HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2025-12-23T13:26:05.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Procrastinate like Elizabeth I
items: Porpoise for breakfast and late night sex visits: Henry VIII's life in a day
items: The lie of succession: did James I steal Elizabeth I's crown?
items: The conqueror’s queen: meet the real Matilda of Flanders
items: Tudors in turmoil: deciphering Hans Holbein’s masterwork The Ambassadors
items: What was Mary Tudor and Thomas Cromwell's relationship – did they plan to marry?
items: Thomas Cromwell on screen: is Wolf Hall the best depiction of the Tudor statesman?
items: "To read a Shardlake novel is to be immersed in the turbulent world of the Tudors" | Tracy Borman reflects on the work of CJ Sansom
items: Who was the real Thomas Cromwell? Your guide to Henry VIII's "faithful servant"
items: Why was King James VI and I obsessed with witch hunts?

Procrastinate like Elizabeth I
type: item
date: 2025-12-23T13:26:05.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: What can we learn about decision-making, and the art of proactive procrastination, from the Virgin Queen?
encoded: Elizabeth I famously managed to keep all her courtiers wondering about what she really meant for decades, and in this episode of our Life Lessons from History series, Tracy Borman explains what we can take from the life of the Tudor monarch.

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Porpoise for breakfast and late night sex visits: Henry VIII's life in a day
type: item
date: 2025-12-05T17:00:37.000Z
creator: Tracy Borman
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Henry VIII's wives
subject: Historical people
subject: Tudor kings and queens
subject: Tudor life
description: Ever wondered what Tudor England’s most famous monarch ate for breakfast? (Or whether breakfast was even a thing?) Tracy Borman examines Henry VIII’s daily routine – and sexual proclivities – during the year that he married Anne Boleyn
encoded: The year 1533 was a big one for Henry VIII. It began with his secret marriage to Anne Boleyn, followed a few months later by the annulment of his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon. The new queen was crowned in June, then in September she gave birth to the future Elizabeth I, rather than the hoped-for male heir. And as if that wasn’t enough, the Reformation parliament passed radical religious legislation that would separate the country from Rome and make Henry supreme head of the new Church of England. Amidst these seismic events, however, Henry’s daily life continued much as it had done during the previous 24 years of his reign. The Tudor court ran according to a strict routine, and nothing – not even the pope in Rome – could disrupt it. In the early years of his reign, when Henry was at the peak of his youthful vigour, he would rise at the crack of dawn and go hunting for several hours – sometimes until dusk. The courtier and diplomat Richard Pace reported to Cardinal Wolsey that, during the summer, the “King rises daily, except on holy days, at 4 or 5 o’clock and hunts till 9 or 10 at night”. Henry would get up later in the colder months, typically at around eight o’clock. But those carefree days had diminished by 1533. The king was paying much closer attention to affairs of state and was no longer living “in continuous festival”, as his first wife had put it in the early days of their marriage. Nevertheless, Henry still spent a decent amount of each day indulging in physical pursuits. Now in his early forties, he was almost as full of energy as he had been in his youth. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/13AAW7T4-d152d6f-e1764861462989.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white sketch of a man holding a large bow and arrow, with arrows across his body too. A man stands behind him and another kneels down on the ground next to him" title="A Victorian image depicts a youthful Henry VIII enjoying a spot of arc…

