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Henry VIII Archive
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The Wives of King Henry VIII: Anne of Cleves
Posted on May 14, 2013 | No CommentsPoor Anne of Cleves was sitting at the home of her brother the Duke of Cleves, minding her own business when who do you think came calling? -
The Wives of King Henry VIII: Jane Seymour
Posted on May 6, 2013 | No CommentsAfter all the storm and drama of Henry VIII’s first two marriages, his third marriage to Jane Seymour seems almost serene. -
The Wives of King Henry VIII: Anne Boleyn
Posted on April 30, 2013 | No CommentsAnne has the distinction of being the first Queen Consort to be beheaded and because of her, the course of ecclesiastical history in England changed forever. -
THE DESTRUCTION OF A PRIORY
Posted on April 23, 2013 | No CommentsMerton priory was now suppressed, and demolition began immediately. There would have been countless workmen and craftsmen employed at the priory, but would they have been willing to destroy the work of their own hands? All strata of society had difficult decisions to make. Principles could so easily be forgotten, especially where there was a family to feed and no prospect of other employment. -
The Wives of King Henry VIII: Catherine of Aragon
Posted on April 22, 2013 | No CommentsCatherine and Henry VIII were married June 11, 1509. They were crowned together at Westminster Abbey on June 24. Catherine was 23 and Henry was just 18. -
The Kildare Rebellion and the Early Henrician Reformation
Posted on April 15, 2013 | No CommentsThe Kildare Rebellion and the Early Henrician Reformation Steven G. Ellis (The Queen's University, Belfast) The Historical Journal, 19, 4 (1976), pp. 807-830 Abstract In the 1530s, Henry VIII and Thomas... -
Henry VIII, rebellion and the rule of law
Posted on April 15, 2013 | No CommentsHenry VIII, rebellion and the rule of law Steven G. Ellis (University College, Galway) The Historical Journal, 24, 3 (1981), pp. 513-531 Abstract It has been traditional to regard the reaction... -
“Cruel and Abominable Tyrant”: The Pope Who Took on Henry VIII
Posted on March 30, 2013 | No CommentsHenry VIII's enemy, Pope Paul III, was a man of determination but with his own dark side. -
Exhuming Henry VIII’s Court: The Tudor Household on the Jacobean Stage
Posted on March 16, 2013 | No CommentsBy revisiting the recent past of Henry's reign, the plays construct the events as a historical past, distinct and separate from the present. Early modern performance presents, reshapes, and diverges from the collective memory of a diverse socio-economic populace. Plays about recent history offer both a form of remembrance and construction of a memory for the historical moment brought to life on stage. -
With This Ring, I Surrender: Politics, Religion, and Marriage in Shakespeare and Tudor England
Posted on February 1, 2013 | No CommentsThe ideas I wish to explore are the overarching themes of politics, religion, and marriage in the Turor period under the rule of King Henry VIII from 1509 to 1547. The popular opinion of the period on Henry VIII's behavior can be seen in William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure, and Henry VIII. -
The royal armour workshops at Greenwich
Posted on January 29, 2013 | No CommentsSoon after he came to the throne in 1509 Henry VIII established a royal armour workshop that was to survive him by about 100 years. -
The Polarization of Henry Tudor’s Wives: Jane Seymour
Posted on January 14, 2013 | No CommentsI began to wonder, was it Jane Seymour that Henry was in head over heels in love with? Or was Henry forever in love with change. -
Conflicts and Loyalties: the Parliaments of Elizabeth I
Posted on January 8, 2013 | No CommentsParliament, in the modern sense as a permanent body, has existed only since the late seventeenth century. In Elizabethan England there were parliaments (plural). They were infrequent. In 1509-1603 there were 43 years during which parliaments were not called at all, and 26 of these occurred during Elizabeth’s reign. When parliaments did meet, moreover, they were short-lived. -
Tournaments at the court of King Henry VIII
Posted on January 7, 2013 | No CommentsTournaments were not just good sporting occasions: they had political importance and above all were splendid opportunities to impress foreign ambassadors who were likely to write glowing reports of the King’s evident wealth and power. -
