Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the Tudors
Renaissance England was a bustling and exciting place...new religion! break with rome! wars with Scotland! And France! And Spain! The birth of the modern world! In this weekly podcast I'll explore one aspect of life in 16th century England that will give you a deeper understanding of this most exciting time.
Episodes
Tudor Laundresses: Three Very Different Lives Doing the Dirtiest Job at Court
What did it actually take to keep Tudor England clean? Before dawn, before the court woke up, before Henry VIII put on his famous doublet, someone was already up to her elbows in lye, urine, and other people's laundry. That someone was the Tudor laundress, and her story is one I have been wanting to tell for a long time.
In this episode we follow three very different women doing the same essentia
Medieval Women Couldn't Hold Power? Meet the Two Female Sheriffs Who Ran Entire Counties
Everything we think we know about women and power in the medieval world is missing a few key details. Like the fact that there were exactly two female sheriffs in medieval England, and that their lives were directly tangled together in the most dramatic way possible.
Nicholaa de la Haye held Lincoln Castle through multiple sieges, was appointed Sheriff of Lincolnshire by King John in one of his f
What If Thomas More Had Just Signed? (My Hair and I Discuss)
What if Thomas More had just signed the Oath of Supremacy? He could have. Plenty of people did. Cranmer signed it. Cromwell signed it. So why didn't More, and what would have changed if he had?
In this week's What If Thought Experiment, we're looking at one of the Tudor period's most interesting counterfactuals.
Henry VIII didn't need More's signature legally, he wanted it because More was the
Spinster: The Job Title That Became an Insult
Before it was an insult, "spinster" was a job title. It meant a woman who spins thread. It appeared in tax rolls, court records, and legal documents. It was an occupation. And then the economy collapsed, the guilds shut women out, and the word became something else entirely.
In this episode we're looking at the women who quite literally kept Tudor England running -- the spinners, weavers, and dye
The Tudor Women Who Controlled Access to the Queen (And Paid the Price)
You think office politics are bad? Imagine your entire career depending on whether the queen liked how you handed her a towel.Lady in waiting sounds like a decorative job. It wasn't. The women of the Tudor privy chamber controlled physical access to the most powerful person in England, and in Tudor political life, controlling the door meant controlling everything. A quiet word at the right moment,
The Tudor Legal Loophole That Gave Women Their Lives Back
The moment a Tudor woman got married, she legally ceased to exist. No property, no contracts, no rights - her entire legal identity absorbed into her husband's. But the moment he died? She got it all back. And some of these women knew exactly what that meant.
In this episode we're looking at three Tudor women who used widowhood as a strategy... whether they meant to or not. Bess of Hardwick turne
The Tudor Woman Who Ran the Household Pharmacy (And Accidentally Poisoned Everyone)
In early June in Tudor England, one woman was already up before sunrise. She had roughly four months to produce everything her household needed to survive the next twelve months. Medicine. Preserves. Cosmetics. Cleaning products. The entire household pharmacy. All of it, from scratch, while the plants were available.
She had no name in the history books. But without her, the household didn't make
She Told Two Kings No and Kept Her Castle (And They Had to Wait Until She Died)
In 1293, King Edward I finally got what he wanted: the Isle of Wight. He'd been trying to take it for decades. He had to wait until its owner, Isabella de Fortibus, was on her deathbed to get it. And even then, she made him pay for it.
Isabella de Fortibus was a 13th century countess who became one of the wealthiest people in England after a series of family tragedies left her controlling Devon,
Patriotism in Tudor England: How a Nation Learned to Love Itself
It's Memorial Day, and I've been thinking about patriotism -- where it comes from, why people feel it so strongly, and whether Tudor people felt anything like it at all.
The answer is more interesting than I expected. In 1485, when Henry VII takes the throne after the Battle of Bosworth Field, England is basically a collection of feudal relationships. Loyalty runs to your lord, your family, your
Plague, Prayer and Running Away: How Tudor Londoners Survived the Epidemics
London, summer 1563. The city sounds wrong. The market stalls have gaps. And then you notice the door across the street — a blue cross painted on it, and a man standing outside who wasn't there yesterday.
