Some of these are a little stale since I should have posted them last Sunday…
* Bust previews Thomas Wolsey statue in Ipswich
* Medical imaging used to probe Tower of London mural
* Royal bed’s Rhyl hotel fireplace link
* Phone box to commemorate Battle of Flodden
Choice quote: “We will bash on, even if we end up with the world
Image from The Royal Mint
From Portsmouth.co.uk:
THE MARY Rose has been chosen to feature on a set of commemorative coins for 2011.
The historic ship, housed at Portsmouth’s dockyard, is one of six coins that will be in circulation from next year and has been produced by the Royal Mint.
The Mary Rose, which was King Henry VIII’s flagship, has been chosen as next year marks the 500th anniversary of the great ship’s maiden voyage.
The image has been done by designer John Bergdahl and around the edge of the coin, a Latin inscription reads ‘your noblest shippe 1511’.
You can get a collectible version with an information folder from The Royal Mint here. I’ll be getting one to go with my Henry VIII 500th and Elizabeth I 450th accession anniversary special coins. 🙂
And…
Press release image from The Mary Rose 500 Appeal
Unfortunately this particular collectible is a little out of my price range…
Press release from The Mary Rose 500 Appeal:
Alan Titchmarsh Pledges Support to New Mary Rose Museum Campaign
Broadcaster and author Alan Titchmarsh is putting his weight behind the campaign to build a spectacular new
Side of Hever Castle. Photo May 1998.
Image of Tycho Brahe from the University of Texas at Austin Department of Astronomy image collection
This is another one of those stories that comes along every so often that allows me to geek out from both the history and science perspective (and in this case, my actual career science field – astronomy!). Tycho is one of those interesting characters of science that seems to cause endless fascination, so I’m not surprised to see this. And yes, he’s the one who famously had a metal replacement nose after losing the flesh one in a duel!
From The BBC:
Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe exhumed to solve mystery
Tycho Brahe was a Danish nobleman who served as royal mathematician to the Bohemian Emperor Rudolf II.
He was thought to have died of a bladder infection, but a previous exhumation found traces of mercury in his hair.
A team of Danish and Czech scientists hope to solve the mystery by analysing bone, hair and clothing samples.
Tycho was born Tyge Ottesen Brahe in 1546 in Scania, which at the time was a Danish province, and studied astronomy at the University of Copenhagen, as well as German academic institutions.
He catalogued more than 1,000 new stars and his stellar and planetary observations helped lay the foundations of early modern astronomy.
…
Professor Jens Vellev, from Aarhus University, is leading the team of scientists and archaeologists which opened the tomb in Tyn Church on Monday.He says he hopes to get better samples of hair and bones than were taken in 1901.
The use of the latest technology to test the samples may also help shed more light on the mystery of the astronomer’s death, although Professor Vellev is not promising anything.
“Perhaps, we will be able to come close to an answer, but I don’t think we will get a final answer to that question,” he said.
The scientists also hope to determine what kind of metal Brahe’s prosthesis was made of – it was commonly believed to have been gold and silver, but others suggested it might have contained copper.
More articles (all of the articles have interesting pictures):
NPR: Danish Astronomer’s Remains Exhumed In Prague
Scientific American: Was Tycho Brahe poisoned? 16th-century astronomer exhumed–again
And finally, a bunch of photos and some video from the research are available on the Opening of Tycho Brahe’s Tomb pages from Aarhus University
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Sign on the tree in Hatfield Park at the spot where Elizabeth was told of the death of Mary I and that she was now Queen. Photo May 1998.
The text of the sign reads:
If I remember correctly, the original tree fell in a storm, which is why the replacement was planted in 1985 (a month before the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Tudor dynasty, I would add). I don’t remember seeing it, but I’ve been told that remains of the original tree are (or have been) on display at the property. From more recent photos I’ve seen tree has grown quite a bit since I saw it last (in May 2000) and the sign is now mounted higher and is easier to see.
