Not Just the Tudors
Episodes
Six Wives: Anne Boleyn
03 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Six wives - six lives that we think we know everything about. But beyond their mostly doomed marriages to Henry VIII and, in most cases, tragic e...
The Preacher Too Radical for Luther
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The mid-15th to mid-16th centuries in Europe was an era of political, social, and religious unrest, when the Roman Catholic Church was being questione...
Female Spies in the 17th Century
27 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you think that the female spy is a 20th century phenomenon - be it Mata Hari, Mrs Zigzag or Eve Polastri - think again! Accounts of numerous ...
Six Wives: Katherine of Aragon
23 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Six wives - six lives that we think we know everything about. But beyond their mostly doomed marriages to Henry VIII and, in most cases, tragic ...
Henry VIII's Sister, Margaret Queen of Scots
20 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Margaret Tudor - daughter of King Henry VII, sister to Henry VIII - was married at 13 to James IV of Scotland, learning the skills of statecraft that ...
Shogun: The Real First English Samurai
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The acclaimed TV series Shogun, now screening on Disney+, is based on true events. Its main character John Blackthorne is modelled on William Adams, t...
Shardlake and its Creator C.J. Sansom
13 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Fans of historical fiction and crime novels have been saddened to learn of the recent death of the award-winning, best-selling author C.J. Sansom, jus...
Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
**This episode contains conversation about sexual behaviour**In early modern Europe, acting upon same-sex desires was forbidden. We only know of many...
Walter Raleigh’s Quest for El Dorado
06 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sir Walter Raleigh remains one of the most famous men of the Elizabethan era. He was a true Renaissance man - a statesman, soldier, writer, explo...
From Tudor to Stuart: Regime Change
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1603, Queen Elizabeth I died and King James VI of Scotland, became King James I of England. Elizabeth was a hard act to follow for the Scotti...
Diving Tudor Shipwrecks
29 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the 16th and 17th centuries, sailing was a tool of warfare and empire, of conquest and discovery, of trade and travel. But vessels were often ...
The Birth of Science in 16th Century Europe
25 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The traditional view of the birth of modern science places it firmly in the 17th century with such huge names as Bacon, Descartes, Newton, and Galileo...
How Spices Shaped the Modern World
22 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the 16th century, spices drove the world economy, creating riches on an unprecedented scale. Spanish and Portuguese explorers competed to find the&...
Elizabeth I: Make-Up & Beauty Tips
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What do we know about what Elizabeth I actually looked like? How was her appearance altered through the use of cosmetics? Portraits suggest that ...
Unusual Births and Disability in 17th Century England
15 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
**WARNING: This episode contains themes that some listeners might find distressing and commonly-used historic terminology that does not reflect our ow...
Seducing James I: Mary & George
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The major new TV series, Mary & George tells the scandalous story of George Villiers, who rose - thanks to his mother Mary’s machinations ...
Erasmus: Renaissance Radical
08 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the 16th century, Erasmus of Rotterdam was about as famous as anybody could be, one of the greatest intellectuals of his age. To Martin Luther's mi...
Wars of Religion: A Woman's Fight for Justice
04 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
At the end of the French Wars of Religion, a widow Renée Chevalier instigated the prosecution of a military captain who had committed multiple acts o...
Martin Luther
01 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A controversial figure during his lifetime, Martin Luther set in motion a revolution that split Christianity in the West and left an indelible mark on...
Surgery in the Early Modern Age
28 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today surgery is one of the most important sectors in the medical field. But what was surgery like for people in the 16th and 17th centuries, bef...
Jewish History of Venice
25 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Essential to any history of Venice during its glory days is the story of its Jewish population. Venice gave the world the word ghetto. Astonishingly, ...
Tudor Ladies-in-Waiting
21 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For every Tudor Queen, their ladies-in-waiting were their confidantes, chaperones and intimate witnesses to their lives. These women were high born, e...
Diary of a Tudor Gentlewoman
18 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Diaries written by gentlewomen in the mid-16th century are hard to find. Yet, they lived through an age of upheaval as old ways were effaced in prefer...