The plague is back.
Today we're going street level into the Tudor plague years. What it actually felt like to live in London when the epidemics hit, what ordinary people did to survive, and thr
Did Elizabeth I Actually Order Mary Queen of Scots' Execution?
Someone in the comments asked me to do a deep dive on whether Elizabeth I actually gave the order for Mary Queen of Scots' execution. And the closer I looked, the stranger it got.
Here's the surface version. Mary was Elizabeth's prisoner for nineteen years. Elizabeth kept refusing to sign the death warrant. Then one day she signed it. Then said she didn't mean it. Then threw her secretary William
She Never Said Her Mother's Name. But She Never Took Off the Ring.
Today is May 19th. On this day in 1536, Anne Boleyn was executed on Tower Green. And in a royal nursery somewhere in Hertfordshire, a two-year-old girl had no idea her mother had just been beheaded on her father's orders.That little girl grew up to be Elizabeth I. And she never - not once in more than four decades on the throne - spoke publicly about her mother.
We're looking at what happened to
What If Edward VI Had Backed Down? The Deathbed Decision That Changed England
Edward VI gets overlooked. He's usually just the boy between Henry and the interesting women. But here's what people miss: Edward didn't just die and leave a mess. He made choices. Theologically driven, politically sophisticated choices. From his deathbed. At fifteen.
This week's What If looks at the Devise for Succession, the document Edward drafted in his own hand that bypassed both his sisters
Henry VIII, Constantine, and the Art of the Very Confident Lie
Henry VIII wasn't content to just be King of England. He needed you to know he was descended from Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor who legalized Christianity and changed the course of Western history. And he had receipts. Made-up receipts, courtesy of a 12th century Welsh cleric named Geoffrey of Monmouth, but receipts nonetheless.
In this minicast, we look at where this claim came from,
1509: The Year Everyone Thought It Was All Beginning
In 1509, England went from a dying paranoid king to a golden coronation to a deadly plague in about eight months. This is a Year in the Life episode, where we slow down and live inside 1509, not just at court but in the guild halls and households of ordinary Londoners who had nowhere to run when the sweating sickness arrived while Henry VIII fled to Windsor. Thomas More wrote some of the most joyf
The Life of a Tudor Con Artist (They Had Job Titles)
In 1591, a Cambridge-educated writer named Robert Greene published a pamphlet exposing London's professional con artists. He named their roles, described their techniques, and basically wrote the world's first true crime series. The problem is that he was also personally acquainted with most of the criminals he was writing about.
Today we're spending 24 hours with a Tudor cony-catcher. A cony is
What If Anne Boleyn Had Lived? Cromwell's Three Choices and Where They Led
It's April 1536 and Thomas Cromwell has gone home sick. Except he's not sick. He's deciding what to do about Anne Boleyn.
In this What If episode, we play out three scenarios from that single moment of decision: what Cromwell actually chose and why it signed his own death warrant four years later, what happens if he removes Anne without killing her and she becomes a Protestant cause célèbre in ex
Henry VII's Impossible Choice: Execute an Innocent Man or Lose Everything
In 1499, Henry VII had two men in the Tower of London. One claimed to be his wife's long-lost brother. The other was an innocent young man who had been locked up since he was ten years old. And the King and Queen of Spain wouldn't send Catherine of Aragon to England until both of them were dead.
This is History as an Empathy Machine, a new thought experiment where we lay out the real options hist
Tudor Medicine and the Mind: Melancholy, Music, and What Help Actually Looked Like
What happened in Tudor England when someone's mind turned against them? There was no therapist, no diagnosis, no prescription. But there was a whole system, and it was more coherent than you'd expect.
We dig into the four humors as a complete theory of the mind, Timothy Bright's 1586 Treatise of Melancholie (the first English book on mental illness), music as formally prescribed medical treatment
What If Lady Jane Grey Had Refused the Crown?
