From the Royal Mint website:
The Royal Mint has struck a new commemorative
Category: Tudor History news and events
Results of Hair Clipping auction
Via the BBC:
An almost 500-year-old lock of hair thought to have come from one of Henry VIII’s wives has sold for
Want to own Katherine Parr’s hair?
Well, a lock of it at least? If so, it will be up for auction, with a collection of other interesting things, in a couple of weeks. Here’s the AP article, but a Google news search will turn up more.
Tudor “fast” food
Here’s a neat time-lapse of the set-up and demonstration of a Tudor dinner at Hampton Court Palace. Be sure to check out the other Tudor foodie videos from the same person!
Tip of the gable food to Gillian at the Food History blog
Tudor Christmas with the BBC Singers
The BBC Singers will be performing a Tudor Christmas concert to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Friday December 21. And you can listen to it online with their iPlayer (which worked fine on my Mac, so I’ll assume that it works on PCs).
Here’s the program description and the main BBC Radio 3 website.
(Tip of the French hood to Kathy for the email!)
Robert Dudley’s inventory published
From 24 Hour Museum:
A chessboard of black ebony, the tusk of a sea bear, curtains of crimson satin with gold and silver lace
Executed Today blog… now killing in the Tudor period!
Ack! I missed posting this ahead of time, so you’ll probably have to scroll down, but the Dec. 1 entry at Executed Today is about Catholic Martyrs in the reign of Elizabeth I. Of course as we all know, there were a lot of people executed in the Tudor period, so keep an eye out for more entries in the future!
Smashed Tudor rose window restored
There is only a short article about this on the Daily Post site, but it’s good to hear that the window has been restored. Unfortunately only three small fragments from the original window were able to be incorporated into the new one.
Original blog post on the vandalism
The Great Squirt
I got a huge kick out of this.
From The Daily Mail:
The instruction booklet was a little worse for wear. But then it does date back to 1577.
That didn’t stop a group of gardening enthusiasts using it to recreate an Elizabethan watering contraption known as the “Great Squirt”.
Full article, complete with a drawing of the original and a photo of the recreation.
First female Beefeater takes up her post
As a follow-up to the article that I posted back in January, the first female Beefeater has now begun her work at the Tower of London.
Just a couple of articles:
Obituary for Alison Plowden
From The Telegraph:
Alison Plowden , who died on August 17 aged 75, worked as a secretary at the BBC before before becoming the author of skilfully written historical studies, principally of the Tudor and Stuart periods.
Who is England’s Greatest Monarch?
Two of the three in the contest are Tudors!
From the BBC:
British history is blessed by skilled and charismatic monarchs, but also tainted by incompetent and even murderous ones.
The argument over which king or queen was the greatest will never be settled – history is about interpretation, after all.
But here a trio of leading contenders are championed by three historians, ahead of a public discussion at the weekend organised by English Heritage.
The merits of King Henry VIII are outlined by Alison Weir, Queen Elizabeth I is endorsed by Sarah Gristwood and Queen Victoria is supported by Martyn Downer.
Go to the BBC article to read more of the debate and to cast your vote!
Happy Birthday King Hal!
Happy 516th! You barely look a day over 450.
Here’s a post from the Oxford University Press blog for the occasion.
North Wales Church with Tudor ancestral connections vandalized
This is just sickening:
A church’s Elizabethan Tudor Rose window has been smashed to bits by thieves just a fortnight after clergymen proudly showed it off to the Prince of Wales.
They climbed in through the remains of the stained glass window at St Gredifael Church in Penymynydd, Anglesey, seized an ancient cannonball and hurled it through another Elizabethan window.
This is the window that was smashed, which some of you might recognize as the image that used to be on the front page of the website:
Click on the image to go to a page with a little bit more about the window and a link to the full sized picture. I’ve also got a few other pictures of the church itself, which I visited in 2000. (I’m in the process of re-doing all my photos from the negatives, so at some point I’ll have some nicer and bigger versions of the church photos up.)
Couple of short news items
Sixteenth Century Falconry tag to be auctioned
A rare silver varvel, or falcon’s tag, that belonged to the powerful and oppressive lawyer, Richard Rich, is to be sold at auction in July.
…
This silver tag is of shield form with one side engraved “Lord Rich” above a na
Elizabethan tapestry re-discovered
… and up for sale. Got a spare
Another Tudor typo
Or more accurately, another example of a common Tudor history mistake making its way into a newspaper. I don’t necessarily expect a column in a mid-sized American town’s newspaper to get all their English history correct, but it still irks me when they get this particular one wrong:
Henry VIII is not buried in the abbey, but his daughters, Elizabeth I, and the half-sister she ordered beheaded, Mary, Queen of Scots, are.
I even had a history teacher in high school that couldn’t keep Mary “Bloody Mary” Tudor (the half-sister) and Mary Queen of Scots (the beheaded one, a COUSIN) straight, but it still frustrates me how many people mix these two up.
Okay, rant over. 🙂
Tudor play recreated at Hampton Court Palace
From UKTV:
Actors and academics are restaging a Tudor play at Hampton Court Palace 500 years after it was first performed.
A Tudor play is being restaged at Hampton Court Palace in London, 477 years after it was performed at the same location for King Henry VIII.
The Play of the Weather by John Heywood was written specifically for the English king and it uses the weather to parallel the varying demands placed on a king by his subjects, the Times reports.
And another one, from News Blaze
“The Tudors” Margaret/Mary Tudor info
I posted this over on the Q&A blog, but I thought it would be worth repeating here since I’m still getting questions about it:
As I’m sure some of you have figured out by now, the portrayal of Margaret Tudor’s story in the Showtime series is NOT the same as the life of the real Margaret Tudor. In the series, the story is basically that of Mary Tudor (Henry VIII’s sister), but my guess is that they decided to use Margaret’s name to avoid any confusion with the other Mary Tudor (Henry VIII’s daughter).
Since the series started out in 1520 when Francis I was already King of France, they couldn’t fit the real marriage saga of Mary Tudor into the series timeline as it actually happened in history. In reality Mary married Louix XII of France in 1514 and he died a few months later in 1515 and was succeeded by Francis I. Since this all took place before the time that the series started (1520), they moved it to a later year and used the King of Portugal instead of the King of France. Mary (or Margaret, in the series) does later marry Charles Brandon and they are the grandparents of the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey.
The real Margaret Tudor was married to James IV of Scotland (and had two marriages after that) and was the mother of James V of Scotland, who in turn was the father of Mary Queen of Scots. Margaret’s great-grandson was James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England after the death of Elizabeth I. So, as you can see, Margaret’s real story is very different from that of the character with that name in the Showtime series.
Now, to complicate things even further, the character biographies on the Showtime series website give the history of the REAL characters, which will be quite confusing to anyone who reads them and is watching the series (and seeing a different story!).
Queen Elizabeth I’s teapot sells for
From The Telegraph:
A unique Chinese tea kettle that belonged to Queen Elizabeth I fetched more than
