Category: Tudor History news and events

Welcome to August, the month that *should* mark the end of summer, but I live in a Texas and summer can stretch all the way into October some years. (I can’t complain too much this year though, we’ve caught a bit of a break over some of the recent summer hellscapes we’ve had.)

Books

This month we have a couple of books coming out in the US that were previously released in the UK – first up is Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens, the companion to the current exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (see below), which will be released in the US on August 20.

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And Courting the Virgin Queen: Queen Elizabeth I And Her Suitors by Carol Ann Lloyd will come out in the US at the end of August.

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And in new books this month, The Tragic Life of Lady Jane Grey by Beverley Adams will be out at the end of August in the UK and the end of October in the fall.

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Continuing Exhibits

The National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition, Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens opened on June 20 and runs through September 8. Click through for more information on the many related events the gallery will be hosting!

About the exhibition:

Tudor paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger and contemporary photography by Hiroshi Sugimoto meet in the National Portrait Gallery’s first exhibition of historic portraiture since reopening, presenting a study of the lives and afterlives of the six women who married Henry VIII.

Six Lives will chronicle the representation of Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr throughout history and popular culture in the centuries since they lived. As a frequent source of fascination, the stories of the six women has repeatedly inspired writers and artists of all kinds to attempt to uncover the ‘truth’ of their lives: their characters, their appearance and their relationships. From historic paintings, drawings and ephemera, to contemporary photography, costume and film, the exhibition draws upon a wealth of factual and fictional materials to present the life, legacy and portrayal of six women who forever changed the landscape of English history.

Hello June! When, in theory, things are supposed to slow down in my department at work, but in reality we all try to catch up on all the non-time-dependent things that we don’t get to through the rest of the academic year.

Books

First up in books is the US release of Tudor and Stuart Royal Gardens: Displays of Majesty by David Jacques, which was released in April in the UK.

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And in new books this month, first we have Linda Porter’s The Thistle and The Rose about the life of Margaret Tudor. Margaret is one of my Tudor interests and I’m glad to see more work on her. The book is due out on June 20 in both the UK and the US (on Kindle):

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The companion book for the upcoming National Portrait Gallery exhibit (see below), Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIIIs Queens will also be out on June 20 in the UK and later in the summer in the US:

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And finally, Courting the Virgin Queen: Queen Elizabeth I And Her Suitors by Carol Ann Lloyd will be out at the end of June in UK and the end of August in the US:

Purchase at Amazon UK

Purchase at Amazon US

New Exhibits

As mentioned above, the National Portrait Gallery have an upcoming exhibition, Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens that will open on June 20 and will run through September 8. Click through for more information on the many related events the gallery will be hosting!

About the exhibition:

Tudor paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger and contemporary photography by Hiroshi Sugimoto meet in the National Portrait Gallery’s first exhibition of historic portraiture since reopening, presenting a study of the lives and afterlives of the six women who married Henry VIII.

Six Lives will chronicle the representation of Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr throughout history and popular culture in the centuries since they lived. As a frequent source of fascination, the stories of the six women has repeatedly inspired writers and artists of all kinds to attempt to uncover the ‘truth’ of their lives: their characters, their appearance and their relationships. From historic paintings, drawings and ephemera, to contemporary photography, costume and film, the exhibition draws upon a wealth of factual and fictional materials to present the life, legacy and portrayal of six women who forever changed the landscape of English history.

Sorry this is a little late, I worked three late nights and Saturday the week before last and I just didn’t have the energy to do much last Sunday. We’re in the middle of our typical spring semester busy stretch at work, but this time with the build-up to the coming total solar eclipse tossed on top of it all!

Books

J. Stephan Edwards has revised his earlier work on the portraits of Lady Jane Grey and a new edition of his book is now out with the title Portraits of Lady Jane Grey Dudley, England’s ‘Nine Days Queen’. (Also note two upcoming talks by Dr. Edwards in the “Events” section below!)

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Melita Thomas’ ambitious 1000 Tudor People is due out in print in the UK at the end of March and is available on Kindle in the US.

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And Susan Doran has a new work out, examining the transition from the end of the Tudors into the Stuart Age: From Tudor to Stuart: The Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I. It will be out at the end of March in the UK and in the summer in the US.