Jane Grey wasn't just a pawn. She was a fierce Protestant intellectual who made a real choice when the crown landed at her feet in 1553. What if she'd said no? We explore what Mary's reign might have looked like without a Protestant figurehead to rally around, whether Wyatt's Rebellion would even have happened, and why the answer has less to do with Jane's courage than you might think.
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The Dairymaid: Tudor England's Most Underestimated Woman
Someone left a comment asking about Tudor dairymaids, and I went down a rabbit hole I did not expect. The dairymaid looks like a background character in Tudor history. She is absolutely not.
We're covering her daily work, the surprising economic independence the dairy gave women in a world designed to give them none, and why the phrase "as smooth as a milkmaid's skin" is actually encoding centuri
How Did Tudors Survive Without Coffee? (The Answer Is Weirder Than You Think)
You've probably heard that Tudor people never drank water, that ale was the default drink for everyone including children, because the water would kill you. It's in pretty much every Tudor history book from the last thirty years. And it turns out it's a lot more complicated than that.
In this episode we dig into where the "nobody drank water" story actually comes from, why the sources historians
The Tudor Uber Driver Who Floated Tudor London
Before bridges, before coaches, before passable roads, if you needed to get anywhere in Tudor London you needed him. The Thames waterman was licensed, badged, opinionated, and completely indispensable.
In this episode we spend 24 hours on the river: shooting London Bridge, ferrying Shakespeare's audience to the South Bank, and watching the coaches arrive and take everything away.
Plus: John Tayl
The Most Important Woman in Tudor England You've Never Heard Of
Before hospitals, painkillers, or germ theory, the Tudor midwife was the most powerful person in the room. Licensed by the Bishop, sworn to secrecy, she outranked duchesses, performed sacraments no other woman was allowed to touch, and knew every secret in the neighborhood.
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What If Mary Queen of Scots Had Run? A Tudor Thought Experiment
Scotland in the 1560s was chaotic even by Tudor standards. In this thought experiment episode, we ask: what if Mary Queen of Scots had fled to France in 1567 instead of marrying Bothwell? We walk through the real history, then imagine how one different decision might have changed the Catholic plots against Elizabeth, the Spanish Armada, and the entire trajectory of the British monarchy. Plus: come
The Medieval Women Who Ran Businesses, Won Lawsuits, and Refused to Be Pushed Out
History says medieval women were powerless. Some of them knew exactly where the power was and went and got it.
In this episode I'm looking at four women who built careers, won lawsuits, and left things behind that still exist today, all inside a legal system that was stacked against them. Katherine Fenkyll ran one of the most active cloth businesses in Tudor London for thirty years, negotiated wi
Why Tudor England Refused to Eat Tomatoes For 200 Years
The story of how a respected Elizabethan botanist looked at a tomato, applied perfectly logical medical reasoning, and concluded that English people shouldn't eat one, and why it took two hundred years for anyone to prove him wrong.
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What It Was Actually Like to Work in Henry VIII's Kitchen
Henry VIII's kitchens at Hampton Court occupied 55 rooms, employed 200 men, and burned six tons of wood every single day. This episode spends 24 hours inside that operation, from the scullions lighting fires before dawn to the leftover food going to the poor at the end of the day. We cover the kitchen hierarchy, the staggering food quantities, the spit boy and his very specific idea of a holiday,
In Tudor England, Your Dreams Were Everyone's Business
In Tudor England, a dream wasn't private. It was medical evidence, potential divine communication, and possibly a message from Satan. This video explores the three frameworks Tudor people used to understand their dreams, and the story of Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent, whose visions made her famous across England and then got her executed in 1534.
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They Hung Babies On Walls: A Day Inside the Tudor Royal Nursery
The Tudor royal nursery wasn't a cozy domestic space. It was a department of state, with its own hierarchy, its own politics, and sworn oaths of loyalty just to rock a cradle. This week we're going inside it: the Lady Mistress running the show, the wet nurses who gave up their families and their freedom to feed someone else's baby, the swaddling operation that occasionally involved hanging an infa
She Tested It. They Ignored It. The Women Who Invented Knowledge Before Science Had a Name.
