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The Tudor Fair Blog

Old Music Wednesday: Music from the Eton Choirbook

The Choir of Christchurch Cathedral, Oxford, have just released a new album from their exploration of the Eton Choirbook. One of the most famous liturgical manuscripts in England, the Eton Choirbook is a manuscript dating from the very early 16th century. It is one of the best examples of early…

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Musical Expression and Aliveness through the centuries: ORA and Many are the Wonders

On a wintery evening in early February last year I braved the cold rain to make a pilgrimage to the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. No, it wasn’t to pay homage to the burial place of Lady Jane Grey or Anne Boleyn, though that…

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Throwback Episode 42: Lady Margaret Beaufort

Lady Margaret Beaufort was Henry VII’s mother, so in a sense she gave birth to the Tudor Dynasty.  And now that I think about it, the birth of Henry Tudor is famous because it was so difficult for her…she was young (too young to be having children, and in the…

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Elizabeth Tilney: Grandmother to Queens and Mistresses

Five hundred years ago a woman who was born into the gentry (but not one of the leading noblewomen in the country by any mean) became the founding matriarch of England’s premiere family during the Tudor period. Elizabeth Tilney was the grandmother of two different wives of Henry VIII, as…

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Richard III: Knave, Fool or Savior?

The great debate continues – no, not Clinton v Trump, or even Creamy v Crunchy (peanut butter, that is), but Richard III: Knave, Fool, or Savior? The History of England podcast, which I adore, is getting close to wrapping up the Wars of the Roses, the civil war that tore England apart…

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Christina de Pizan: Early Feminist, Poet, and all around Badass

Have you ever noticed that once you hear about someone for the first time, they often come back to haunt you? Christina de Pizan is like that for me. I had never really registered her before I interviewed Alison Weir this past February when she came up. Nowadays everywhere I look…

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Old Music Tuesday: Henry’s Musical Court & The Western Wynde Mass

Yep, you read that right. The musical court of Henry VIII. While many of us think of the monarch with six wives as fat and pretty darn corpulent, he wasn’t always this way. In fact, when he was young, he was quite the hottie, impressing women with his jousting feats,…

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Music from the world of the Queen of Scots

We all know that early music, particularly English liturgical music, is my big passion, right? I geek out on the music created out of the Book of Common Prayer, and I can easily sit for hours comparing Tallis through the decades. But one area I don’t know that much about,…

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The Most Surprising Things I Learned about Catherine of Aragon this month

I’ve been podcasting with Tudor Times again, this month about Catherine of Aragon. I have read countless books about Henry’s six wives, and Catherine always takes up a huge proportion of each book simply because of the large role she played in Henry’s life. She was married to him the…

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Summing up Shakespeare in Three Simple Thoughts

My most recent Renaissance English History Podcast was a short intro into the life of Shakespeare, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of his death.  I had been extremely negligent in not talking about Shakespeare before.  It’s simply because my interests – which have driven the sporadic nature of my podcast…

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Five Things About Jasper Tudor You Really Will Want to Know (if you don’t already)

In my latest episode of the Renaissance English History Podcast I talked to Melita Thomas of Tudor Times about Jasper Tudor, uncle to Henry VII and perhaps the true Kingmaker of the 15th century.  I hadn’t know much about Jasper, other than what I’ve read in historical fiction (there is a lovely…

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How the Protestant Reformation Made Elizabethan Theater

Last week I got podcasty with Elizabethan Theater, which is appropriate considering Shakespeare’s birthday is coming up.  I’ll be doing several episodes on the theater – this was a general introduction to this great Elizabethan institution, and then my next episodes will be more focused on Shakespeare, Marlowe, Burbage, and…

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