Rethinking the fall of Anne Boleyn
Posted on January 2, 2013 | No CommentsThis article argues that the fate of the queen and those accused with her was not the result of wider factional battles or a cynical sacrifice, either to appease a jaded king or to enable a shift in religious or diplomatic policy. Nor was it a case of justice catching up with a libidinous woman who was guilty as charged. -
In a Short Time There Were None Almost Left: The Success and Failure of the Tudor Conquest in Ireland
Posted on December 29, 2012 | No CommentsWhile England succeeded in pacifying the Irish with ‘fire and sword’ during the Desmond Rebellion (1579-1584) and again in the Nine Years’ War, its success came at an enormous cost, both in terms of lives and coin. Furthermore, the goal of ‘reforming’ Ireland religiously, socially, and agriculturally--so frequently expressed in contemporary English writing--was not achieved in any meaningful or lasting way during this period. -
Nonsuch Palace
Posted on December 23, 2012 | No CommentsDavid Gaimster recalls the excavation of Henry VIII’s most extravagant palace, which spawned the discipline of post-medieval archaeology. -
Mother Shipton and the End of the World
Posted on December 21, 2012 | No Comments'A carriage without a horse shall go; Disaster fill the world with woe; In water iron then shall float; As easy as a wooden boat.' -
Negative Portrayals of Poles in Elizabethan Literature
Posted on December 8, 2012 | No CommentsAnglo-Polish relations improved during the first half of the sixteenth century. The newly established power of the kingdom of Poland-Lithuania probably raised English hopes that English merchants would gain greater access into the Baltic Sea. High-level diplomatic contacts between the two nations became more frequent. -
“The Wonderfull Spectacle” the Civic Progress of Elizabeth I and the Troublesome Coronation
Posted on November 27, 2012 | No CommentsElizabeth I faced far more challenging ecclesiastical and liturgical difficulties than either of her predecessors, and yet, characteristically, her solution was more adroit and more oblique. -
Managing Change in The English Reformation: The 1548 Dissolution of the Chantries and Clergy of the Midland County Surveys
Posted on November 18, 2012 | No CommentsDid the English Reformation happen because Thomas Cromwell, seeing political possibilities in the new religious ideas now abroad, applied these to resolving Henry VIII‟s marital difficulties? After all, Henry VIII wanted a son and, despairing of his now middle-aged wife, Katherine, had found a likely fruitful replacement in Anne Boleyn. -
Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII
Posted on October 21, 2012 | No CommentsThe aim of this bachelor thesis is a detailed analysis of Anne Boleyn`s life. The thesis is divided into five main chapters. -
New image of Henry VIII discovered
Posted on October 19, 2012 | No CommentsHe is shown as a mourning 11 year old boy, weeping at the empty death-bed of his mother. -
After marriage: The literature and culture of divorce in England, 1515-1650
Posted on September 15, 2012 | No CommentsThe following pages will argue that in the latter sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the idea of divorce, of marriage's breakdown and dissolution, was as important a concept as that of the marital union itself. -
“Partners in the same”: Monastic Devotional Culture in Late Medieval English Literature
Posted on September 9, 2012 | No CommentsTo understand this apparent incongruity, it is, I argue, necessary to interrogate more carefully the continuation of monastic literary culture and its gradual diffusion beyond the walls of the cloister. -
Devotion and Piety of English Women, 1480-1620
Posted on August 28, 2012 | No CommentsThese very personal invocations to God were self-reflective and pensive, capturing some early modem English women's desire and need to comprehend the intrinsic complexities of their intimate relationship with God. -
English Reformation and Irish Witches: The Effects of Confessionalisation in Suppressing Witchraft Accusations in Early Modern Ireland