In the late 1400s, two women were doing something radical: generating knowledge and insisting it counted. Margery Kempe was building an evidence base for her divine visions. Caterina Sforza was annotating her alchemical recipes with "proven and certain." They never met, but they were solving the same problem. One manuscript was found in a ping-pong cupboard in 1934. The other is still missing.
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24 Hours in the Life of a Tudor Lady in Waiting (She Asked for Gambling Money. Her Mom Said Practice Your Lute.)
What did a Tudor lady in waiting actually do all day? We're spending 24 hours with Anne Basset at Greenwich Palace in 1538, hour by hour from 5am to midnight. Anne served five queens across two decades and survived all of it, which was not guaranteed. We know the details of her life because her mother wrote constantly from Calais asking whether the smocks fit, reminding her to practice her lute in
Did the Tudors DO April Fools?
It's April 1st, and I'm not going to trick you. Instead, let's ask a genuine question: did the Tudors even DO April Fools' Day?
The answer is no, not really. But what they did instead is so much more interesting. We dig into the murky origins of April Fools' Day (the most popular origin story is probably itself a myth, which is perfect), the Tudor tradition of licensed misrule, and the story of W
Three Queens Who Refused to Behave (And Why History Punished Them For It)
History has a word for queens who had opinions and refused to be managed. Today we're looking at three of them across three centuries - Eleanor of Aquitaine, Empress Matilda, and Isabella of France - and asking whether "scandalous" means what history wants us to think it means.
Eleanor governed, went on crusade, backed her sons against her husband, and got locked in a tower for sixteen years. Hen
Same Choice. Opposite Directions. Two Tudor Women in Exile.
In the 1550s, Tudor England created exiles going both ways. When Mary I came to the throne, Protestants fled. When Elizabeth came to the throne, Catholics fled. Today we're looking at two women caught on opposite sides of that chaos: Katherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk, who endured poverty and Lithuania rather than pretend to be Catholic for one single day, and Jane Dormer, Mary I's closest f
How to Survive a Tudor King (A Case Study in Almost Getting It Right)
Thomas Cranmer spent twenty-five years mastering the art of Tudor survival. He was useful, he was careful, he understood exactly how to stay on the right side of the most dangerous king in English history. And it worked, right up until it didn't.
Today we're using Cranmer as the ultimate Tudor survival case study: what the rules were, how he followed them, and why he broke every single one of the
What If Katherine Parr Had Refused Thomas Seymour?
Katherine Parr survived Henry VIII -- no small feat -- only to die in childbirth at 36 after rushing into a marriage with Thomas Seymour, the charming, reckless, deeply ambitious man she'd wanted before Henry got in the way.
The obvious "what if" is that she lives longer. But the more interesting question is what her survival means for Elizabeth Tudor -- the teenager living in that household, exp
Henry VIII Dissolved This Abbey. They Refused to Leave for 500 Years.
Syon Abbey was founded in 1415 and dissolved by Henry VIII in 1539. The community refused to scatter. They waited, came back under Mary, went into exile again under Elizabeth, survived a Calvinist mob in Flanders, 200 years in Lisbon, a 9.0 earthquake, and Napoleon. They finally closed in 2011 -- not because anyone shut them down, but because there were three elderly nuns left and they couldn't ma
What If Anne of Cleves Had Refused the Annulment?
Anne of Cleves is always called the lucky one. She survived Henry VIII, kept her head, and walked away with Hever Castle and a generous income. But in July 1540 she actually had legal grounds to contest the annulment, a brother with diplomatic leverage, and Katherine of Aragon's playbook sitting right in front of her. So why did she say yes? And was it luck, or was it strategy?
This week I'm look
The Women Henry VIII Forgot: England's Nuns After the Dissolution
When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, roughly 2,000 nuns lost everything overnight. Their homes, their communities, their vocations, and in many cases the only life they had ever known. We talk endlessly about the monks and the land transfers. We almost never talk about the nuns.
In this episode I'm looking at what actually happened to them after the dissolution. Some went home to families.