Hope Walker dropped me a line about some new work she’s been adding to her site HansEworth.com, including work on a list of Tudor portraits in the US. If you have any additions or corrections, you can contact her though that page. I wish there were some here in Texas!
Update November 17 – I added in a couple of new links to the post and here’s a link to a new article about the The van de Passe Engraved Portrait
Some of you might recall a post from last year highlighting some of the research work that goes in to researching Tudor-era portrait identification by Dr. J. Stephan Edwards of Some Grey Matter. Now here’s a follow-up with some of the work he’s done in his search for an authentic image of Lady Jane Grey. Here’s a summary his work so far and a tease about some work that he recently completed:
As part of my ongoing research on Lady Jane Grey, I have for the past five years been attempting to identify and locate every portrait of Jane Grey mentioned in the historical record that might potentially have been created in the sixteenth century. The project started in September 2005 with the Fitzwilliam portrait, which I thought at that time might be a portrait of Jane. I have since reversed that opinion and am convinced that it is not.
Thus far, I have located over a dozen portraits that were each at one point called “Lady Jane Grey.” Many of them, like the Althorp and Madresfield portraits, were easily shown to have been painted outside England by artists who were dead before Jane was even ten years old. Others, like the Melton Constable portrait, can be identified as some other known person. Another larger group, including the Bodleian and Somerley portraits and the National Portrait Gallery’s painting accession number 764, have no surviving documentation or image content that allows them to be properly identified. Still others, such as the Houghton, Northwick, and Portland portraits, have yet to be located and studied.
The process has generated one or two small controversies, the most prominent of which involved the Yale Miniature. It was put forward by renowned celebrity-historian David Starkey in 2007 as a possible portrait of Jane Grey, but I and others subsequently disputed his findings. That dispute was described in an article in The New Yorker magazine in mid October 2007.
To date, only one portrait has been generally accepted by art historians as a potentially authentic likeness. The Streatham Portrait was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery (as NPG 6804) in 2006 and displayed briefly in the Tudor Gallery. It has since been determined that the painting was created more than forty years after Jane Grey’s death. Curators have suggested it might be a copy of a lost original, though I am suspicious that it is simply the product of some artist’s imagination. The NPG has now removed it from display and has no plans to re-exhibit it, perhaps because of the questionable identification.
In August 2010, I did finally locate what I believe may be a previously ‘lost’ authentic likeness of Jane Grey mentioned in a document from the 1560s. I
Garderobe in the White Tower of the Tower of London. Photo May 2003.
Yep, it’s a Tower Toilet. A London Loo. A White Tower Water Closet. A …. okay, I’ll stop now. 🙂
* I meant to post this a few weeks ago – The November issue of BBC History Magazine has a cover article titled The Secret War Against the Tudors about the various plots against Henry VII and Henry VIII
* And because I thought it was really interesting – Heavenly illumination: The science and magic of stained glass (from The Guardian’s science blog)
* Was Henry Vlll’s first wife anorexic? Catherine of Aragon’s secret problem (I have no idea why they have a portrait of Charles V labeled as Prince Arthur)
The author of the above article also has a new book on Catherine (as far as I know, the first dedicated biography of Catherine since Garrett Mattingly’s) which just came out in the UK and will be out in a few weeks in the US. Usual Amazon links below:
It’s hard for me to believe, but early next year the BBC is finally releasing “The Shadow of the Tower” on DVD! I first heard about this program a long time ago when I was putting together my Tudors in the Movies and on Television page and someone emailed me saying that the BBC had done a program on Henry VII during the years they also made the more well-known “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” and “Elizabeth R”. I searched in vain for more information on the program, tried finding it on video, and even wrote to the BBC at one point asking if they had plans to release it. I almost doubted that it had even existed until I found a companion book to the series that had a photo of James Maxwell as Henry VII on the cover. I would periodically search around to see if it had finally been released, and then one day one of my Google news alerts contained a link to this page from the TV Shows on DVD site: The Shadow of the Tower – Before Henry VIII had 6 Wives, Henry VII Established England’s Tudor Dynasty. I believe I actually squeaked when I saw it (I was at work, so anything louder might have startled a few people!).
