Not Just the Tudors

On 6 September 1560, Amy Robsart Dudley died after falling down a staircase at Cumnor Place in Oxfordshire. But did she fall? Was she pushed? Or did she throw herself down the stairs?  These questions exercised Tudor courtiers and foreign ambassadors at the time. The truth mattered because Amy was the wife of Queen Elizabeth I’s leading courtier and very close friend, Robert Dudley, and his w...

In the early seventeenth century, a Hungarian aristocrat called Erzsébet Báthory - or Elizabeth Bathory - was accused of murdering more than 600 young women. Her gruesome story has been sensationalised in books, film, and music. But is it true? In this explainer episode of Not Just the Tudors , Professor Suzannah Lipscomb examines the evidence, Bathory’s alleged modus operandi, and the lives of th...

The most important discovery related to Mary Queen of Scots for 100 years was recently made - by a team of amateur cryptologists.  In this episode of Not Just the Tudors , Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks with Dr. George Lasry - a computer scientist by day - about how he and his colleagues found by chance more than 50 letters in code in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, deciphered them,...

The rich and powerful Guise family was one of the most treacherous and bloodthirsty in sixteenth-century France. They whipped up religious bigotry, overthrowing the king. They ruled Scotland for nearly 20 years through Mary Queen of Scots, plotting to invade England and overthrow Elizabeth I. And they unleashed the bloody Wars of Religion, playing a crucial role in the murder of 4,000 Protestants...

What was it like to grow up in Tudor England? How were children cared for, what did they play with, and which subjects were they taught? In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Professor Nicholas Orme who, in his new book Tudor Children, provides a rich survey of childhood in the Tudor period from birth and infancy through to the education they received and the...

This month on Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb investigates four of history’s most notorious murders and brutal crimes. In this first episode, she’s joined by Charles Nicholl to dig deeper into the mystery of the 1593 murder of the brilliant and controversial playwright Christopher Marlowe, who was stabbed to death in a house in Deptford. The official account stated it was a violen...

Charles I's Queen Henrietta Maria was perhaps the most reviled consort to have worn the crown of Britain's three kingdoms. To this day, she remains the wife who turned her husband Catholic - causing a civil war - and a cruel and bigoted mother. In this episode of Not Just the Tudors , Professor Suzannah Lipscomb dispels some of the myths about Henrietta Maria with author Leanda de Lisle, whose hig...

Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549) was an influential diplomat and political activist, an outstanding patron of philosophers and artists, an accomplished writer and poet, and sister to King François I of France. She has been described as the “Mother of the Renaissance in France”.  In this episode of Not Just the Tudors , Professor Suzannah Lipscomb finds out more about this remarkable, ch...

In 1618, almost 100 impoverished children from London - some as young as eight - arrived in Jamestown, Virginia to labour in the growing colony. It was the first example of transporting children to colonies that would continue into the twentieth century.  In this episode of Not Just the Tudors , Professor Suzannah Lipscomb finds out more from Dr. Deborah Albon whose groundbreaking research tr...

In the cut-throat world of the Elizabethan court, Sir Christopher Hatton became one of Elizabeth I’s favourites. After catching her eye in 1561, Hatton was quickly promoted to the Privy Council, making a significant impact on Elizabeth’s complex religious policy. Yet Hatton has often been overshadowed by such Tudor heavyweights as Dudley, Cecil and Walsingham. In this episode of Not Just the...

In 1628, a Dutch East India flagship called Batavia set sail from the Netherlands, never to reach her destination. Eight months into the voyage, the ship was wrecked on coral reef off the western coast of Australia. What then befell her surviving crew and passengers was horrifying and tragic. It has been described as “one of the worst horror stories in maritime history.”  In th...

In Elizabethan England, swords were everywhere. Hanging on girdles, used in plays and depicted in paintings, they were an important marker of status and martial prowess. Swordplay was a popular martial art and pastime enjoyed by all rungs of Tudor society. But what would these swords have looked like? And how did Elizabethan gentlemen fight with them?  In this episode of Not Just the Tudors,...