The Medieval Women Who Refused to Be Nuns or Wives (And Got Away With It for 800 Years)
The last Beguine died in 2013. Her name was Marcella Pattyn, she was 92 years old, and she was the final link in an 800-year chain of women who refused to be nuns or wives and built something entirely their own instead.
The Beguines lived in community, supported themselves, and wrote theology in languages ordinary people could actually read, all without answering to any bishop, abbot, or husband.
Who Actually Paid for the Gloriana Myth? (The Hidden Cost of Tudor Image-Making)
Everyone knows the image: the pearls, the sieve, the impossible gown. Elizabeth I as Gloriana, timeless and untouchable.
But someone paid for that image. A lot of someones. Today we're following the money behind Tudor image-making, from the Norwich aldermen who spent months of public funds on five days of royal pageantry, to Robert Dudley bankrupting himself at Kenilworth, to Nicholas Hilliard pa
Tudor Women Had No Financial Rights. So Why Are Their Names All Over the Account Books?
Under Tudor law, a married woman didn't legally exist as a financial person. Everything she owned became her husband's the moment she married. She couldn't sign a contract, collect a debt, or run a business in her own name.
And yet the account books survive. And they are full of women.
Today we're looking at how Tudor women actually managed money in a world that officially pretended they weren't
Katherine Parr Was Held Hostage Before She Ever Met Henry VIII
Before Katherine Parr became Henry VIII's sixth wife, she spent eight years at Snape Castle in North Yorkshire as Lady Latimer. In January 1537, armed rebels from the Pilgrimage of Grace showed up while her husband was away, took her and her stepchildren hostage, and ransacked the place.
I think that moment explains everything about who Katherine became.
Play the game here: https://www.englan
What If Mary Tudor's Baby Was Real? | Tudor Alternate History
What if Mary I's phantom pregnancy in 1555 had been real? In this episode, I trace what happens to Elizabeth, the Church of England, the Spanish Armada, Mary Queen of Scots, and even English-speaking America if one baby had actually arrived. Spoiler: almost nothing about the modern world looks the same.
Related "What if" - what if Elizabeth had married early?
https://youtu.be/Al8K_oLHEIY
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How Tudor People Actually Got Their News (It Was Chaotic)
Related episode on Isabella Whitney: https://youtu.be/JoSeTYE22SE
Before newspapers, before coffeehouses, Tudor England had its own chaotic information ecosystem, and it reached further down the social ladder than most people realize. In this episode we're looking at who could actually read, what ordinary people were reading (broadside ballads, almanacs, monster news), and how the Crown kept lo
Why Smart Tudor Women Chose the Convent (And What Henry VIII Took From Them)
When Bridget of York, youngest daughter of Edward IV, chose a life at Dartford Priory over marriage to a Scottish prince, most people assume she had no better options. They're wrong.
The Tudor convent wasn't a consolation prize. It was the only institution in England that offered women real governance experience, education, community, and a life that didn't depend on surviving childbirth or a hus
So You Want to Survive Henry VIII's Court (Good Luck)
The Tudor court was one of the most glamorous, exciting, and genuinely terrifying places in the world. And the people who lost their heads there were not stupid. Thomas More was a legal genius. Cromwell basically invented modern bureaucracy. Wolsey ran England for fifteen years. So what went wrong?
Today we're building the actual survival guide. The real unwritten rules that separated the people
The Queen Henry V Called a Witch (And Why He Was Lying)
In 1419, Joan of Navarre, dowager queen of England and stepmother to Henry V, was arrested for witchcraft and necromancy. There was no trial. Her income was seized immediately. And Henry V, the king she supposedly tried to murder with wax figures and dark magic, freed her on his deathbed and wrote that he feared for his soul because of what he had done to her.
So what actually happened? Joan's st
What If Reginald Pole Had Just Shut Up? (Margaret Pole's Survival)
Margaret Pole was 67 years old when Henry VIII had her executed. She wasn't plotting. She wasn't scheming. She was an old woman in the Tower whose son kept writing angry letters from Rome calling Henry a heretic.