Posted on August 28, 2012 | No CommentsIndeed, Ireland stands out among the countries of early Modern Europe as having very few recorded witchcraft trials and no actual witch hunts. In point offact, there was no actual statute in Ireland criminalizing witchcraft until 1586.3 Why was Ireland spared this plague of internal suspicion that took the lives of nearly 50,000 women and men in the rest of Europe? -
Law as the Engine of State: The Trial of Anne Boleyn
Posted on August 28, 2012 | No CommentsThe use of trials' in the treason cases of Tudor England illustrates an important feature of the Tudor view of law and legal institutions and provides additional insight into the relationship of law to politics, a relationship that can be understated as much as it can be exaggerated. -
Henry VIII: Supremacy, Religion, And The Anabaptists
Posted on August 25, 2012 | No CommentsAnabaptism was another variation of Protestant theology that began to emerge because of the Reformation. Their theology was considered the most heretical of the Reformation and they were persecuted all over Europe. Their noteriaty as extreme heretics caught the eye of Henry VIII. He realized they would make good tools to use in helping establish his new church. -
Good Reads for the Dog Days of Summer
Posted on August 18, 2012 | No CommentsSee summer off with these fun reads! -
Blunting lances and razing towers : masculine performance and early Tudor reforms
Posted on August 14, 2012 | No CommentsIn 1531, at the height of Henry VIII’s reign, a respected knight with a rising fortune and a gift for letters endeavored to find a metaphor that would help illustrate the characteristics of true nobility. -
The Westminster Tournament Challenge (Harley 83 H 1) and Thomas Wriothesley’s Workshop
Posted on August 14, 2012 | No CommentsOnNewYear’sDay1511,KingHenryVIIIandKatherineofAragoncelebratedthebirthoftheir firstson.1 Tomarktheoccasion,Henrysponsoredalavishpageantandtournamenttotakeplace in Westminster on the twelfth and thirteenth of February 1511. -
The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican
Posted on June 20, 2012 | No CommentsHenry’s man in Rome was a wily Italian diplomat named Gregorio Casali who drew no limits on skullduggery including kidnapping, bribery and theft to make his king a free man -
Wholesale or Retail? Antoine de Marcourt’s The Boke of Marchauntes and Tudor Political Theology
Posted on June 13, 2012 | No Commentsn England, 1534 marked an equally highly charged turning point in the association between humanism and religious reform, although with a somewhat different result both theologically and politically as compared to what was then occurring in France. -
The Public Sermon: Paul’s Cross and the culture of persuasion in England, 1534-1570
Posted on June 13, 2012 | No CommentsOn the 11th of July 1533, Clement VII excommunicated Henry VIII in response to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s annulment of the King’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon and his ensuing coronation of Anne Boleyn. Clement’s action and the official response by the King and Privy Council constitute a striking moment of high-stakes political drama laden with significance for the future definition and formation of religious identities in early-modern England. -
Anne Boleyn: witch, bitch, temptress, feminist
Posted on May 14, 2012 | No CommentsAnne Boleyn wasn't exactly a Protestant, but she was a reformer, an evangelical; and the sixth finger, which no one saw in her lifetime, was a fragment of black propaganda directed at her daughter, Elizabeth I. -
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1533-1556: a political study
Posted on April 21, 2012 | No CommentsSuch evaluations of Cranmer, which slight his political abil- ity during the reign of Henry VIII, are inadequate. They leave unexplained the glaring inconsistency between the non-political pawn who was Henry VHI's archbishop and the determined protestant reformer of Edward VI's reign. -
The Seymour Family: Edward, Jane, and Thomas, c. 1500-1552
Posted on April 21, 2012 | No CommentsThe Seymour family was a very old and well established, if not distinguished, family. Their lineage can be traced to an obscure knight who came to England v/ith 1/iliiam the Conqueror. The Seymour name came to the family in the first half of the fourteenth century when Sir Roger de St.Maur married Cicely,the eldest sister and heir of John de Beauchamp. -
Sports scientists examine the medieval archers of the Mary Rose
