Not Just the Tudors

In the cut-throat world of Renaissance Florence, Alessandro - the illegitimate son of a Duke and a mixed-race servant - attempts to reassert the Medicis’ faltering grip on the city state. But after j…

To this day, the presence of angels is synonymous with the Christmas story and the momentous events associated with the Nativity. For the Tudors and Stuarts, widespread belief in angels brought a tou…

We think of Shakespeare as a man out of time. His stories and characters, his capturing of human nature, and his exquisite use of language, continue to speak to us today - and will endure for the cen…

Have you ever wondered how and where our Christmas tradition of pantomime originated? 

In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb finds out from Dr. Oliver Crick, who traces p…

The Coventry Carol and In Dulci Jubilo are songs that are still sung at this time of the year.  Curiously, despite their medieval roots, these tunes remained popular throughout Protestant Elizabethan…

How we visualise the Tudors largely comes from their portraits painted by Hans Holbein the Younger.  Between 1526 and 1543, he captured the elite of the Tudor court and beyond - Henry VIII, Anne Bole…

Life in the 16th and 17th centuries was brutal - the development of warfare technology made conflicts catastrophic for civilians as well as soldiers, there were regular epidemics, and famines both ma…

Centuries before Proust's Remembrance of Things Past took us on a tour of memory and James Joyce played with stream of consciousness, a 16th century nobleman - Michel de Montaigne - developed a wholl…

For the Tudors, tapestries not only brought warmth and colour to a room, but they were magnificent demonstrations of artistic skill and of moral messages. A campaign is now under way to save a vast g…

On 17 November 1558, Queen Mary I died. But how would history have turned out differently if Mary had lived another 30 years? Where would her Roman-Catholicism taken England? Would Mary have patched …

For centuries, Hampton Court has been a stage for monarchy, revolution, religious fundamentalism, sexual scandals, and military coups. In his new book The Palace: From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500…

Anne Boleyn is usually considered in the context of her marriage to - and demise at the hands of - King Henry VIII. But ultimately, the memory of Anne eventually triumphed, and her death was avenged,…

The truth about Henry VIII may surprise you. This second episode of Not Just the Tudors' Tudor Dynasty mini-series provides you, in a nutshell, with everything you really need to know about Henry: hi…

In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb pays a visit to historians Dr. Anthony Delaney and Dr. Maddy Pelling, who are the hosts of History Hit’s new podcast, After Dark. M…

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb kicks off four special episodes about the Tudor Dynasty with a look at its founding father King Henry VII. Seen as an exile and outsider with barely a claim to the throne,…

The Gunpowder Plot is one of the hinge events of British history - an act of terror the roots of which stretch back to the Tudor period and Henry VIII's break with Rome. It's a story of Holy War, div…

In the 1640s, Matthew Hopkins gave himself the grandiose title of Witchfinder General and set himself the task of purging England of witches. But where did his obsession come from and why did he adop…

The most famous Black African in Tudor England is John Blanke, a musician in the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII. The discovery of Blanke, originally by Professor Sydney Anglo, was made famous by …

We are all familiar with great Tudor palaces and country houses but what were the homes of ordinary people like during that time? How were they built, and how did designs change with the use of new m…

There are countless ways to understand and analyse the Tudors but a new book takes a unique look at the dynasty through its statistics. And there’s a lot more to discover than just the famous six wiv…