So today we're playing a game. What if Reginald Pole had kept his opinions to himself? Could Margaret have survived to see Mary on the throne? I think the answer is yes, and the story of
A Galley Slave, A Massacre, and Henry VIII Being Winched Onto A Horse
We think of the Tudor period as velvet and poetry and dramatic executions. We do not think of it as siege warfare. That's a mistake.
In this episode I'm looking at three Tudor sieges that completely wrecked my assumptions about this era:
- Henry VIII personally showing up to besiege a French city (and having to be hoisted onto his horse to get there),
- a Protestant reformer who ended up as a
What If Katherine Howard Had Culpepper's Baby?
Katherine Howard is remembered as the tragic teenager who lost her head at seventeen. But what if she didn't have to?
In the winter of 1541, everyone at the English court thought Henry VIII was dying. They were just waiting him out. All Katherine had to do was survive a few more months. And then Cranmer slipped that letter under Henry's door, and everything fell apart.
But what if two things had
He Betrayed His Brother to Save Himself. Then He Had to Live With It.
In 1538, a man named Geoffrey Pole was arrested and taken to the Tower of London. He hadn't plotted against Henry VIII. He hadn't raised an army. He'd written letters to his brother and said, once, that he wished he could see him.
That was enough.
What followed was one of the most psychologically devastating interrogations of the Tudor period, and one of the least talked about. Over seven sessio
The York Sisters: Five Women, One Dynasty Collapse
Everyone knows the Princes in the Tower, but what happened to their sisters? After Bosworth, five daughters of Edward IV faced a new Tudor king who needed one of them and feared the rest. This is the story of how Henry VII solved the problem of Elizabeth, Cecily, Anne, Catherine, and Bridget of York... and what each solution cost.
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Why Americans Fall in Love with Britain with Jonathan Thomas of Anglotopia
Follow Anglotopia in all the places
Anglotopia website: anglotopia.net
Anglotopia store: store.anglotopia.net
Anglotopia app: available on iOS App Store and Google Play Store
Quentin Lake's coastal walk: https://theperimeter.uk/
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What makes someone dedicate their life to a country that isn't their own? Jonathan Thomas, founder of Anglotopia, has spent 19 years building a community for
The Tudors Didn't Know How It Would End Either
We talk a lot about living through uncertain times, especially now. New technology nobody fully understands. Institutions that keep changing the rules. A world that feels like it's shifting faster than anyone can keep up with.The Tudors would have recognized that feeling immediately.Between 1485 and 1603, England went through changes that were, by any measure, total: the printing press, the Reform
What’s in a Tudor Woman’s Bag? Court Essentials vs. Servant Survival
If you emptied the pockets of a Tudor woman in 1535, what would spill out?
In this episode, we’re opening the drawstring purses, apron folds, and girdles of 16th-century women to see what they actually carried. Not the romanticized version. The practical one.
From gold pomanders packed with ambergris and spices…
To iron keys tied on fraying string…
To bread wrapped in linen because there was no
The Times Mary Tudor Almost Fled England
There were moments in Mary Tudor’s life when escape seemed like the safest choice. Imperial ambassadors discussed secret routes to the coast. Ships waited across the Channel. Loyal advisers urged her to leave England before her enemies could move against her.
In this video, we look at the most dangerous periods of Mary’s early life, first under her father Henry VIII, when Anne Boleyn’s rise left
How the Tudors Celebrated Valentine’s Day (Love, Letters, and Candlemas Traditions)
Did the Tudors celebrate Valentine’s Day? And if so, what did it actually look like before chocolates, roses, and greeting cards?
In this episode, we step into mid-February in Tudor England, that quiet stretch between Candlemas and the start of Lent, and explore how people marked St. Valentine’s Day. From candlelit church processions and weather lore to love poems written in the Tower of London,
How Tudors Started the Day: Morning Routines in the 1500s
What did a typical morning look like in Tudor England?
There were no alarm clocks, no hot showers, and no coffee waiting in the kitchen. Instead, people woke in cold rooms, often sharing beds, with the fire nearly out and the day’s work already ahead of them.
