New episode of the podcast up

The May 2007 episode of TudorCast is up! This marks one year of the podcast. I can’t believe it was actually over a year ago that I thought about doing this, and I really can’t believe that I actually have put together a year of podcasts. Thanks to everyone who has given me feedback over the past year!

TudorCast #12 – May 2007

This month’s featured website is FindAGrave.com

Picture of Henry VIII and Wives in the eye of a needle:

Lyrics/poem “When to her lute Corina sings” by Thomas Campion

WHEN to her lute Corinna sings,
Her voice revives the leaden strings,
And doth in highest notes appear,
As any challenged echo clear;
But when she doth of mourning speak,
E

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. 🙂

Cutty Sark

Not at all Tudor related, but I was heartbroken to see the fire on the Cutty Sark this morning. The good news is that about 50% of the ship was away for restoration. The bad news is that right now the fire is being treated as “suspicious”.

I’ve visited the ship twice, although I’ve never actually gone aboard for some silly reason. The picture above goes to the Greenwich set from my 2003 trip, which includes a few photos the ship.

Here’s a link to an article at BBC News

And here is a link to the Cutty Sark Trust.

Update September 2008
From The Times:

The fire that engulfed the Cutty Sark last May, resulting in

Johansson is *still* Mary Queen of Scots

With the flood of news alerts that came through over the past two days, you’d think this was big breaking news. I guess this is really a follow-up to news from back in September about Scarlett Johansson playing Mary Queen of Scots since her attachment to the project isn’t anything new. What apparently is new is that a production company (Relativity Media) has signed on to fund the movie.

There were a ton of articles about this, so I am just randomly choosing the most recent two that came through my news alerts:

From The Herald and from The Independent

Trailer for “The Golden Age”

Historically accurate or not, it certainly looks like good drama. I’m really looking forward to a modern-day special effects take on the Armada too!

Update: The trailer was taken down (can’t say I’m really surprised).

Update 2: Courtesy of Monique, here’s another link to the trailer. This time you can download a nice quality Quicktime version. Looks great on my computer!

Henry VIII in the eye of a needle


Willard Wigan, an artist who works on the microscopic scale has sold his collection to John Lloyd. Included in the collection is a sculpture of Henry VIII and Wives done in the eye of needle (detail of Henry and two wives above). You can see the full version of the Henry VIII piece and read about other works in This is London and the Times Online.

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.

Full article

And another one, from News Blaze

Another book from “The Tudors” series

This one isn’t due out until November, but it is available for pre-order. I didn’t see a listing at Amazon.uk, but I’ll add it if/when it shows up. Looking at the other works by Anne Gracie, I’m guessing this is a historical romance based on the series.



Thanks to Kathy for emailing me about it!

“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!).

TudorCast #11 – April 2007

This month’s featured website is the Folger Shakespeare Library

Music from Magnatune.com

La Primavera, The Dufay Collective (album “Cancionero”) and Jacob Herringman (album “Blame Not My Lute”)

Individual tracks:

Introduction: “Greensleeves” (excerpt) from La Primavera
Between the news and website of the month: “Passameze” from Jacob Heringman
Between the website and This Month in Tudor History: “Propinan de Melyor” from The Dufay Collection
Between This Month and the Tudor Hisory Glossary: “Wolsey’s Wilde: (excerpt) from La Primavera
Between Glossary and the Tudor texts: “Lightlie Love Ladies” from Jacob Heringman
Between the texts and the wrap-up: “Oxenford” (excerpt) from La Primavera
End of podcast: “Recercata Segunda” from La Primavera

Episode transcript

Direct mp3 download

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

Showtime orders second season of “The Tudors”

Apparently it’s official now!

From Variety:

Showtime is firming up plans for 2008, giving an early renewal to just-launched drama “The Tudors” and greenlighting production on a new Tracey Ullman skein.
…

Second season will document the marriage of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, the birth of daughter Elizabeth, the Reformation and (spoiler alert!) the beheading of Boleyn. Jonathan Rhys Meyers will return as star of the skein.

Full article