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The lie of succession: did James I steal Elizabeth I's crown?
type: item
date: 2025-10-13T08:00:19.000Z
creator: Tracy Borman
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: British queens
subject: Stuart kings and queens
subject: Tudor kings and queens
description: Did James I ‘steal’ Elizabeth I’s crown? Tracy Borman considers evidence that the transition from Tudor to Stuart dynasties may not have been quite as seamless as we’ve been led to believe
encoded: Richmond Palace, 22 March 1603. Elizabeth I – the self-proclaimed Virgin Queen who had ruled England for 44 years, seeing off the Armada, healing religious divisions and creating a court so magnificent it was the envy of Europe – lay dying. Her anxious advisers clustered around her bedside, urging her to do the thing she had resisted throughout her long reign: name her successor. Rousing herself from her stupor, the 69-year-old queen declared: “I will that a king succeed me, and what king, but my nearest kinsman, the king of Scots?” Wanting to make completely sure, her chief minister, Robert Cecil, asked whether that was her “absolute resolution” – to which she irritably retorted: “I pray you trouble me no more, I’ll have none but him.” That “kinsman” was James VI of Scotland, son of Elizabeth’s old rival Mary, Queen of Scots. Her closest surviving blood relative, he had emerged as the front runner in the race for the English crown. He had the support of Cecil and most of his fellow privy councillors, who had been working behind the scenes to smooth James’s path to the throne. The queen, too, had shown him favour, sharing the pearls of her monarchical wisdom during their 20-year correspondence, as if grooming him as her successor. But she had always flinched from actually naming him as such. Now, almost with her last breath, she had. Elizabeth died two days later – and the Tudor dynasty gave way peacefully to the Stuarts. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/GettyImages-544183312webready-e7c6f5b.jpg" width="3727" height="2485" alt="A portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. She had the strongest blood claim to Elizabeth's throne, but her son would go on to be the next monarch (Image by Getty Images)" title="A portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. She had the strongest blood claim to Elizabeth's throne, but her son would go on to be the next monarch (Image by Getty Images)" /> This dramatic depiction of Elizabeth’s last-gasp naming of the…

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The conqueror’s queen: meet the real Matilda of Flanders
type: item
date: 2025-09-18T14:53:11.000Z
creator: Tracy Borman
subject: Anglo-Saxon
subject: Medieval
subject: Norman
subject: Period
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: Matilda of Flanders sits in the shadow of her more famous husband but, writes Tracy Borman, she was an able political player who deserves to be better known
encoded: Matilda of Flanders was the formidable wife of William the Conqueror, the man who toppled Harold Godwinson to usher in the Norman Conquest in 1066. She broke the mould of queen consorts, wielding considerable power on behalf of – and sometimes in direct opposition to – her husband, and establishing an Anglo-Norman dynasty that would endure for centuries. But until the BBC 1066 drama King and Conqueror few people had heard of her, thanks to the male-dominated sources for the period. The Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the Norman Conquest of England, includes over 600 different men and just three women – Edith of Wessex (who is Edward the Confessor’s wife, and also Harold Godwinson’s sister); an unnamed woman fleeing a building burned by William’s troops (who may or may not be Edith the Fair, Harold’s wife); and a woman the embroidery identifies as Aelfgyva, of whom we know less. What’s certain is that none of them are Matilda. Who was the real Matilda of Flanders? Piecing together the fragments of Matilda’s life before 1066 reveals a woman who was destined to rule – and given her pedigree, she was viewed as a great prize in the international marriage market. Although the records are scarce for Matilda’s years, she was probably born in around 1031. She was the daughter of the future Count Baldwin V of Flanders (then one of the most important principalities in Europe) and Adela, the daughter of King Robert II ‘the Pious’ of France. Matilda had two brothers, Baldwin and Robert. Described by a contemporary chronicler as ‘highly born’, she could trace her descent from the kings of France, the emperors of Germany and even the Anglo-Saxon dynasty. The latter connection would be of great value to her future husband, William of Normandy. Read more | Did Edward the Confessor really murder his mother? There is no surviving likeness of Matilda, but a later chronicler described her as “one of the most beautiful women that could be seen”. Her skeleton was examined in 1961 and recor…

