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The Tudor Fair Blog

Episode 112: The Tower Menagerie

Book Recommendations: The Tower Menagerie: The Amazing 600-Year History of the Royal Collection of Wild and Ferocious Beasts Kept at the Tower of London from Roger Hahn The Tower menagerie: comprising the natural history of the animals contained in that establishment; with anecdotes of their characters and history. Illustrated by…

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Tudor Minute October 19: Ferdinand and Isabella Get Married

Hey, this is Heather from the Renaissance English History Podcast, and this is your Tudor Minute for October 19. 1469 – marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella.  After her father, King John II of Castile died, Isabella was pressured by her brother King Henry IV to marry King Alfonso V of…

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Tudor Minute October 18: Wolsey Surrenders the Great Seal

Hey, this is Heather from the Renaissance English History Podcast, and this is your Tudor Minute for October 18. Cardinal Wolsey surrendered the Great Seal of his office in 1529. He was taking the blame for the long delay in Henry’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon ending in a divorce.…

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Tudor Minute October 17: Death of Sir Philip Sidney

Hey, this is Heather from the Renaissance English History Podcast, and this is your Tudor Minute for October 17. Sir Philip Sidney died in 1586.Sir Philip was born in 1554 in Kent, and he is remembered for his poetry, but also as a national hero for defending the Protestants in…

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Tudor Minute October 16: Death of two Oxford Martyrs

Hey, this is Heather from the Renaissance English History Podcast, and this is your Tudor Minute for October 16. Death of Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridby in 1555 – they were two of the three famous Oxford Martyrs, along with Archbishop Cranmer, commemorated by John Foxe. The Oxford Martyrs were…

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Tudor Minute October 15: Prince Edward is Christened (and Jane is healthy)

Hey, this is Heather from the Renaissance English History Podcast, and this is your Tudor Minute for October 15. Today in 1537 Henry and Jane Seymour’s son Edward, the future Edward VI, was christened in Hampton court. Thomas Cranmer performed the rites in front of a crowd of several hundred.…

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Tudor Music Hour October 14: The Music of John Ward

This week we listened to the music of John Ward with this fantastic 2014 Phantasm album with the choir of Magdalen College Oxford. Listen to Phantasm here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4tApluztlcir8bcgv2jyzg?si=OmHXI0IiT2OJaaMf300Q2w That album I played isn’t on Spotify – you can listen to other Ward music here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4yOXpbJVIVxjoGJSC4nzQY?si=JlFbHSlyQfKC3Jel4dje5Q Or buy the album on…

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Episode 111: The Lost Colony of Roanoke (aka, when exploration and war collide)

Twenty Years before Jamestown, Elizabethan England started their equivalent of the Apollo Program. They poured money and resources into stopping the Spanish expansion in the New World, in an Elizabethan arms race between these two warring nations. England’s early lunar outpost (or the equivalent thereof) was Roanoke, an island near Virginia,…

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Tudor Minute October 12 – Happy Birthday Edward

Hey, this is Heather from the Renaissance English History Podcast, and this is your Tudor Minute for October 12. Today in 1537 Henry VIII finally got his longed-for son when Edward was born to Jane Seymour. He was born inside his mother’s room in Hampton Court. Throughout the realm, the…

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Tudor Minute October 11 – Henry becomes the Defender of the Faith

Hey, this is Heather from the Renaissance English History Podcast, and this is your Tudor Minute for October 11. In 1521 Henry VIII received the title Defender of the Faith – Fidei Defensor – from Pope Leo X. This was a new title that would belong to the English monarch…

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Tudor Minute October 10 – Smallpox Strikes Again

Hey, this is Heather from the Renaissance English History Podcast, and this is your Tudor Minute for October 10. Today in 1562, 29 year old Elizabeth I got a bad cold. It was actually smallpox. At first she didn’t believe that she could actually get smallpox, which was a highly…

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Tudor Minute October 9 – Happy Anniversary Mary Tudor

Hey, this is Heather from the Renaissance English History Podcast, and this is your Tudor Minute for October 9. Today in 1514 Mary Tudor, Henry VIII’s sister, married Louis XII of France. She was 18, and he was 52. Mary was born in 1496, and she was reported to have…

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