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Events

As mentioned above, Dr. J. Stephan Edwards will be giving a talk at the Society of Antiquaries in London entitled Searching for a Portrait of Jane Grey Dudley, England’s ‘Nine-Days Queen’ of 1553 on April 4 at 1:00 p.m. (London time). The talk will be live streamed and archived on the Society’s YouTube channel, where you can also find many past lectures.

Dr. Edwards will give a second talk that day on Queen Jane’s Proclamation of Accession of 1553 and Gendering of the English Monarchy and you can see that talk as a live stream as well. Click on the title for more information!

Continuing Exhibitions

Holbein at the Tudor Court opened at The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace on November 10, 2023 and will run through April 23, 2024.

Hello February! I’m hoping the 2024 version of this month is a lot better than some of the more recent ones (extreme cold snaps, ice/snow storms, and power outages – multiple years, finally getting Covid – last year… etc.)

New Books

A few new Tudor-related books are due out in February and even though I don’t keep up with actually *reading* a lot of Tudor history books these days, I’m looking forward to some of these for even I do get back to history reading.

First up is a new work from Nicola Tallis on the early life of Elizabeth I, which will be released on February 29 in both the UK and the US, under slightly different titles:

Young Elizabeth: Princess, Prisoner, Queen – Purchase at Amazon UK

Young Elizabeth: Elizabeth I and Her Perilous Path to the Crown – Purchase at Amazon US

Next up is Women’s Lives in the Tudor Era by Any McElroy, which will be out in the UK at the end of February and in April in the US:

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And finally, Kateryn Parr: Henry VIII’s Sixth Queen bu Laura Adkins will also be out at the end of February in the UK and in April in the US:

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Continuing Exhibitions

Holbein at the Tudor Court opened at The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace on November 10, 2023 and will run through April 23, 2024.

Happy New Year!

I’d love to say that one of my resolutions this year is to work more on this site, but that seems unlikely for at least the first third (or thereabouts) of the year. I’m going to be incredibly busy at work since we have all of the usual spring chaos, but now with a total solar eclipse on top of it. This is the one time that being an astronomy department visiting scholars coordinator and a public outreach coordinator is the perfect storm of TOO MUCH. But I do expect to be able to keep up with the monthly round-ups and the Picture of the Week (with the possible exception of the weekend before the solar eclipse on April 8). Who knows, once that is all finished, maybe I’ll even get back to doing some news posts again one of these days!

Also, it seems that Amazon is going to stop offering the method I use to make links to individual books with cover images, so I might have to investigate some other options or change how I do these posts in the future. It’s also quite likely that all of my old book links will break soon, so that’s fun… I guess I can add it to the list of things that need to be fixed, alongside things that broke when my webhost migrated to new servers last year. Apparently they announced these changes a month ago, but I only just now discovered it when I went to do this month’s post, so I must have missed an email. (Which is weird considering I’m still getting a bunch of their other messages about another feature that they are retiring, even though I’ve never used it.)

Anyway, enough complaining… on to this month’s round-up!

Books

Kind of a light round-up to start 2024, but there are a number of things coming in future months that I’m looking forward to!

I have a couple of books that have already been released in the UK that will be out in the US this month. First up, How to Survive in Tudor England by Toni Mount, which was released in the UK in the fall and will be out at the end of January in the US:

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And the exhibition catalog for Holbein at the Tudor Court will be out on January 12 in the US after an earlier release in the UK:

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Continuing Exhibitions

Holbein at the Tudor Court opened at The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace on November 10, 2023 and will run through April 23, 2024.

Welcome to the final month of 2023! When we were suffering through that horrible summer I never thought we’d get to the cooler months of the year.

Books

This month we’ve got a few books that have be previously been released in the UK that will be out this month in the US.

First up is Gareth Russell’s The Palace: From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 Years of History at Hampton Court, which was released in the UK in the summer and will be out on December 5 in the US:

Next up is The Great Survivor at the Tudor Court: The Life and Times of Lord William Paget (US title) by Alex Anglesey, 8th Marquess of Anglesey, which will be released on December 12 in the US after an October release in the UK.

And one that I missed last month (even though I posted about the exhibit that it’s part of!) is the book Holbein at the Tudor Court, a companion to the exhibition currently on at Buckingham Palace. This one is on my wish list since there’s no way I’ll make it over to see the exhibit itself. It was released in early November in the UK and will be out in January in the US.

