🎧 Not Just the Tudors

🎧 Not Just the Tudors

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Suzannah Lipscomb talks about everything from the Aztecs to witches, Velázquez to Shakespeare, Mughal India to the Mayflower. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.

Each episode Suzannah is joined by historians and experts to reveal incredible stories about one of the most fascinating periods in history.

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🎧 Not Just the Tudors
  • 🎧 Margaret Cavendish: 17th Century Revolutionary

    In an age when literature was dominated by men, Margaret Cavendish wrote passionately about gender, science and philosophy. She published under her own name, and advocated for women in work. Her 1666 novel The Blazing World was one of the earliest works of science fiction.

    In this episode of Not...

  • 🎧 Henry VIII’s Fool, Will Somer

    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’s spirits and spent many hours alone with him. But was Somer an “artificial fool” - a comedian who spoke truth to power - or a “natural fool,” someon...

  • 🎧 Hapsburg Inbreeding with Dr. Adam Rutherford

    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 honour - the large, jutting jaw that was a result of family inbreeding. But that was only part of their physiological challenges.

    In this episode of...

  • 🎧 Michelangelo

    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 the greatest sculptor or painter who had ever lived.  Few of his works - including the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, David and The Last Judgment - were small...

  • 🎧 Origins of Modern Iran: Safawid Dynasty

    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 is now Iran, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Armenia, eastern Georgia, parts of the North Caucasus including Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, as well as pa...

  • 🎧 Dutch Golden Age: 'The Goldfinch' and its Painter

    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 away. Carel Fabritius - now known across the world for his exquisite painting ’The Goldfinch’ - had been at work in his studio. He, along with man...

  • 🎧 Henry VIII's Billionaire Wardrobe

    Henry VIII was described as the 'best dressed sovereign in the world' by the Venetian ambassador Sebastian Giustinian. The Tudor King spent the equivalent of £2 million a year on clothes.
     
    In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, first released in April 2021, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined...

  • 🎧 Girls on Stage and Page in the Elizabethan Age

    Contrary to the idea that the early modern stage was male-dominated, girls actually played an active part in religious dramas, civic pageants, Elizabethan country house entertainments, and Stuart court and household masques. Girls also excelled as singers, translators and authors whose power was ...

  • 🎧 Stealing the Crown Jewels with Al Murray

    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 brought him face-to-face with King Charles II.  This incredible story is the subject of a riotous new stage comedy, The Crown Jewels, starring Al Murray...

  • 🎧 Elizabeth I's Censored Annals: A Major Discovery

    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 original manuscript of William Camden’s Annals have been inaccessible. But now, technology has made them visible for the first time, offering new ...

  • 🎧 Christopher Wren

    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 mind to astronomy, meteorology and anatomy. How did he achieve so much while running the nation's biggest architectural office with all its petty jealou...

  • 🎧 Treasures of Lambeth Palace

    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 of the oldest public libraries in England. 

    In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb takes a tour of just a few items ...

  • 🎧 Forgotten Tudor Women: Seymour, Dudley & Parr Families

    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 greater influence than has previously been acknowledged.

    In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by historian a...

  • 🎧 The African Samurai

    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 attention of Japan’s most powerful warlord Oda Nobunaga, to become the most unlikely of national heroes?

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

  • 🎧 Gentileschi: Greatest Female Artist of the Baroque Age

    Artemisia Gentileschi was the most celebrated female painter of the 17th century, as famous in her lifetime as Reubens or Van Dyke. But the events of her life were as savage as the events depicted in her paintings. 

    In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Eli...

  • 🎧 Tudor Gifts: How to Win Friends and Influence People

    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, bound up in relationships of power, politics and protest. A new exhibition exploring this subject at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, includes a stunni...

  • 🎧 The Reformation: What Catholics and Protestants Believed

    In the sixteenth century, religious beliefs underwent a dramatic change. As differences between the late medieval Roman Catholic Church and the nature of Luther's Protestantism spread across Western Europe, where you stood on points of theology could literally mean life or death. For example, wha...

  • 🎧 Ivan the Terrible

    The name Ivan the Terrible is synonymous with brutality and ruthlessness. While Western scholars insist that the first crowned Tsar of all Russia did create a  policy of mass repression and execution, others claim Ivan’s name has been tarnished by Western travellers and writers.  How then should ...

  • 🎧 Tudor Queens: The Power of Jewellery

    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 these Queens, jewellery was a way she could signify her status and her legitimacy, display familial and cultural ties, and chart life events - from co...

  • 🎧 Francis Bacon & Edward Coke: Elizabethan Rivals

    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 the new King? Will it be the scholar Francis Bacon, whose brilliant mind is the envy of the court? Or his hated rival Edward Cook, the greatest law...

  • 🎧 Francis Drake's Discovery of West Coast America

     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 - needed repairs. A sign was put up, naming it Nova Albion (‘New England’) for Queen Elizabeth I. But the question of exactly where Drake landed has con...

  • 🎧 Thomas More on Film - The Historians' Verdict

    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 third special episode of Not Just the Tudors Lates! This time, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb takes as her starting point the life of the scholar who wrot...

  • 🎧 Elizabeth I's Musician: William Byrd

    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 1623.  Byrd’s music ranks among the most unique and inspired works of the late Renaissance. Remarkably, Byrd was a practicing Catholic in Anglican E...

  • 🎧 Shakespeare's Plays: The Power of Gestures

    When we think of Shakespeare, we mostly think of language. But what about gesture and other forms of nonverbal communication - from thumb-biting in Romeo and Juliet to Pistol giving “the fig of Spain” in Henry V? Do gestures say something specific about the gendering of guilt and shame?

    In this ...