I’ve received several emails about celebrations and objects that will be on display at Winchester Cathedral this summer in honor of the 450th anniversary of Mary I’s marriage to Philip of Spain. Below are links to some articles about the events:
Winchester Cathedral’s Official Site
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To commemorate the 400th anniversary of the death of Elizabeth, an exhibit will go on display at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, on the site of the old Greenwich Palace where Elizabeth was born. Included in the exhibit is the amazing ring with the miniatures of Elizabeth and Anne Boleyn. Here’s a link to an article on the exhibit and ring at The Guardian.
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Earliest English cookbook rediscovered
A cookbook from 1500 which is thought to be the earliest printed in English was uncovered at Longleat House, the ancestral home of the Marquis of Bath. The book is titled A Noble Book of Royal Feasts
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Two articles of a recent find from Worcester Cathedral: from The Telegraph in the UK and from Yahoo! News (original link expired). Scientists hope the find will help solve the mystery of the “sweating sickness” which is thought to have claimed Arthur’s life.
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Here’s a little snippet about an exhibit that will be on display at Stirling Castle of the wedding of Margaret Tudor and James IV of Scotland:
No Expense Spared For Royal Wedding
Research by historians for a new exhibition to be held later this year at Stirling castle, has shown that the wedding of Margaret Tudor (sister of King Henry VIII of England) and King James IV of Scotland cost in the region of £500,000 at today’s prices. Margaret’s dress of white damask and flowered with gold and bordered with red velvet would have cost nearly £100,000. After the marriage the guests were treated to a 15-course banquet. The marriage was to set the seal on the “Treaty of Everlasting Friendship” between Scotland and England, signed in 1502. In 1513, James IV was killed at the battle of Flodden, in the English county of Northumberland. But it was as a consequence of the marriage that the Union of the Crowns was to take place in 1603. The exhibition at Stirling will run from March 20 to May 20.
Thanks to Wendy for passing this along!
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Here’s an article from the BBC website about reported ghosts in the Tower of London (sorry it’s a little late for Halloween!)
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Article on CNN about the renaming of the former “Mary Arden’s House”.
Shakespeare tourists view wrong house — for 200 years
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News article on the Pope’s plans to name Thomas More as the patron saint of politicians.
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Queens beat Henry VIII in modern courtroom – Thanks to the several folks on Tudor talk who mentioned this. I’m not sure on which newspaper ran the article, but it originally came from the Associated Press news service.
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A GREAT EARLY BALL
By Louise Hancock
The world’s oldest football has been discovered in a vault under layers of dust. It would have Premiership players in stitches, but it was good enough for Mary Queen of Scots. Experts believe she used to kick the crudely made ball around with her favourite courtiers about 400 years ago. The grey leather ball, which has an inflatable pig’s bladder inside, is not much bigger than a modern lawn bowl. It vanished from Mary’s Stirling Castle bedroom in 1570. And last century it went missing again during renovation work at the Scottish landmark. But staff at Stirling’s Smith Art Gallery found it while rummaging through boxes in a vault last week. Gallery official Michael Mc Ginnes said yesterday: “This is a scoop for us. We never realised we had the ball. We had it checked by historical experts. They said it was extremely rare and was used by Mary.”
It is thought that Mary used to throw the ball from her balcony to start games between staff or soldiers. In those days players could pick up a ball and run with it. “In fact,” said Mr Mc Ginnes, “it was probably more of a handball than a football.” Today the ball goes on display for the first time in a glass cabinet at the gallery.
From The Mirror April 24, 1999
(Thanks to Heather for passing this along!)
The remains of King Henry VIII’s personal `Turkish’ steam bath have been identified in a new study of finds from his royal palace at Whitehall. The Turkish bath is thought to have been the first in Britain, complete with decorated tiled stove and steps leading down into a sunken stone pool.
Whitehall Palace in London was excavated in 1939, but the finds – including the sunken bath and hundreds of associated stove-tile fragments – were inadequately studied at the time, and were recognised as a Turkish bath only when re-examined by David Gaimster, a curator at the British Museum, and Simon Thurley, Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces. Speaking at a recent British Museum conference, Dr Gaimster said the discovery showed Henry VIII was adopting not only `the latest in Continental domestic design and technology’ but also a full Continental
Renaissance lifestyle. `The old-fashioned bathtub used at the beginning of his reign could not offer a greater contrast to the luxury sauna-bath arrangement introduced at Whitehall during the final decade of his life,’ he said. Steam baths, consisting of tiled stoves, baths, and occasionally beds and other furniture, were introduced to Europe in Germany in the later 15th century. In Britain they are known from records from the mid to later 16th century; and the Whitehall bathroom is recorded in an inventory of the palace dated 1543. The finds, however, provide the first archaeological evidence for the technology in Britain.
The tiles and the sunken bath were found associated with a small room in the king’s privy quarters. The wood-fired stove was classically designed with pediment and entablature, and was constructed of English-made green-glazed tiles which were moulded with Henry VIII’s royal arms and those of Edward Prince of Wales.
According to Dr Gaimster, the heraldic imagery suggests that Henry VIII’s modish bathroom may have been designed with a `public propagandist’ purpose in mind, despite being located within the inner sanctum of the royal quarters. The tiles and a reconstruction drawing of the stove are now on display in the new gallery of 15th to 18th Century Europe at the British Museum.
From British Archaeology news, April 1996.