Trial of Charles I
14 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the mid-17th century, King Charles I of England was put on trial for treason against the sovereign state. Such a process involved a singular deter...
How to Live Like a Stuart Aristocrat
11 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After the Restoration of the Monarchy, the upper classes took their cues from court life - its entertainments, costumes, food and leisure pursuits. Th...
Jane Seymour: Henry VIII’s Third Queen
07 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jane Seymour is a paradox. Of Henry VIII’s six wives, she is the one about whom we know perhaps the least. She was the most lowly of the queens, but...
Adventures of a Mughal Princess
04 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the British Library, there is a manuscript copy of the memoir of Princess Gulbadan, the only surviving female-authored memoir from the Mughal Empir...
Origins of Fairy Tales
29 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Fairy tales exist everywhere and in every time. Through centuries of oral tradition and the invention of print and later advances in television a...
Science vs. Witchcraft: The Kepler Trial
26 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Astronomer Johannes Kepler was an important and admired figure in the scientific revolution of the early 17th century. But when his widowed mother was...
Ghosts & Guardian Angels
22 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Elizabethan and Stuart England, ghosts weren't supposed to exist. Protestant preachers and writers had banished them - but people continued to see ...
The Rise and Fall of Britain's Islands
19 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How did Britain's islands become woven into our collective cultural psyche? Traversing Irish poetry, Renaissance drama and Restoration utopias, author...
Origins of the Condom
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The first surviving mention of condoms dates from the mid-16th century, in the writings of an Italian anatomist better known for the discovery of the ...
Fairies in the Early Modern Era
12 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the early modern period, belief in fairies was quite commonplace. But put all thoughts of Tinkerbell aside! These fairies were altogethe...
Private Life of King James VI & I
08 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
King James VI and I, the first monarch to reign over Scotland, England and Ireland, has a mixed reputation. To many, he is simply the homosexual King...
Supernatural Beings in Early Modern Britain
05 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the early modern period, it was patently clear to everyone that supernatural beings, foremost among them the devil, were at work in the world, inte...
Tudor Conquest of Ireland
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Henry VIII was termed "by the Grace of God, King of England, France and Ireland.” Ireland was England’s oldest colony. But what bloody...
How Ecology Shaped History with Peter Frankopan
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
History books rarely make much reference to the impact of climate and the natural environment on people, and vice versa. Yet volcanic eruptions ...
Henry VIII's Nemesis, Cardinal Pole
25 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Reginald Pole has been styled as both the nemesis of Henry VIII and as Mary I's bloody accomplice. Pole was related to the English royal family t...
Murder in the Stuart Court
22 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The public fascination with true crime is nothing new. Four centuries ago, the sensational story of the death in the Tower of London of Thomas Ov...
Trading British Brides for American Tobacco
18 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1621 the Virginia Company of London put out a call for young, handsome and honestly educated women to become wives for the planters in its new colo...
15th Century Puritan Fanatic, Savonarola
15 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Girolamo Savonarola was a late 15th century Dominican friar who rose to become a preacher, prophet, and politician. He took on the corruption of ...
How to Survive in Tudor England
11 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Life in Tudor England was risky. In addition to the outbreaks of plague, the threat of poverty and the dangers of childbirth, there were social r...
Elizabeth I's Spymaster, Walsingham
07 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For anyone studying the politics of the 1570s-80s, it would be hard to avoid Elizabeth I’s ‘spymaster’ Sir Francis Walsingham, who seemingly ros...
Princes in the Tower: The Tudor Pretenders?
04 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The unsolved mystery of what happened to the Princes in the Tower - Edward V and Richard, Duke of York - is possibly English history’s greatest cold...
Tudors in Love
01 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From Henry VIII declaring himself as the ‘loyal and most assured servant’ of Anne Boleyn to the poems lavished on Elizabeth I by her suitors, the ...
The Black Medici Prince of Florence
28 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the cut-throat world of Renaissance Florence, Alessandro - the illegitimate son of a Duke and a mixed-race servant - attempts to reassert the Medic...