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Tudors in turmoil: deciphering Hans Holbein’s masterwork The Ambassadors
type: item
date: 2025-06-17T08:00:52.000Z
creator: Tracy Borman
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Tudor kings and queens
subject: Tudor life
description: Hans Holbein’s masterwork The Ambassadors is an exquisite portrait of two 16th-century diplomats. But it is also crammed with symbols and hidden messages. Tracy Borman deciphers the clues that betray the turbulence of a fateful year
encoded: Europe was teetering on the brink of a major rift. Relations between England and continental powers, always fragile, were at risk of fracturing fatally. Often violent confrontations between the Catholic Church and burgeoning Protestant adherents were spreading like wildfire, and the English king seemed determined to add fuel to those flames. Tensions could scarcely be higher. It was at that moment, in 1533, that Hans Holbein the Younger – the most celebrated court painter of the Tudor age – accepted a commission from a recently arrived visitor to the English court. A portrait would be produced, celebrating the wealth of those depicted. But in its extraordinary details, some more obscure and cryptic than others, the picture also reveals important aspects of the sitters and the tempestuous era in which it was painted. As London’s National Gallery celebrates the reopening of its Sainsbury Wing and a major redisplay of its collection, it seems like an apposite moment to take a fresh look at this masterful painting and the turbulent year that spawned it. In the eye of the storm Henry VIII, king since 1509, had recently defied the pope by setting aside his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, to marry Anne Boleyn, the woman who had captivated him for the previous seven years. This sparked a seismic shift in England’s religious, political and social life that would reverberate down the centuries. Jean de Dinteville, ambassador of Henry VIII’s great rival, Francis I of France, instructed Holbein to capture this extraordinary moment with a portrait of himself and his fellow diplomat Georges de Selve, both of whom were caught in the eye of the gathering storm. The result would become one of the artist’s most celebrated works. Dinteville, then aged 28, was a member of one of the most influential families in France. His first embassy to England had been in 1531, the year when Henry was granted the title of supreme head of the English church. With the king of England now on the verg…

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What was Mary Tudor and Thomas Cromwell's relationship – did they plan to marry?
type: item
date: 2024-11-17T21:45:15.000Z
creator: Tracy Borman
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Trends-Entertainment
subject: Tudor kings and queens
description: It was thanks to Thomas Cromwell that Mary Tudor – daughter of Catherine of Aragon – was demoted from heir to the throne to illegitimate outcast. So what was the relationship between the two really like?
encoded: The relationship between Thomas Cromwell and Princess Mary, Henry's VIII's daughter with Catherine of Aragon, is under the spotlight in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light. Here. Tudor historian Tracy Borman explores the true relationship between the disinherited princess and the Lord Privy Seal – and whether she really was his 'loving friend' The future Mary I and Thomas Cromwell were diametrically opposed in every way that mattered. She was a staunch Roman Catholic; he a reformist who masterminded the destruction of the monasteries and England’s break from Rome. She was the daughter of Henry VIII’s first queen, Catherine of Aragon; he helped engineer the annulment of their marriage so that the king might marry Anne Boleyn. Thanks to Cromwell, Mary suffered the misery and humiliation of being demoted from heir to the throne to illegitimate outcast. Read more | Thomas Cromwell on screen: is Wolf Hall the best depiction of the Tudor statesman? Was Princess Mary Thomas Cromwell's 'loving friend'? On the surface at least, relations between the two were cordial. Their letters were filled with respectful, even affectionate sentiments. These should not be taken at face value, however. Even the fiercest of enemies would disguise their antipathy with the elaborate, courtly language of the Tudor age. Thus, Elizabeth I referred to her most deadly rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, as her “beloved sister” right up until the point when she ordered her execution. Nevertheless, there did seem to be a rapprochement between Mary and Cromwell after Anne Boleyn’s death in 1536. Did Thomas Cromwell hope to marry princess Mary? It was even rumoured that the king’s chief minister harboured secret plans to marry the Lady Mary so that his heirs might inherit the crown of England. There is little reliable proof that Cromwell ever presumed so far. Even if he had, it is highly unlikely that Henry VIII would have sanctioned such a marriage, or that Mary herself would have agreed to it. In fact, the…