In this episode, we walk through a full Tudor morning routine, from first light to the start of work. You’ll hear about rush-covered floor
From Pancakes to Fasting: Shrovetide and Lent in Tudor England
Late February was one of the hardest times of year in Tudor England. Food stores were running low, the weather was damp and cold, and spring still felt far away. But in the middle of that hungry season came Shrovetide, a brief burst of pancakes, games, and noise before the long fast of Lent began.
In this video, we spend a day inside a Tudor household at the end of winter. From thin pottage and s
The Marriage That Could Have Saved Mary I | Tudor Alternate History
What if Mary I had listened to her people instead of her heart?
When Mary Tudor took the throne in 1553, she was a survivor who had beaten the odds. But she was also a woman in a hurry. She needed an heir, she needed to secure the Catholic faith, and she needed a husband. In our timeline, she chose Philip of Spain, a decision that brought Wyatt’s Rebellion, the loss of Calais, and the nickname "B
Arbella Stuart’s Escape: Disguised as a Man, Chased by the Crown
Arbella Stuart was born with royal blood, raised under watch, and treated as a possible queen her entire life. She never claimed the throne, but her lineage made her dangerous simply by existing.
In this episode, we follow Arbella from her childhood under Bess of Hardwick to her secret marriage to William Seymour, and the dramatic 1611 escape attempt that ended in pursuit, capture, and imprisonme
How Cold Were Tudor Houses? The Reality of Life Without Heat
If you’ve ever visited a Tudor palace in winter and wondered why it feels so cold inside, the answer is simple: it always was.
In this episode, I explore how people in Tudor England actually stayed warm indoors. Not central heating, not roaring fires in every room, but a daily system built around one hearth, heavy clothing, hot food, shared warmth, and carefully managed routines.
We’ll look at f
What If the Gunpowder Plot Had Succeeded? England After November 5, 1605
In November 1605, the Gunpowder Plot came terrifyingly close to reshaping England’s future. This episode explores what would have happened if Parliament had actually exploded - killing the king, his ministers, and much of the political class in a single moment.
Rather than retelling the familiar story, this video focuses on the aftermath that never came to pass: the succession crisis, the fate
The Death and Funeral of Henry VIII: Ritual, Power, and a Vanishing Tomb
When Henry VIII died at Whitehall Palace in January 1547, England faced a dangerous moment. His heir was nine years old, power was about to shift, and the death of a king had to be handled with extreme care.
In this video, we follow Henry VIII from his deathbed through one of the most elaborate royal funerals of the sixteenth century.
We look at how his body was prepared, why his burial was del
Women Who Anchored Empire: Ireland, Roanoke, and the Jamestown Brides | Tudorcon Talk
What role did women actually play in England’s early colonial experiments?
In this Tudorcon 2025 talk, Colleen Parker explores the overlooked but essential role of women in early English colonization, beginning in Ireland and continuing through Roanoke and Jamestown. Rather than treating women as background figures, this talk shows how they functioned as household managers, negotiators, landholde
The King in the Mill: The Strange Death of James III
In the summer of 1488, a King of Scots lay dying in a flour mill, allegedly murdered by a man disguised as a priest. But how did James III - a man who preferred lutes to longswords and architects to Earls - find himself fleeing for his life from his own son?
This week, we’re venturing just north of the border and slightly back in time to explore the chaotic, culture-clashing reign of James III. F
What Was Wolsey Thinking? The Slow, Fatal Unraveling of Henry VIII’s Greatest Minister
At the height of his power, Thomas Wolsey stood at the center of Europe’s grandest spectacle - the Field of Cloth of Gold. Ten years later, he was alone, under arrest, and dying far from court.
In this What Were They Thinking? episode, we trace Wolsey’s downfall step by step - from supreme confidence in 1520 to political isolation in 1530. We follow how he reacted to each loss of power: his remov
What If Elizabeth I Had Married Early? One Decision That Changes Everything
Elizabeth I’s decision not to marry shaped the entire character of her reign. But what if she had chosen differently, early on, when the pressure was highest and the risks were lowest?
