St. James’s Palace, London. Photo May 1998.
Perhaps because it isn’t open to the public I tend to forget about St. James’s, even though it was built by Henry VIII and quite a bit of the Tudor palace survives. You can learn more about the Palace at the official website of The British Monarchy.
I had fun doing the 2008 tally of the most common themes in the questions submitted to the Q&A blog, so I thought I would do it again with the 2009 submissions.
The total number of submission emails that I still had in my saved box from 2009 was 465, although not all of those ended up posted to the blog.
Anne Boleyn, once again, was Queen (if you’ll pardon the pun) of the Q&A blog with inquiries into every part of her life and death. The rest of her family cropped up quite a bit too, although I don’t think quite as much as they did in 2008. I think a lot of the interest continues to come from people watching and reading fiction about Anne, Mary, Jane (Parker/Boleyn/Rochford), George and their parents. The rest of the wives also cropped up a bit, but even combined I don’t think they got close to Anne!
Although there were still questions on the subject, the interest in possible mistresses and bastards of Henry VIII seems to have fallen off from 2008 and earlier. The Greys (of course Jane in particular) were asked about a bit and Mary I seems to have come up more, perhaps because of her character on “The Tudors”?
One thing that struck me were a large number of questions related to tangible items of the Tudors that still survive, be it buildings, personal and household items, portraits, modern descendants, fashion and jewelry and above all – tombs, graves and remains. I don’t know if we’re just a morbid lot or what, but graves and bones were very popular topics last year! Kind of related to the bones and bodies was an interest in medical issues, both physical and psychological. Trying to diagnose long-dead people with certain diseases (of the body or mind) is difficult at best, but I have to admit that the speculation is kind of fun.
A lot of questions had to do with the factual basis of fictional representations of the Tudors (tv, books, movies) and how reliable some non-fiction works are. With regards to the fiction, it’s great to see people wanting to dig deeper into the real history.
And finally, I’m guessing that a lot of teachers were doing Tudor crime and punishment this year since that showed up a fair amount and was almost always for a school project.
I’m looking forward to seeing what questions 2010 brings!
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
First up is a time lapse of the initial building work on the new museum for The Mary Rose. I love how the ships in the port go up and down on the tide – it makes them look like toys in a bathtub!
I had to shudder at Henry’s treatment of Catherine’s iPod nano though! I got a green one for Christmas and I love it… I’d hate to see it shoved into a jar of chocolate spread.
Tomb of Cardinal Reginald Pole at Canterbury Cathedral. Photo May 2003.
Sorry to do another “link dump” post so close on the heels of the last one but it’s just a lot quicker this way (and I’m sure you all don’t want to be bombarded with a bunch of posts at once).
* National Portrait Gallery on the Iconography of Lady Jane Grey
Here’s the article from Art Daily about it and here’s a little information from the National Portrait Gallery’s website. And just a reminder that Painting History – Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey will be opening at the National Gallery (around the corner from the NPG) at the end of February.
* Large medieval waterwheel uncovered at Greenwich
It’s a little before the Tudors, but I’m a sucker for medieval archaeological finds. Here’s an article (with a few pictures) from Medieval News.
* Showtime picks up a series on The Borgias
According to Variety Showtime is looking to continue playing in the Renaissance with a new series about The Borgias. Jeremy Irons will be starring so I’ll probably be watching!
I’m clearing out all the articles that I have saved over the past couple of weeks and dumping them all into this post:
* Debunking the Myth of Lady Jane Grey
* Mary Rose Trust photos on Wikipedia
Mary Rose Trust releases photographs onto Wikipedia
Unseen Mary Rose pictures revealed in groundbreaking Wikipedia deal
* Exhibition features documents suggesting Shakespeare was Catholic
Shakespeare was a ‘secret Catholic’ new exhibition shows
* Greenwich to become a Royal Borough in 2012
This honors its long connection with the English and British monarchy (lots of Tudor connections there!). The other Royal Boroughs are Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, and Windsor and Maidenhead.
Greenwich Becomes Royal Borough
Queen to grant Greenwich Royal Borough status for Diamond Jubilee
* Catch up on “The Tudors”
Season Three is now available on iTunes (this link goes to the Showtime site, which has a link to the iTunes store)
Unfortunately I didn’t see it in time for the first episode, but Showtime is replaying all of the previous seasons in a lead-up to the season 4 premiere in April. Here’s a link to the schedule.