Tudor Ghosts and Angels
21 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
To this day, the presence of angels is synonymous with the Christmas story and the momentous events associated with the Nativity. For the Tudors ...
How the Elizabethan World Shaped Shakespeare
18 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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, conti...
Origins of Pantomime
14 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever wondered how and where our Christmas tradition of pantomime originated? In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah ...
How the Reformation Changed Music
11 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 tu...
The Tudors' Portrait Artist: Holbein
07 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How we visualise the Tudors largely comes from their portraits painted by Hans Holbein the Younger. Between 1526 and 1543, he captured the elite...
3 Ways to Die in Early Modern Europe
04 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Life in the 16th and 17th centuries was brutal - the development of warfare technology made conflicts catastrophic for civilians as well as soldiers, ...
Montaigne: Philosopher of the French Renaissance
30 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 n...
Saving Henry VIII's Lost Tapestry
26 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For the Tudors, tapestries not only brought warmth and colour to a room, but they were magnificent demonstrations of artistic skill and of moral messa...
Mary I: What if She'd Lived?
22 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 Rom...
Inside Hampton Court Palace
20 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries, Hampton Court has been a stage for monarchy, revolution, religious fundamentalism, sexual scandals, and military coups. In his new book...
Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I with Tracy Borman
16 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Henry VIII: What You Really Need to Know
13 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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, w...
Witchcraft: Everything You Need to Know
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Henry VII
06 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 exil...
Gunpowder Plot: Tudor Origins
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Origins of the Witchfinder General
30 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1640s, Matthew Hopkins gave himself the grandiose title of Witchfinder General and set himself the task of purging England of witches. But wher...
Black Tudors
26 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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, original...
Inside the Tudor Home
22 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 b...
The Tudors Told Through Numbers
19 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Shakespeare's son Hamnet with Maggie O'Farrell
16 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to Shakespeare's biography and his inner life, there's a certain lack of evidence. But what if Shakespeare actually signposted us to an ...
William the Silent, Father of the Netherlands
12 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What encouraged a young man who had spent most of his formative years being raised by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, to bite the hand that feeds him an...
Witchcraft: A History in Four Trials
09 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Most of our knowledge of witchcraft accusations and executions comes from the proceedings of high profile and significant trials. Professor Mario...
Normal Women with Philippa Gregory
05 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Did women really do nothing to shape England’s culture and traditions through centuries of turmoil, plague, famine and religious reform? In her...
How Shakespeare Depicted Race
02 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the same way that Shakespeare’s women characters were performed by boys in female costume, African, Middle Eastern, Hispanic and Jewish roles in ...
Anne Boleyn & Catherine Howard's Uncle, Thomas Howard
28 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, is often vilified as one of the Tudor century's most unpleasant characters. His was a family marked by treaso...
How Kateryn Parr Championed the Reformation
25 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Henry VIII's sixth wife Kateryn Parr was a scholar and a writer in her own right. She was one of the first English women to have works published under...
Eating with the Tudors
21 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What did the Tudor age understand about digestion? How did this affect what foods people prepared and ate? Was there such a thing as healthy eating? H...
Henry VIII’s Fool, Will Somer
18 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In some portraits of Henry VIII there appears another, striking figure. This is Will Somer, the king’s fool, a celebrated wit who could raise Henry’...
Margaret Cavendish: 17th Century Revolutionary
14 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In an age when literature was dominated by men, Margaret Cavendish wrote passionately about gender, science and philosophy. She published under her ow...
Hapsburg Inbreeding with Dr. Adam Rutherford
11 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
One of Early Modern Europe’s most powerful families, the Hapsburgs shared a physical trait so distinctive that it came to be regarded as a badge of ...
Michelangelo
07 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At 31, Michelangelo was considered the finest artist in Italy, perhaps the world. Long before he died at almost 90, he was widely believed to be ...
Origins of Modern Iran: Safawid Dynasty
04 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Safawid Dynasty, which ruled Iran from 1501 to 1736, marked the beginning of modern Iranian history. At its height, it controlled all of what...
