In 1567, a sailor named David Ingram sailed from Plymouth with 400 others on a slaving expedition. The ensuing events read like a fantastic adventure story: shipwrecked in a hurricane off Mexico, a battle with - and imprisonment by - the Spanish, escape and a 3000 mile trek to Canada. Ingram wa...

Three powerful Renaissance queens all lived together at the French court for many years. They were bound together through blood and marriage, alliance and friendship — bonds that were tested when they were forced to scatter to different kingdoms. 

In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professo...

How did the apple become the dominant symbol of temptation and sin, when it isn’t even mentioned in the Bible story of Adam and Eve? 

In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis meets Professor Azzan Yadin-Israel who has pursued this mystery across art and religious history, uncovering where, ...

Four hundred years ago in 1623, the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays was printed. Known as the First Folio, the book was integral to establishing Shakespeare's posthumous reputation just seven years after his death.

In the first of four special episodes of Not Just the Tudors celeb...

Why do we call the Great Fire of London in 1666 “great”? Was it because of the significant challenge it posed to authorities and residents as they sought to bring it under control? Was it because of the extent of its devastation? Or
was it because it occurred during an eventful couple of years wh...

King Henry VII and his Tudor heirs knew very little about Ireland, over which they ruled in name at least. During the 118 years of Tudor rule, not one of its monarchs ever set foot in the Emerald Isle. Yet the history of the Tudor monarchy cannot fully be told without understanding its relations ...

In the 16th Century, rude jokes and scatological humour were just as much a feature of life as they are today.  Between 1529 and 1539, a Swiss linen trader called Johannes Rütiner included many jokes and humorous anecdotes in his personal notebooks. They offer an amazing insight into both the jo...

History has painted Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn in two very different hues: one wife, one mistress; one Spanish, one French; one committed Catholic, one radical reformer. But a new exhibition at Hever Castle examines one curious moment of confluence, right in the midst of the crucial year...

Following the Second Granada War (1568-70), thousands of Moriscos in Spain were exiled, imprisoned or enslaved. Moriscos were former Muslims who had been compelled to convert to Roman Catholicism. But in 1572, Spanish King Philip II made the enslavement of Morisco children illegal. Yet they were ...

In March 1582, two women from the small Essex village of St Osyth, were hanged for the crime of witchcraft. Several others, including one man, died in prison, in what was a shocking and highly localised witch-hunt. 

In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Pro...

What could be more topical this week than looking back at the coronations of the first two Kings Charles. Charles I’s reign is best remembered for the events of the English Civil War, a conflict over the balance of power between parliament and royal supremacy which resulted in his execution and t...

When Thomas Roe arrived in India in 1616 as James I's first ambassador to the Mughal Empire, the English barely had a toehold in the subcontinent. Roe was representing a kingdom that was beset by financial woes and deeply conflicted about its identity. Meanwhile, the court Roe entered was wealthy...

In the 16th century, “strangers” was the name used in England for people who were born in territories not controlled by the Tudor monarchy. Thinking about Henry VIII’s armed forces, we might not expect to find “strangers” among them - but there were. 

In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Prof...

Hardwick Hall is a triumph of Elizabethan architecture. Built in the late sixteenth century, its halls, corridors and staircases embody the magnificence of the Renaissance period in England. But they also tell the story of the remarkable woman who built it in a patriarchal age - the four-times-ma...

John Donne was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, an MP, a priest, the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral - and perhaps the greatest love poet in the history of the English language. He converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, was jailed for marrying a high-born girl without her father's consent, s...

When Sir Walter Raleigh set out to South America to find the legendary city of El Dorado, he paved the way for a series of adventurers who would struggle against the harsh reality of South America’s wild jungles. Six decades later, when a group of English gentlemen expelled from England chose to ...

What do you get when you bring together five top historians to debate Mary, Queen of Scots on film? History with the gloves off - our second special episode of Not Just the Tudors Lates! This time, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb takes as her starting point the tragic life of the Scottish Queen and h...

In one week in London in September, 1665, no fewer than 47 different causes of death were reported, including consumption, fever, dropsy, being frightened, grief, worms, vomiting, and plague. We know this because of a record called a Bill of Mortality, a broad sheet that was printed to list the n...

In the early 17th century, an aged veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a book. It was the story of a poor nobleman who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. Don Quixote went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the B...

In the 17th Century, people experienced major social and economic problems that intertwined with religious disagreements and political debates. The turbulence led to civil war, the execution of King Charles I and a failed experiment with Republicanism. But what led Britain into this world turned ...

During a time of increasing religious and political conflict, Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s paintings portrayed work and pleasure, rituals and festivals of peasant life, and biblical scenes - all in startling detail. Inspired by humanist principles, Bruegel’s art questioned how well we know ourselve...

For centuries, the name of an accomplished and popular portrait painter in the court of Elizabeth I has remained unknown. The renowned art historian Sir Roy Strong dubbed this artist the ‘Master of the Countess of Warwick’ but his identity has remained a mystery - until now. A fascinating new exh...

Anne Boleyn’s reputation is buried beneath centuries of labels: home-wrecker, seductress, opportunist, witch, romantic victim, Protestant martyr, feminist. But a new look at the final year of Anne Boleyn’s life reveals a very human portrait of a brilliant, passionate and complex woman.

In this e...

Today we know that menstruation is a biological process. There’s a great deal of scientific research that explains the menstrual cycle. But how was menstruation perceived and understood in Early Modern England? Was it talked about by women and men in the same way? How did it influence attitudes t...