In this Thought Experiment, we explore how an early marriage might have changed the succession, court politics, religion, and England’s place in Europe, and what Elizabeth gained, and gave up, by refusing to say ye
A Monster Winter Storm, Tudor Style: How People Coped Without Forecasts
As a major winter storm is hitting much of the United States, it’s hard not to think about how dependent we are on forecasts, alerts, and advance warnings. We know when snow will start, how bad it might get, and when it should be over.
The Tudors had none of that.
In this episode, we explore how people in Tudor England understood the weather, what “forecasting” meant in a world without instrumen
What Was Katharine Parr Thinking? The Conversation That Almost Got Her Arrested
In the final years of Henry VIII’s reign, even conversation could be dangerous.
Katharine Parr was not simply a dutiful queen consort. She was highly educated, deeply interested in theology, and unusually willing to debate religion with the king. At first, Henry encouraged these exchanges. He enjoyed having a companion who could follow his arguments and respond thoughtfully.
By 1546, however, th
How to Die in Tudor England
When we think about death in Tudor England, we usually picture executions, plague, or war. But for most people living in 16th-century England, death came much closer to home.
In this episode, we explore accidental deaths recorded in coroners’ inquests: drownings while fetching water, fatal after-work swims, farm accidents, falls, fires, and moments of ordinary life that went catastrophically wron
Thomas Cromwell in 1540: The Year He Knew He Was Finished
In early 1540, Thomas Cromwell was still powerful, but he knew something had shifted.
Today we look at the final year before Cromwell’s fall, not as a sudden collapse, but as a slow recognition that his influence was draining away. As the court reoriented itself, allies fell silent, old enemies returned, and the systems Cromwell built no longer protected him.
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The One Choice That Could Have Changed Tudor England Forever
What if Catherine of Aragon had agreed to an annulment in 1527?
Today we explore a Tudor what-if with enormous consequences. If Catherine had stepped aside quietly, Henry VIII might never have broken with Rome, Anne Boleyn might have had time to secure her position, Mary Tudor’s future could have been settled early, and England might have remained a far quieter place.
A meditation on how one ref
A Day in the life of a Yeoman Farmer
In this minicast, we spend twenty-four hours with a yeoman farmer and his family, the solid middle of Tudor society. From waking before dawn to fieldwork, food, spinning, neighborly chatter, and falling asleep by firelight, this is an ordinary working day in rural England. No court, no kings, just the daily rhythm that fed the country and kept Tudor England running.
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A Tudorcon 2025 Talk: The Magic of Holbein
This talk was recorded live at Tudorcon 2025.
In this lecture, Mallory Jackson explores the work of Hans Holbein the Younger, the artist whose portraits defined how we visualize the Tudor court. Focusing on key paintings from Holbein’s years in England, she looks at how symbolism, material culture, and political change shaped portraits of figures such as Henry VIII, Thomas More, and Thomas Cromwel
Juana of Castile: The Queen Who Was Never Allowed to Rule
Juana of Castile is remembered by history as “Juana the Mad,” but that label explains far less than it hides. In this episode, we step away from biography and diagnosis to look instead at power: who held it, who wanted it, and who benefited when Juana was declared unfit to rule. Drawing on recent scholarship and the comparison with her sister Catherine of Aragon, this is a closer look at how a rei
Cardinal Beaufort: The Man who Made Kings
Henry Beaufort is rarely the most famous Beaufort, but he may have been the most influential.
A son of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, Beaufort took a different path from his more rebellious relatives. As Bishop of Winchester and later a cardinal, he became the wealthiest churchman in England and a crucial financial backer of the Lancastrian crown.
This minicast explores how Henry Beaufort s
[YouTube Drop] Three Twelfth Nights at the Tudor Court (1512–1582)
At the Tudor court, Twelfth Night was more than the end of Christmas. Using specific recorded celebrations from across the sixteenth century, this minicast explores how plays, masques, tournaments, dancing, and banquets were used to perform power at court.
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