And finally, another one that I missed last month that was released at the end of November in both the UK and US, but is still quite seasonally appropriate – Christmas With The Tudors by James Taffe:

That’s it for books in December since I don’t have any new releases for this month on my tracking sheet. (Say it with me…. ‘that probably means I’m missing some books!’)

Continuing Exhibitions

Holbein at the Tudor Court opened at The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace on November 10, 2023 and will run through April 23, 2024.

It finally feels like autumn here in central Texas now, which makes me very, very happy. 🙂

Books

One book that I missed a couple of months ago was Crime and Punishment in Tudor England: From Alchemists to Zealots by April Taylor and it is now out in both the UK and US:

And How to Dress Like a Tudor Hardcover by Judith Arnopp is another book that was already out in the UK that may be coming out in November in the US… I have two different dates, but since I don’t have much for November I thought I’d go ahead and post it this month.

Continuing a trend… How to Survive in Tudor England by Toni Mount was released at the end of October in the UK, but I missed it since there wasn’t a release date noted when I was looking it up for last month’s book round-up. It will be out at the end of December in the US.

New Exhibition

Holbein at the Tudor Court opens at The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace on November 10, 2023 and will run through April 23, 2024.

About the exhibition from the website:

Explore the art of the image-maker of the Tudor court in this exciting new exhibition.

Hans Holbein was one of the most talented artists of the 16th century.  From his arrival in England in search of work he rose to royal favour, chosen to paint the portraits of Henry VIII, his family and leading figures, among them Anne Boleyn and Sir Thomas More. By his death, Holbein’s work was as admired by his contemporaries as it is today. His portraits inspired the next generation of artists in their depictions of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

This exhibition showcases one of the most important surviving collections of his work, and includes drawings, paintings, miniatures and book illustrations. Celebrating Holbein’s artistic skill, it explores the career of the artist and the lives of those who commissioned portraits from him, bringing us face-to-face with some of the most famous people of 16th-century England.

Continuing Exhibitions

Hever Castle has a new exhibition that debuted when it reopened for the year on February 8 – Catherine & Anne: Queens, Rivals, Mothers. Admission to the exhibition is included with tickets to the castle. There is also a companion book available which can also be purchased from the online shop.

Is it autumn yet? Almost! Not that it will actually feel like it here in Texas until late October (probably… if we’re lucky)

Books

We have a few books that were previously released in the UK that will be out in the US in September.

One that I missed a couple of months ago, Inside the Tudor Home: Daily Life in the Sixteenth Century by Bethan Watts, was released in the UK back in July and will be out in the US at the end of the month.

Next up, Children of the House of Cleves: Anna and Her Siblings by Heather R. Darsie, which came out in June in the UK, will be out on September 12 in the US.

Brigitte Webster’s Eating with the Tudors was released in July in the UK and will be out at the end of September in the US:

And in new releases this month:

John Guy and Julia Fox have a joint work Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and the Marriage That Shook Europe out in the UK on September 14 and will be released in October in the US.

Kings & Queens: 1200 Years of English and British Monarchs by Iain Dale will also be out on September 14 in the UK and I don’t have a US release date yet, but I’ll keep an eye out!

Peter K. Andersson’s Fool: In Search of Henry VIII’s Closest Man about Will Somer is out on September 19 in both the UK and US. I have a review PDF of this one but I’m pretty sure there is no way I’ll have time to read it until at least winter break… But I’m looking forward to digging into it when I get a chance.

Heirs of Ambition: The Making of the Boleyns by Claire Martin will be out at the end of September in the UK and I don’t have a US release date for this one at the moment either. But I’ll keep it on my tracking spreadsheet and post when I find a US date.

And finally – September is a busy month for book releases! – How to Dress Like a Tudor by Judith Arnopp will be out at the end of September in the UK and the end of November in the US:

Continuing Exhibitions

Ending this month!

The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England is now out on the US west coast and opened at the Legion of Honor, part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. It opened there on June 24 and will close on September 24.

Hever Castle has a new exhibition that debuted when it reopened for the year on February 8 – Catherine & Anne: Queens, Rivals, Mothers. Admission to the exhibition is included with tickets to the castle. There is also a companion book available which can also be purchased from the online shop.

Welcome to August! Can the summer be over now, please? I’m tired of slowly roasting like I’m a rotisserie chicken or something….

