayals of the Tudors (the TV series, movies and novels all included), as well as looking for recommendations of accurate non-fiction books and verification of quotes. I would also group into this section people looking for information for novels (authenticity of names and name choices cropped up a fair amount), as well as ideas for dissertations and school projects.

– There is still a sustained interest in illegitimate children of Henry VIII (and at least one question about children of Elizabeth I, as well as bastards of queens in general)

– Some of the pre-Henry VIII Tudors have gotten some attention lately, which pleases me since some of my interests fall in that area. There were a few questions about Margaret Beaufort, although I had expected more with Philippa Gregory’s new novel about her.

– Outside of the Kings and Queens, Thomas Cromwell seems to be leading in questions, probably due to “Wolf Hall” and “The Tudors”. Charles Brandon cropped up a few times as well (in part, I’m sure, because of his portrayal by the hunky Henry Cavill on “The Tudors”). Thomas Wolsey got a few questions too.

– Executions were still a popular topic, in terms of customs, techniques and treatment of remains.

– Medicine, health and daily life (hygiene and cleanliness in particular) cropped up a fair amount as well.

– Places to visit and information on the layouts of great houses, castles and palaces were popular last year.

– In a broad sense, there were a number of questions about the nobility, ladies in waiting, royal and noble households and forms of address. I think that some of these, as well as the questions about the layouts of palaces, were for people writing novels, but the questions weren’t always explicitly stated as such.

– And finally, I have to mention what is probably the single most-asked question since I’ve started running the site – “What happened to Mary Seymour, daughter of Katherine Parr?”. For a child who probably died very young she has garnered a lot of interest and I love the fact that we’re still wondering about her over 450 years after her birth.

Previous round-ups:
http://tudorhistory.org/blog/2009/01/08/frequently-asked-questions/
http://tudorhistory.org/blog/2010/01/18/frequently-asked-questions-2009-edition/

It looks like everything made it over okay, although I still need to make some tweaks. The header temporary until I can work up something a bit fancier.

Just wanted to give everyone a warning that I’m going to be doing some work on this blog today to try to fix some problems “under the hood”. If all goes well, it will be back up in under an hour and everything will be fine, although it will probably look different since I’m going to use that as a chance to upgrade to a more modern theme that will be easier for me to add new features to.

Catch you on the flip side!

Long-time visitors to the site might remember the Christmas cards that I used to post a link to on the homepage but now blog seems the more appropriate place. I recycled one from about 10 years ago (be thankful that I didn’t post the Tudor family one yet AGAIN), so here it is! Click for a larger version.

While I was checking my calendar to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything that needed to get done this weekend (besides losing an hour of sleep – blargh…) I noticed it was the 5th birthday of this blog! A blog-like thing existed on the site from 1997 (hence the “archive posts”), but I moved to an official blog 5 years ago. I still wonder what took me to long to see that it was the obvious things to replace the old “news and events” page with!

And just a little personal update – I know I have been really spotty with stuff lately (in particular the last two weeks) but I should be able to get back on top of thing soon. I was really busy at work two weeks ago and then had to work last Saturday, which of course meant that it was even harder to catch up. And then last week I was at a science meeting for four days, so not much was done during that either. But this upcoming week is Spring Break here and I’m taking it off to decompress, catch up and of course enjoy some of the craziness that explodes in my hometown this time of the year. (One of these years I’m going to be able to afford to get a badge and attend everything! I usually only end up at the public and free events.)

Oh, and totally off topic – Happy Pi Day and Happy Birthday to Albert Einstein. 🙂

I had fun doing the 2008 tally of the most common themes in the questions submitted to the Q&A blog, so I thought I would do it again with the 2009 submissions.

The total number of submission emails that I still had in my saved box from 2009 was 465, although not all of those ended up posted to the blog.

Anne Boleyn, once again, was Queen (if you’ll pardon the pun) of the Q&A blog with inquiries into every part of her life and death. The rest of her family cropped up quite a bit too, although I don’t think quite as much as they did in 2008. I think a lot of the interest continues to come from people watching and reading fiction about Anne, Mary, Jane (Parker/Boleyn/Rochford), George and their parents. The rest of the wives also cropped up a bit, but even combined I don’t think they got close to Anne!

Although there were still questions on the subject, the interest in possible mistresses and bastards of Henry VIII seems to have fallen off from 2008 and earlier. The Greys (of course Jane in particular) were asked about a bit and Mary I seems to have come up more, perhaps because of her character on “The Tudors”?

One thing that struck me were a large number of questions related to tangible items of the Tudors that still survive, be it buildings, personal and household items, portraits, modern descendants, fashion and jewelry and above all – tombs, graves and remains. I don’t know if we’re just a morbid lot or what, but graves and bones were very popular topics last year! Kind of related to the bones and bodies was an interest in medical issues, both physical and psychological. Trying to diagnose long-dead people with certain diseases (of the body or mind) is difficult at best, but I have to admit that the speculation is kind of fun.

A lot of questions had to do with the factual basis of fictional representations of the Tudors (tv, books, movies) and how reliable some non-fiction works are. With regards to the fiction, it’s great to see people wanting to dig deeper into the real history.

And finally, I’m guessing that a lot of teachers were doing Tudor crime and punishment this year since that showed up a fair amount and was almost always for a school project.

I’m looking forward to seeing what questions 2010 brings!

That’s what I get for putting off some of those maintenance tasks so long! I keep thinking I have another batch of links to add somewhere, so there might be a few more up soon.

And, if anyone I had a link to had a Geocities site that went away when it closed last year, would you please send me the new links? I tried to track down a few of them but was unsuccessful. Drop me an email at lara@tudorhistory.org (you can also try leaving a link in the comments but sometimes those get tagged as spam and I don’t always catch the things incorrectly tagged). Thanks!