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Thomas Cromwell on screen: is Wolf Hall the best depiction of the Tudor statesman?
type: item
date: 2024-11-08T15:17:35.000Z
creator: Tracy Borman
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
description: Move over Thomas More – Tracy Borman argues that it was Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's 'faithful servant' who was truly the man for all seasons
encoded: This weekend sees the release of the long-awaited BBC dramatisation of Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light, the final instalment of her globally bestselling and Booker Prize winning Wolf Hall trilogy that traces the meteoric rise and dramatic fall of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII. Here, historian Tracy Borman looks at five of the most famous screen portrayals of Henry’s trusted adviser – and makes the case for which comes closest to reality. Wolf Hall (2014 & 2024) The late Hilary Mantel’s compelling portrayal of Henry VIII’s henchman, Thomas Cromwell, (traditionally one of history’s greatest villains) so fired the public imagination that scriptwriters scrambled to translate it to stage and screen. The RSC’s production, starring Ben Miles, attracted sell-out crowds in the UK and US. The BBC’s screen version followed hot on its hills, a lavish six-part dramatisation starring Mark Rylance in the lead role and Damian Lewis as his royal master, Henry VIII. Rylance gave us an altogether different Cromwell to the ruthless schemer who masterminded Anne Boleyn’s fall, destroyed the monasteries and lined his own pockets in the process. The screen version was both more sympathetic and attractive: a tender husband and father, charming and self-deprecating, a self-made man and – as Mantel put it – “clever as a bag of snakes”. Rylance’s Cromwell was quiet and watchful, his expression conveying a thousand words without his lips uttering a single one. There was a dazzling supporting cast. Damian Lewis was just as charismatic, mercurial and, at times, psychopathic, as the Tudor king himself. Claire Foy’s Anne Boleyn was masterful: capricious, magnetic and vulnerable, with a hint of a French accent (‘Cremwell’) that was both condescending and entirely authentic. Jonathan Pryce gave us a charming, clever and humorous Cardinal Wolsey; Mark Gatiss was suitably snide and sinister as Cromwell’s archenemy Stephen Gardiner; and Saskia Reeves played his love interest with …

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"To read a Shardlake novel is to be immersed in the turbulent world of the Tudors" | Tracy Borman reflects on the work of CJ Sansom
type: item
date: 2024-05-10T11:18:17.000Z
creator: Tracy Borman
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
description: Following the sad news of the passing of CJ Sansom in April 2024, Tracy Borman reflects on the historical novelist’s popular Shardlake series, set in Tudor England, and how even through fiction he was able to make valuable contributions to our understanding of this historical period
encoded: The announcement of the death of historical novelist CJ Sansom on 27 April 2024 prompted widespread sorrow amongst his legions of fans across the world. He died, aged 71, just days before Shardlake, a major new TV adaptation of his first novel, Dissolution, starring Arthur Hughes as lawyer Matthew Shardlake and Sean Bean as his formidable master Thomas Cromwell, was released on Disney+. Christopher John Sansom, better known as CJ, was the author of numerous acclaimed works, including Winter in Madrid (2006), a spy novel set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and the alternate-history thriller Dominion (2012), which imagines a Britain that had surrendered to the Germans after Dunkirk. But it was his mystery novels set in Tudor England and featuring barrister Shardlake for which he was best known – and loved. To read a Shardlake novel is to be immersed in the turbulent world of the Tudors: the cutthroat courts of Henry VIII and his son Edward VI, the religious and social upheaval of the Reformation, and the sights, smells and sounds of 16th-century London. A succession of seismic events, such as Henry’s rapid succession of wives, his break with Rome and the sinking of the Mary Rose, provides the backdrop to Shardlake’s sleuthing. But what Sansom’s novels bring so vividly to life is the often-devastating impact that these events had on the lives of the ordinary people of Tudor England. His debut novel was inspired by Sansom’s fascination with the Tudors and his love of crime novels, as well as his home county of Sussex. Published in 2003, Dissolution is set in a fictional monastery on the Sussex coast on the eve of Henry VIII’s piecemeal dissolution of the monasteries. The seventh in the series, Tombland (2018), takes as its theme Kett’s Rebellion of 1549. At the time of his death, Sansom was working on an eighth, titled Ratcliff, set in the closing year of Edward VI’s reign. The spark of Sansom's historical fiction What sets the Shardlake novels apart from mos…