Posted on March 21, 2012 | No CommentsA unique project about the historical warship the Mary Rose which is providing information about life in medieval times is benefitting from 21st century technology. -
The English Reformation In Image and Print: Cultural Continuity, Disruptions, and Communications in Tudor Art
Posted on February 19, 2012 | No CommentsThe sixteenth century was a period of social, political, and religious change for the English Crown and people. Of these shifts the English Reformation and the resulting modifications to Catholic traditions were especially significant. Material culture (including art forms such as portraiture, church art, and illustrated texts) was a prominent indicator of larger political and religious alterations. -
“Monks, Monks, Monks”: the Myths of the Death of Henry VIII
Posted on February 10, 2012 | No CommentsYet there are other stories told of the death and funeral of Henry VIII. He was perhaps the most famous king in English history, and so it is no surprise that in books and on the Internet, some strange or maudlin words and ghoulish acts have attached themselves to his demise. -
The City of York in the time of Henry VIII
Posted on January 31, 2012 | No CommentsDuring this period, the role of the landed aristocracy was changing. With the creation of a professional standing army, in which soldiers were paid a wage, and the use of foreign mercenaries (think of the Swiss Guard), the traditional military function of the nobility receded. -
A Crisis in Regal Identity: The Dichotomy Between Levinia Teerlinc’s (1520-1576) Private and Public Images of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
Posted on January 27, 2012 | No CommentsTeerlinc’s career began with an invitation to serve as official court painter to Henry VIII (1491-1547). After his death in 1554, she worked for Edward VI (1547-1553), Mary I (1516-1558), and finally Elizabeth I (1533-1603). -
‘A Mirror of Men’: Sovereignty, Performance, and Textuality in Tudor England, 1501-1559
Posted on January 14, 2012 | No CommentsSixteenth-century England witnessed both unprecedented generic experimentation in the recording of spectacle and a shift in strategies of sovereign representation and subject formation: it is the central objective of this dissertation to argue for the reciprocal implication of these two phenomena. -
The 1536 Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries: Same Suppression, Different Century
Posted on January 13, 2012 | No CommentsFive hundred years ago, Henry VIII began the demise of monasticism in England. Beginning with the Suppression Act of 1536, and continuing with the Act for the Dissolution of the Greater Monasteries in 1539, monasteries across England were closed. -
Thomas Cromwell: aspects of his administrative work
Posted on December 12, 2011 | No CommentsThe conclusion attempts to account for the fact that in his administration Cromwell seems to have been guided by contradictory desires (to organise bureaucratically, and to evade bureaucratic organisation in the interests of personal ascendancy), and to assess his place as the founder of modern government in England. -
Why did Charles I fight the Civil War?
Posted on November 29, 2011 | No CommentsConrad Russell finds that it is easier to understand why sheer frustration may have driven Charles to fight than to understand why the English gentry might have wanted to make a revolution against him. -
All Singing, All Dancing
Posted on November 22, 2011 | No CommentsSexually explicit jigs were a major part of the attraction of the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Restoration stage, as Lucie Skeaping explains. -
Secretaries, statesmen and spies: the clerks of the Tudor Privy Council, c. 1540-c. 1603
Posted on November 18, 2011 | No CommentsThe office of clerk of the Privy Council has been largely ignored by historians.While some individual clerks who eventually rose to the ranks of the Privy Council have drawn some attention from scholars, most clerks are unknown, or mentioned only tangentially in journal articles or historical monographs. -
Tudor England’s Relations with Spain, the Holy Roman Empire and the Low Countries
Posted on October 16, 2011 | No CommentsAnglo-Netherlands relations hinged on the trading monopoly over English cloth exports granted by Henry VII to the Merchant Adventurers Company and the subsequent commercial treaty