I know Henry VII isn’t as sexy as his children and grandchildren and he is totally reviled by fans of Richard III, but I find him fascinating. I don’t know if the programs feature much of Henry’s life before 1485 (which is the part I find most interesting), but there is still plenty of politics and intrigue from his reign to fill out 13 hours. And of course, anyone who knows me will not be surprised that I’m very interested in seeing the portrayal of Jasper Tudor (who is in 6 of the episodes if my info is correct), as well as Margaret Beaufort.
The DVDs will be released on January 25, 2011 in the US (appropriately enough, three days before Henry VII’s birthday), but I haven’t been able to find a release date for the UK yet. If you’re interested in pre-ordering from Amazon through my affiliate store, here’s the link:
[edited to add UK ordering information]
Not only is the garden itself interesting, the way it was found is a story of its own!
From The Telegraph:
Photographs taken by the Luftwaffe on a bombing reconnaissance mission during the Second World War have revealed a lost Tudor garden on National Trust land.
The unusual
Rear of the gatehouse complex of Harlech Castle. Photo May 2000.
As I mentioned when I previously featured an image of Harlech, it’s only tangentially related to Tudor history. But it’s such a great castle I had to use another picture from my visit there.
Image credit: Christie’s Images Ltd 2010.
From artdaily:
LONDON.- Christie
Cloisters of Canterbury Cathedral. Photo May 2003.
I was going to wait until we got a little closer to the release dates to post about Loreena McKennitt’s new album but then I realized that today is the day to post about it!
I’ve been a huge fan of Loreena McKennitt for years (her version of Greensleeves still makes me tingle) so I was very excited that she has a new album titled The Wind the Shakes the Barley out next month and as an added bonus, one of the songs on the new CD has a Tudor history connection. Several of Loreena’s previous albums have included poems or ballads set to music, such as The Lady of Shallot by Tennyson and the new album has The Ballad of Queen Jane, a popular ballad that dates from the 17th century. Folklorists have collected various versions of the ballad (I knew that folklore class I took a few years back would come in handy here someday!) and here is the version I’ve had in the poetry section of the site for ages: The Death of Queen Jane. Although the poem itself is not very historically accurate, I thought that the anniversary of Jane Seymour’s death would be an appropriate day to post about this.
You can listen to clips from the new CD on the Quinlan Road website and pre-order links to my Amazon affiliate store are below:
Royal arms of Scotland on the walls of Edinburgh Castle. Photo May 2000.
View down the link of a model of the Mary Rose. Photo June 2000.
I know I’ve already used a lot of images from the Mary Rose museum, but since they started construction of the new museum yesterday I thought I would use another. This is a view down the length of the model that I featured way back in Picture of the Week #3.
Just as I was starting to work on a post with a bunch of news links about this, a copy of the press release arrived in my inbox. 🙂
Rear Admiral John Lippiett, Chief Executive of the Mary Rose Trust talks about the construction of the new museum getting under way.
Work Begins on Europe
Just two stories again this week! But the first one is pretty funny. 🙂
* Henry VIII may have lied on his Match.com profile
* And a new book that I’ve been hearing about and realized that I hadn’t posted about to the blog: Helen Castor’s She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth, which sounds really interesting. It’s out in the UK now and will be out in February 2011 in the US. Usual Amazon link below:
Decorations on the outside of Henry VII’s chapel at Westminster Abbey. Photo May 2003.
In particular, you can see that the Beaufort portcullis is featured many times on this part of the Abbey. There are some Tudor roses and French fleurs-de-lis as well.
