Walking “Tudor” England

Suzannah Lipscomb has just completed another series on Channel Five, this time visiting the sites related to the “Tudors”. In the first episode, she concentrated on Henry VIII and the naval power he inherited from John Howard, Duke of Norfolk. The second was principally about the penultimate “Tudor”, Mary I, as well as Edward VI…

A truncated reign and a truncated monarch

Right at the start of this series, Helen Castor (left) takes a black marker pen and illustrates the cause of the 1553 crisis on a large sheet of paper. Beginning with Henry VII, very few of his legitimate male descendants were alive at the start of that year – eliminating the obvious illegitimate cases, we…

An award for masochism?

The 1538 plot first saw Sir Geoffrey Pole arrested that autumn and compelled, by a threat to torture his servants, to give evidence about the activities of his exiled brother Reginald and other relatives. Henry Pole Lord Montagu and Henry Courtenay Marquess of Exeter were arrested next, together with Montagu’s son Henry the Younger and…

May 25, 1553 – A Triple Wedding

A little more about Lord Henry Hastings, son of Katherine Pole and later Earl of Huntingdon. 1595 was the year he died, after serving as Lord President of the Council of the North …