Books

We’ve got a few books that were previously released in the UK coming out in the US this month:

First up – Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power about Catherine de’ Medici, Elisabeth de Valois and Mary, Queen of Scots by Leah Redmond Chang we released in May in the UK and will be out in mid-August in the US:

And Carol Ann Lloyd’s The Tudors By the Numbers, which was released last month in the UK, will be out at the end of August in the US:

And in new releases this month, Gareth Russell’s newest book, The Palace: From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 Years of History at Hampton Court will be out on August 17 in the UK and at the end of the year in the US (I see a future Christmas present to myself!):

Continuing Exhibitions

The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England is now out on the US west coast and opened at the Legion of Honor, part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. It opened there on June 24 and will close on September 24.

Hever Castle has a new exhibition that debuted when it reopened for the year on February 8 – Catherine & Anne: Queens, Rivals, Mothers. Admission to the exhibition is included with tickets to the castle. There is also a companion book available which can also be purchased from the online shop.

Welcome to the half-way point of 2023! I know I’m always commenting on how fast the year seems to be going by, but it’s particularly noticeable this year – I think because I have two looming deadlines that are approaching and that cannot be moved since laws of physics are involved (for those that don’t know, I’m in astronomy public outreach and we have two solar eclipses coming here in Texas that I need to run events for and I still feel way behind on planning them).

Anyway – here are the new books for July and a few things that I missed last month!

Books

Arthur, Prince of Wales: Henry VIII’s Lost Brother by Gareth Streeter is now out in the US after an earlier release in the UK:

And one that I missed last month that is now out in both the UK and US – The Sweating Sickness Epidemic: Henry VIII’s Great Fear by Stephen Porter (which reinforces my thought that Henry VIII really, really wouldn’t have enjoyed living through the recent unpleasantness).

Next up, Caroline Angus’s Henry VIII’s Children – Legitimate and Illegitimate Sons and Daughters of the Tudor King, which was released in May in the UK will be out at the end of July in the US:

And The Queen’s Frog Prince: The courtship of Elizabeth I and the Duke of Anjou by David Lee is now out in both the UK and the US:

Next is yet another one I missed last month, The Tudors by Michelle Rosenberg, part of the History Snapshots series and it’s out in both the UK and the US:

Finally to the brand new releases!

Conor Byrne, who released a book on Kathryn Howard a few years back, now as a new book – Lady Katherine Grey: A Dynastic Tragedy coming out on July 13 in the UK and it will be out next year in the US.

And one that I’m really looking forward to – Eating with the Tudors by Brigitte Webster will be out at the end of July in the UK and in the fall in the US. For those of you who don’t know, Brigitte and her husband bought and have been restoring an old Tudor manor house in Norfolk. I’ve been following their research and work on the house and gardens on social media for years now and I’m definitely going to have to visit someday! More info here: https://www.tudorexperience.com/

Continuing Exhibitions

The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England is now out on the US west coast and opened at the Legion of Honor, part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. It opened there on June 24 and will close on September 24.

Hever Castle has a new exhibition that debuted when it reopened for the year on February 8 – Catherine & Anne: Queens, Rivals, Mothers. Admission to the exhibition is included with tickets to the castle. There is also a companion book available which can also be purchased from the online shop.

I know I seem to say this every month, but it’s hard to believe how we’re flying through the year. May often means the start of the really hot weather here in Texas (which will continue through to the end of September) but we might get lucky this year and at least also have a wet summer. Which will be good for the gardening projects I’ve started!

Books

First up this month, Tracy Borman’s newest work Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History will be out on May 18 in the UK and the following month in the US. It sounds like an interesting approach to telling the story of two women who have had A LOT written about them over the years!

Next up is Arthur, Prince of Wales: Henry VIII’s Lost Brother by Gareth Streeter, which will be out at the end of May in the UK and the end of July in the US. Nice to see another work on Arthur – for such a relatively short life, he played such a big role in Tudor history (and history in general, come to think of it…)

Henry VIII’s Children – Legitimate and Illegitimate Sons and Daughters of the Tudor King by Caroline Angus is also due out at the end of the month in the UK and the end of July in the US:

And finally, Henry VIII: A History of his Most Important Places and Events by Andrew Beattie is also out at the end of May in the UK but is due at the end of June in the US:

Continuing Exhibitions

Hever Castle has a new exhibition that debuted when it reopened for the year on February 8 – Catherine & Anne: Queens, Rivals, Mothers. Admission to the exhibition is included with tickets to the castle. There is also a companion book available which can also be purchased from the online shop.

