I know, *groan*, but I couldn’t resist.
From the BBC:
First Mary Queen of Scots stamp issued
The first stamp featuring Mary Queen of Scots has been unveiled by Royal Mail.t is part of a new set celebrating the royal dynasty of the Stewarts, who ruled Scotland until 1603.
TV historian and archaeologist Neil Oliver launched the stamp series at Stirling Castle, the historical home of the Stewarts.
You can get first day covers and other collectible items at the Royal Mail website.
Now this looks like fun – the Piccolo Theatre in Illinois has an upcoming play called Six Dead Queens & an Inflatable Henry! which will run from mid-April to early June.
Created by The Foursight Theatre Company in Wolverhampton, England in 1999, “Six Dead Queens and an Inflatable Henry!” is a devised theatre piece packed with intrigue, rowdy good humor, and duels of words. The action takes place in eternity where Henry’s consorts are forced to spend their days and nights vaulting over each other for the top spot and the answer to the question: Who is the true Queen?
The cast members have also been humorously blogging at Six Dead Queens during their research.
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.
Two of these come from the very excellent Lady Jane Grey Reference Guide Blog which I’m sure most of you also read, but just in case you don’t I’d like to highlight some recent posts.
In a previous post reminding people about the Delaroche exhibition and Leanda de Lisle’s talk there, I asked for anyone to let me know if they got a chance to go. Here’s a write-up from the Lady Jane Grey blog: Death Becomes Her: The Life and Afterlife of Lady Jane Grey – Lecture by Leanda de Lisle
And on a related note, here is a link to a guest post by Ms. de Lisle: DEATH BECOMES HER – BY LEANDA DE LISLE And similarly related, here is an article from The Express also by Ms. de Lisle: THE TRUTH ABOUT THE QUEEN FOR NINE DAYS
From a National Portrait Gallery press release:
IMAGINED LIVES: MYSTERY PORTRAITS 1520-1640
17 March 2010-October 2011
The National Trust’s Montacute House, near Yeovil, SomersetA new National Portrait Gallery display of unseen paintings of 16th and 17th-century mystery figures opens at one of its regional partners, the National Trust’s Montacute House, on 17 March 2010. Over the last 450 years, the identities of the sitters featured in the portraits on display have been either lost or mistaken. This will be the first opportunity to see these portraits, which have either been recently restored or not exhibited for over half a century.
Inspired by the mystery that surrounds the unknown sitters, the Gallery has invited writers John Banville, Tracy Chevalier, Julian Fellowes, Sir Terry Pratchett, Sarah Singleton, Joanna Trollope and Minette Walters to contribute short imaginative stories on what their lives might have been like. These fantasy character sketches and fictional biographies accompany the portraits in the display and help bring the sitters to life.
New research undertaken by History of Art MA students at the University of Bristol, working with Dr Tatiana String – and supervised by the Gallery’s 16th Century Curator Dr Tarnya Cooper – has meant that they can now be brought back into full view with a clearer understanding of their past.
The display features portraits of men and women whose identities are no longer known. They appear to depict courtiers, musicians, writers, soldiers and others who hoped to preserve their memory by sitting for a portrait. They were purchased by the National Portrait Gallery from 1858 to 1971. When the identity of these portraits was disproved or disputed, the paintings were often removed from display or lent to other collections. Recent conservation work and new research has meant that some portraits can now be re-identified.
Link to full text of press release
Excerpts from the stories published by the Times Online
Update: I meant to add a link about the work done to identify one of these previously un-or-mis-identified portraits. The portrait subject of the story written by Tracy Chevalier is now thought to be Sir Robert Dudley, the illegitimate son of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Here is a news release from the University of Bristol about the students who made the identification.
While going through my massive back-log of news and other saved links, I came across these for the BBC Horrible Histories videos. Here are two of the Tudor ones, but be sure to check out the BBC Horrible Histories You Tube Channel for more!
And pay attention to where these are filmed – I’m sure the scenery will look familiar to a lot of you!
From The BBC:
Dog skeleton from Mary Rose displayed in Portsmouth
A dog which sailed aboard the Mary Rose ship 465 years ago is to take up residence in the Mary Rose Museum at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
The animal’s skeleton, which has been reconstructed by staff at the Mary Rose Trust, will go on display from Friday 26 March.
The dog was discovered trapped in the sliding door of the carpenter’s cabin of the Mary Rose, which sank in 1545.
The dog, named Hatch by museum staff, was probably used as a ratter.
Lots of photos of the skeleton (and other things Mary Rose) are at the MaryRose500 photostream on Flickr.
And other articles:
* From the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard website: Lost dog returns home
I know I’m way late with this, but better late than never!
News release from The National Portrait Gallery:
MYSTERY SNAKE REVEALED IN ELIZABETH I PORTRAIT. NEW RESEARCH SHOWS CHANGING FACES OF THE TUDOR QUEEN
Scientific detective work has revealed a mysterious coiled serpent in the hands of Queen Elizabeth I, which was painted out by the artist shortly afterwards, in a portrait at the National Portrait Gallery. It has also been revealed that this portrait of the queen, which has not been on display at the Gallery since 1921, was painted over an unfinished portrait of an unknown sitter. The revelations about this painting and three others of the Tudor queen will form a new display, Concealed and Revealed: The Changing Faces of Elizabeth I, from 13 March at the National Portrait Gallery as part of the Making Art in Tudor Britain project led by Dr Tarnya Cooper.