And finally…
* 2010 sees the 450th anniversary of the refoundation of Westminster Abbey
The history of Westminster Abbey, London – The coming year is the 450th anniversary of Elizabeth I
The Old Palace at Hatfield with part of the recreated Tudor garden. Photo May 2000.
That’s what I get for putting off some of those maintenance tasks so long! I keep thinking I have another batch of links to add somewhere, so there might be a few more up soon.
And, if anyone I had a link to had a Geocities site that went away when it closed last year, would you please send me the new links? I tried to track down a few of them but was unsuccessful. Drop me an email at lara@tudorhistory.org (you can also try leaving a link in the comments but sometimes those get tagged as spam and I don’t always catch the things incorrectly tagged). Thanks!
And before anyone asks, I’m not sure when or if the podcast will be starting up again. For now it’s just on the back-burner and may make a triumphant return in 2010. We’ll just have to see!
[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]
I’m not making any resolutions this year, but I will make a promise to blog more! I’ve also been doing some “behind the scenes” stuff on the rest of the site over my break from work, as well as finally working on my review of “Wolf Hall” (short review – I liked it a lot!). I knew going in that 2009 was going to be an extraordinarily busy year for me but there were times that it still managed to surprise me. (I still can’t believe how nuts parts of October were.) I think 2010 will also be busy, but hopefully not quite as much as 2009 was!
Patterned brick chimneys at Hampton Court Palace. Photo May 2000.
Because a lot of us have cold weather right now, a reminder of how the Tudors kept warm in winter. 🙂
I can’t believe we’re at POTW #52, meaning that I’ve been posting every week for a whole year. And there are still lots of photos out there for me to keep putting up – and hopefully I’ll add to the collection in the next few years.
I’m recycling the image from the past couple of years, but here they are again, our favorite family decked out in holiday cheer:
And here’s Henry 8.0 trying to order Christmas puddings:
Henry in that hat looks kind of like the version in the “family photo” up top. 🙂 And Henry going on about The Stig – love it! (Yes, I’m a Top Gear fan.)
And last but not least, here’s an article about how Henry VIII really celebrated the holidays, from the Mail Online:
Stuffed peacock, fake snow and lashings of dancing girls… Henry VIII had a VERY merry Christmas indeed!
Five hundred years ago this Christmas, there was a new king on the throne of England. He was 18 years old, as handsome as a prince in a fairytale, sporty and over 6ft.
He spoke elegant French and Italian – and Latin, of course, like all educated people – wrote his own songs and sang them himself.
He was credited with a sweet nature and was in love with his wife. So, what would you give the young Henry VIII for Christmas? What was there left for him to want?
Overlooking the entrance to Raglan Castle, Monmouthshire, Wales. Photo May 2003.
Raglan was the home of Henry VII as a boy when he was in the custody of the Herberts in the 1460s. Raglan is under the care of Cadw which oversees many Welsh historical places.
A section of the outer wall and moat of the Tower of London. Photo May 2003.
Photo: Ed Nute
I first blogged about this project back in October 2007 and have been following the progress ever since (now at the Thistle Threads blog after the original project funding ran out). The project recreated an embroidered lady’s jacket from just after the Elizabethan period. You may remember a similar jacket in the Victoria and Albert Museum that I featured as a Picture of the Week back in July.
Scroll back through the last few posts at the Thistle Threads blog for more photos of the jacket from the big reveal. The photos in candlelight are particularly captivating.
This year it is 50% off downloads! Just head on over to the TannerRitchie Publishing website to take advantage of the offer.
They also have a blog, are on Twitter and an RSS feed of new titles, which I just added to my newsreader so I can keep up with things they are adding to their collection. It has been a while since I checked their site and it turns out I missed a lot of new additions!
I’ve blogged about Philip Sheppard‘s wonderful soundtrack to the Starkey series “Henry VIII: Mind of a Tyrant” several times before and now I’m pleased to write that it is available on iTunes!
Here’s the link to the album in the UK iTunes store and here’s the link for the US iTunes store.
The Gatehouse and Henry VII Tower of Pembroke Castle. Photo May 2003.