When strange signs appeared in the sky over Quebec in 1660, the French settlers started to worry about evil forces in their midst. Then, a teenaged servant called Barbe Hallay started to act as if she were possessed by demons. She accused a local miller of bewitching her and, the following year, he was imprisoned and executed. Priests and nuns tried to drive the demons away - but in the end it was...

In April 1538 - to celebrate the birth of Prince Edward and the 30th anniversary of his reign - King Henry VIII began work on a royal palace in Surrey, designed to be unequalled as a celebration of the power and the grandeur of the Tudor dynasty: Nonsuch Palace. Henry spared no expense on the estate, spending nine years and £7.4 million in today’s money on its construction. But less than 150 years...

We have long been taught that modern global history began when the 'Old World' encountered the 'New', when Christopher Columbus 'discovered' America in 1492. But, in a groundbreaking new book, Dr. Caroline Dodds Pennock conclusively shows that for tens of thousands of Aztecs, Maya, Totonacs, Inuit and others - enslaved people, diplomats, explorers, servants, traders - the reverse was true: they di...

The Three Musketeers  paints a picture of King Louis XIII of France as a rather weak monarch controlled by his powerful chief minister Cardinal Richelieu. Louis’ reign is generally thought of as being the beginning of the “age of absolutism” when ministers like Richelieu were in the ascendancy and the power of the court and courtiers declined. But was this really the case? In this episode of&...

Many of us are seeing in a new year, but of course there are, even today, several different ways of marking dates and years in various parts of the world. The most popular calendar, though, is the Gregorian, introduced in October 1852 by Pope Gregory XIII. In this episode of Not Just the Tudors , Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Christina Faraday to find out how and why the Gregorian c...

This week we're sharing again a fascinating podcast first released at this time last Christmas. For the Tudors, Christmas Day was not traditionally the date when gifts were given. The Twelve Days of Christmas begin on 25 December and end at Epiphany, 6 January - also known as Twelfth Night. In Tudor times, all 12 were feast days, but 1 January was the day when presents were unwrapped. In this...

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb presents her annual review of the year, recommending the finest history books she has discovered, the best television shows she’s watched, and the biggest historical discoveries that have changed the way we understand - or which shed new light upon - the Tudors, but not just the Tudors. And to round things up, she offers her pick of some of the exciting things to come i...

A Tudor Christmas would have probably featured as much singing as we have today, if not more, and surprisingly many of the carols would have been the same: In Dulci Jubilo, The Coventry Carol, Gabriel’s message were among the yuletide hits that would have resounded through Tudor era churches. In this episode of Not Just the Tudors , Professor Suzannah Lipscomb finds out more from Lisa Colton, Prof...

In English cities of the 17th century, there was plenty to offend the eyes, ears, nose, taste buds, and skin of inhabitants. Residents were scarred by smallpox, refuse rotted in the streets, pigs and dogs roamed free.   In this episode of Not Just the Tudors , Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Emily Cockayne — author of Hubbub: Filth, Noise and Stench in England — about all the unpleasant...

England was the only European country that completely banned translating the Bible. The dissident Lollards had produced one after the death of their hero, the radical 14th-century theologian John Wycliffe, but owning a copy could be a capital offence. When idealistic humanist William Tyndale printed his English New Testament in Germany in 1526, it became the most influential text in the history of...

Mary, Queen of Scots wore red at her execution as a symbol of Catholic martyrdom. It was the climax of a life throughout which Mary used textiles to advance her political agenda, affirm her royal lineage and tell her story - from her lavish gowns to the subversive messages she embroidered in captivity for her supporters.  In this episode to mark the 480th anniversary of Mary’s birth on 8...

Making babies was a mysterious process for people in early modern England. Their ideas about conception, pregnancy and childbirth tell us much about their attitudes towards gender and power at that time. In this edition of Not Just the Tudors , first released in September 2021, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Professor Mary Fissell. She has been delving into a wealth of popular sources - ball...

Christiaan Huygens was the greatest scientist working in the vital period between Galileo and Newton, as the scientific revolution gathered pace. He discovered Saturn’s ring, invented the accurate pendulum clock, and devised a wave theory of light far ahead of its time. In this edition of Not Just the Tudors , Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to author Hugh Aldersey-Williams to find out more abou...