…
Concealed and Revealed: The Changing Faces of Elizabeth I runs from 13 March – 26 September 2010 in Room 2 of the National Portrait Gallery.
Additional articles:
Art Daily: New Research: Mystery Snake Revealed in Elizabeth I Portrait
BBC: Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I reveals secret snake
The Daily Mail Online: The Queen’s loyal serpent: 400 years on, a painted-over snake reappears on portrait of Elizabeth I
The Guardian: Portrait of Elizabeth I reveals she held serpent where a posy now appears
The Independent: The Virgin Queen, the serpent and the doctored portrait
* Not exactly Tudor related, but cool: SepiaTown – mapped historical photos from around the world.
* Shakespeare’s Kings and Westminster Abbey – RSC actors performing excerpts from the history plays in the coronation ‘theater’ of the Abbey. I wish I could attend some of these!
* Presentation on objects from Tudor and Stuart playhouses at the Museum of London on April 24
I know I’m a little late getting this posted…
From The Guardian:
Anne Boleyn was guilty of adultery, new biography claims
Charges for which she was executed, long thought to have been cooked up, are likely to have been true, says historian George Bernard
A new biography of Anne Boleyn is set to claim that, far from being framed for adultery, Henry VIII’s second queen may not have been innocent of the affairs for which she was sentenced to death.
The widely held view among contemporary historians is that the charges brought against Anne
* Henry VIII to be staged this season at the Globe (from the BBC). Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself with this production! They will also have two new productions this year: one a play about Anne Boleyn and another that will be the first play performed at the Globe from a woman playwright (from The Guardian).
* History Today has an article by Linda Porter – Katherine Parr: An Ideal Stepmother. Porter has a new biography on Parr due out in March in the UK (you can sign up to be notified for the US release at the link below).
* There are several upcoming Tudor Events at Hampton Court Palace that look interesting. As always, if anyone gets a chance to go to any of these, I’d love to hear about it!
* A new book on the death of Amy Robsart Dudley is out in the UK (article from The Times Online). UK Amazon link below (and another US “sign up to be notified”)
As promised, here are links to more stories about the announcement of the new site for the Battle of Bosworth.
From the BBC (video and pictures):
New Battle of Bosworth Field site revealed
From The Daily Mail:
Is this the field where Richard III lost his kingdom for a horse? Real location of Battle of Bosworth finally revealed after 500 years
From The Guardian:
Silver badge and lead shot pinpoint site of Battle of Bosworth
Archaeologists pinpoint long-disputed site of Battle of Bosworth
And last, but certainly not least, the Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Center website
(Their site appears to be down, perhaps from a large influx of traffic? – I’ll keep checking for it to come back up and add a link directly to their news on the battlefield discoveries.)
The site is back up. Here’s a link to their page on the official announcement.
Although there will no doubt be a slew of additional articles, this is the first to land in my news alerts in-box! I’ll do a round-up of all the other articles in a separate post when I have a chance.
From The Times Online:
For centuries it has been impossible to revisit the battlefield because its location was lost after the Civil War. Then, last October, Leicestershire County Council announced that it had found the site but would not reveal its whereabouts for fear of scavengers.
Today the wait is over. The Times can reveal that the Battle of Bosworth was settled round the back of Alf Oliver
Now that we’re getting closer to the opening, I thought it was a good time to post a reminder that the exhibition Painting History: Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey opens next week. Be sure to click on the “Related Events” tab for more events, including information on Leanda de Lisle’s lecture “Death Becomes Her:
The Life and Afterlife of Lady Jane Grey” on March 5.
Here’s a PDF of the full press release for the exhibition.
And if anyone gets a chance to see the exhibition or attend some of the events, I’d love to hear from you!
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
Check out the post on the execution of Lady Jane Grey at Executed Today, which includes a lengthy interview with Dr. Stephan Edwards about Jane and his work researching her life and death.
Registration for the amazing tour that I posted about back in September will be closing on February 16th, so if you’ve been thinking about booking now is the time!
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.
If you recall this post from last October, archaeologists have found evidence for what was probably the actual site of the Battle of Bosworth and now that information is set to be revealed at a conference on February 20. The Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre has information on the event and a document with the program. The Heritage Centre is also planning to open a new exhibition called “Bosworth Battlefield Lost and Found” on February 22.
There is also an article in the March issue of BBC History Magazine, as well as an article by Leanda de Lisle about Lady Jane Grey. I’ll have to make sure I remember to pick one up!
Yeah…. I’m not so sure how I feel about this. I’m not a Mary “fan” by any stretch of the imagination, but I really hate to see people of history reduced to stereotypes. I know the job of The London Dungeon is to entertain through horror, but this just kind of rubs me the wrong way.
The London Dungeon is turning the temperature up this February half term with a flaming new experience