Dutch Golden Age: 'The Goldfinch' and its Painter
31 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On the morning of 12 October 1654, in the Dutch city of Delft, a sudden explosion was followed by a thunderclap that could be heard more than 70 miles...
Henry VIII's Billionaire Wardrobe
28 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Henry VIII was described as the 'best dressed sovereign in the world' by the Venetian ambassador Sebastian Giustinian. The Tudor King spent the equiva...
Girls on Stage and Page in the Elizabethan Age
24 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Contrary to the idea that the early modern stage was male-dominated, girls actually played an active part in religious dramas, civic pageants, Elizabe...
Stealing the Crown Jewels with Al Murray
21 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1671, an Anglo-Irish officer, the self-styled Colonel Blood attempted to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. The thwarted crime b...
Elizabeth I's Censored Annals: A Major Discovery
17 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Did King James VI of Scotland plot to assassinate Elizabeth I? Did she name him as her successor? For centuries, dozens of pasted-over passages in the...
Christopher Wren
14 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Best known for St. Paul’s Cathedral, Christopher Wren was the greatest architect Britain has ever known. But he was so much more: he applied his min...
Treasures of Lambeth Palace
10 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Books belonging to Henry VIII, Richard III, Mary I and Edward VI are among the treasures in the historic library of the Archbishops of Canterbury, one...
Seymour, Dudley & Parr Families: Forgotten Tudor Women
07 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Seymour, Dudley and Parr are all well-known Tudor names. But often, behind the more famous men in those families, there were women who had a much...
The African Samurai
03 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How did an enslaved East African man become Japan’s first foreign samurai, and the only ever samurai of African descent? How did Yasuke catch the at...
Gentileschi: Greatest Female Artist of the Baroque Age
31 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Artemisia Gentileschi was the most celebrated female painter of the 17th century, as famous in her lifetime as Reubens or Van Dyke. But the event...
Tudor Gifts: How to Win Friends and Influence People
27 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How meaningful can a gift - especially of a book - be? In the fickle world of the Tudor court, the strategic gifting of books was a common practice, b...
The Reformation: What Catholics & Protestants Believed
24 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the sixteenth century, religious beliefs underwent a dramatic change. As differences between the late medieval Roman Catholic Church and the nature...
Ivan the Terrible
20 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The name Ivan the Terrible is synonymous with brutality and ruthlessness. While Western scholars insist that the first crowned Tsar of all Russia did ...
Tudor Queens: The Power of Jewellery
17 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From the mid-15th century to the mid-16th century, there were 10 Queens Consort of England, from Margaret of Anjou to Katherine Parr. For each of thes...
Elizabethan Rivals: Francis Bacon & Edward Coke
13 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As Queen Elizabeth I lays dying, King James VI of Scotland is waiting to accede to the throne of England. But who will thrive and who will fall under ...
Francis Drake's Discovery of West Coast America
10 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 1579, Francis Drake had to land in a ‘fair and good bay’ on the western coast of the New World when his ship - The Golden Hind - ...
Thomas More on Film: The Historians' Verdict
06 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What do you get when you bring together five top historians to debate depictions of Thomas More on film and TV? History with the gloves off - our thir...
Elizabeth I's Musician: William Byrd
03 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The most admired and influential composer during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I, William Byrd died exactly 400 years ago on 4 July 1...
Shakespeare's Plays: The Power of Gestures
29 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When we think of Shakespeare, we mostly think of language. But what about gesture and other forms of nonverbal communication - from thumb-biting in Ro...
Transgender Fairies in Early Modern Literature
26 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today we think of fairies on the stage and in stories as often cute, ultra-feminine and unthreatening. But in Early Modern literature, fairies were su...
Shakespeare's London: Going to the Theatre
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this third special episode of Not Just the Tudors celebrating the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio, Professor Su...
Elizabeth I’s Royal Tours
19 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Every spring and summer of her 44 year reign, Queen Elizabeth I insisted that her court go "on progress" — royal visits to towns and aristocratic ho...