Wrapping up this month:

The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England which was recently on display in New York has now moved to the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio. It opened on February 26 and will run through May 14. If the exhibition continues to tour, I hope it makes its way down to Texas now that I finally have a reliable car to drive to Houston or Dallas if it goes to one of those cities.

Happy Spring for my northern hemisphere readers and happy Autumn for our friends in the southern hemisphere!

Books

Quite a few books this month, including some that I expected in May in the US, but now they are coming out in April instead.

Tudor Children by Nicholas Orme was released in February in the UK and will be out on April 11 in the US:

The latest Tudor book from Amy Licence, The Sixteenth Century in 100 Women will be out in early April in the US and was released in March in the UK:

And The Marriage Bed of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, edited by Peter N. Lindfield has already been released in the UK and will be out on April 20 in the US. This is a collection of articles on the research into the bed, which was rediscovered in 2010.

The US release of Shakespeare’s Book: The Story Behind the First Folio and the Making of Shakespeare by Chris Laoutaris will be April 25, two days after the probable date of the Bard’s birth (and definitely the date of his death). It was released in the UK in March with the title Shakespeare’s Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the First Folio.

And finally, Edward VI: Henry VIII’s Overshadowed Son by Stephanie Kline will be out at the end of April in the UK and will be out in the US in the summer.

Continuing Exhibitions

Hever Castle has a new exhibition that debuted when it reopened for the year on February 8 – Catherine & Anne: Queens, Rivals, Mothers. Admission to the exhibition is included with tickets to the castle. There is also a companion book available which can also be purchased from the online shop.

The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England which was recently on display in New York has now moved to the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio. It opened on Februrary 26 and will run through May 14. If the exhibition continues to tour, I hope it makes its way down to Texas now that I finally have a reliable car to drive to Houston or Dallas if it goes to one of those cities.

Happy New Year everyone! I’ll join in with everyone else saying “Huh? How are we in another year again?” Although I’ve at least gotten past the “it feels like it’s perpetually March 2020” thing that was the case until sometime into the latter part of 2021.

Books

We have a few things that came out in 2022 in the UK that will be out in January in the US.

First is Tudor England: A History by Lucy Wooding, which came out in October in the UK and will be out on January 3 in the US:

And The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Women’s Writing in English, 1540-1700, edited by Elizabeth Scott-Bauman, Danielle Clarke, Sarah C. E. Ross also came out in October in the UK and will be out in mid-January in the US:

And one I missed from last month, The Marriage Bed of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, edited by Peter N. Lindfield came out in the UK on December 15 and will be out in May in the US. This is a collection of articles on the research into the bed, which was rediscovered in 2010.

And in new books for 2023…

Educating the Tudors by Amy McElroy will be out at the end of January in the UK and will be out later in the spring in the US. Nice to see a book dedicated to this topic that I can refer people to when I start to get those school project questions!

And also out in the UK at the end of the month is Helene Harrison’s Elizabethan Rebellions: Conspiracy, Intrigue, and Treason, which will also be out in the spring in the US:

Events

Peterborough Cathedral‘s annual Katharine of Aragon Festival for 2023 will be held on January 27-29 this year.

Continuing Exhibitions

Closing this month!

The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on October 10, 2022 and will run through January 8, 2023.

Here we are at the final month of 2022. Pretty light round-up this month, but I see some good stuff on the book horizon for 2023!

Books

Blood, Fire and Gold: The Story of Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici by Estelle Paranque had a UK release back in the summer and will be out in early December in the US:

Next up – Sarah Gristwood’s newest Tudor work, which was released last year in the UK with the title The Tudors in Love: The Courtly Code Behind the Last Medieval Dynasty will be out in mid-December in the US with the title The Tudors in Love: Passion and Politics in the Age of England’s Most Famous Dynasty:

And Natalie Grueninger’s The Final Year of Anne Boleyn came out in November in the UK and will be out in December in the US. I originally had January 2023 for the US release, but it looks like it will be out earlier – and just in time for Christmas!

Continuing Exhibitions

The Tudor: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on October 10, 2022 and will run through January 8, 2023.