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Who was the real Thomas Cromwell? Your guide to Henry VIII's "faithful servant"
type: item
date: 2024-05-02T13:35:28.000Z
creator: Tracy Borman
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Tudor life
description: How much do you know about Thomas Cromwell? As Henry VIII's chief minister, he became one of the most powerful men in England – but little is known about his origins. Here, historian Tracy Borman answers all the questions you need to know – from his meteoric rise to his spectacular fall from favour…
encoded: What is Thomas Cromwell remembered for? Thomas Cromwell enjoyed a meteoric rise from the son of a Putney blacksmith to the chief minister of Henry VIII. A man of exceptional ability and with an enormous capacity for hard work, he dominated England’s political and religious life for a decade. He ruthlessly dispatched those who stood against him and his royal master, notably his rival Thomas More and Henry’s notorious second wife Anne Boleyn. He also masterminded the seismic religious changes of the 1530s, playing a key role in the split from Rome, the establishment of Henry as ‘Supreme Head’ of a new Church of England, and the dissolution of the monasteries that followed in its wake. When and where was Thomas Cromwell born? The man who would one day become the most powerful in England was of such humble origins that nobody can be sure when or where he was born. The likeliest date for his birth is 1485, which would be appropriate, given it was the year the Tudors seized the throne following the battle of Bosworth. His birthplace is often cited as Putney, which at the time would have been a small village by the river Thames, west of the City of London. What were Thomas Cromwell's origins? Records suggest that Thomas was the youngest of three children – and the only boy – born to Walter Cromwell and his wife Katherine née Meverell. Considerably younger than his sisters, he may have been an unexpected child. In the only recorded reference to his mother, Thomas made the unlikely claim that she was 52 when she bore him. He made the remark during the debate about Henry VIII’s annulment with reference to whether Catherine of Aragon was still capable of bearing a living son. Walter Cromwell was an enterprising if disreputable man with a number of different professions, including blacksmith, fuller (cloth dresser) and cloth merchant. He had ingratiated himself with the new Tudor dynasty by serving as a farrier in the future Henry VII’s contingent at the battle of Bosworth in 1…

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Why was King James VI and I obsessed with witch hunts?
type: item
date: 2024-04-09T08:57:15.000Z
creator: Tracy Borman
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Stuart kings and queens
subject: Witches
description: The witch hunts that swept across Europe between 1450 and 1750 are one of the most controversial and terrifying phenomena in history, resulting in the trial of around 100,000 people (most of them women), a little under half of whom were put to death. Here, Tracy Borman explores the most notorious royal witch-hunter of all time: James VI and I...
encoded: A holocaust of their time, historians have long attempted to explain why and how the European witch craze that spread around Europe between the 15th and 18th century took such rapid and enduring hold. One of the most active centres of witch-hunting was Scotland, where up to 4,000 people were put to the flames. This was striking for such a small country, and was more than double the execution rate in England. The ferocity of the Scottish persecutions can be attributed to royal witch-hunter James VI and I. James’s obsession with witchcraft can be traced back to his childhood. The violent death of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, seems to have inspired a dark fascination with magic. “His Highness told me her death was visible in Scotland before it did really happen,” related Sir John Harington many years later, being, as he said, “spoken of in secret by those whose power of sight presented to them a bloody head dancing in the air”. Two years after Mary’s execution, another dramatic event deepened James’s growing obsession with magic and witchcraft. In 1589 he was betrothed to Anne of Denmark, but she almost lost her life in a violent tempest when she set sail across the North Sea to meet her new husband. In an uncharacteristic show of chivalry, James resolved to sail across to Denmark and collect her in person. But on their return voyage the royal fleet was battered by more storms and one of the ships was lost. James immediately placed the blame on witches, claiming that they must have cast evil spells upon his fleet. As soon as he reached Scottish shores, James ordered a witch-hunt on a scale never seen before. No fewer than 70 suspects were rounded up in the coastal Scottish town of North Berwick on suspicion of raising a storm to destroy James and his new bride. Most of the suspects soon confessed – under torture – to concocting a host of bizarre and gruesome spells and rituals in order to whip up the storm. They included binding the severed genitalia and limbs of …

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