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Henry VIII wanted a giant Tudor tomb. So why didn’t he get it?
Henry VIII planned a monumental tomb to match his power and legacy. Instead, the king who reshaped England’s relationship with Rome now lies beneath a small, easily missed slab. Here’s how three Tudor monarchs, and a civil war, erased his grand design
It would be entirely possible to visit St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle and glance over the modest stone slab marking the grave of Henry VIII without noticing it. Its setting might be grand, but the marker itself is startlingly small: which is striking, given that it denotes the resting place of a titanic monarch who dominated the first half of the 16th century of English history with his palaces, pageantry and sweeping religious reforms. How exactly did a king famed for grandeur and excess end up with one of the least conspicuous graves of any English ruler? As historian Kate Williams explains, the anonymity was never Henry’s intention. “Henry VIII wanted a giant tomb in St George's Chapel,” she says, on an episode of her HistoryExtra Academy course. “But he made a big mistake.” It was that mistake that would ultimately ruin his ambitious vision and leave him with the humble gravestone. Henry VIII’s vast funerary vision Henry VIII’s planned tomb was intended to be a memorial that also served as a message. Late medieval and early Tudor monarchs used their tombs to assert legitimacy, commemorate dynastic claims and broadcast their religious identity. Henry VII’s chapel at Westminster, completed in gilded splendour, set a new standard. Henry VIII planned to exceed it. “He wanted a huge tribute with a big bronze effigy of him,” says Williams, “surrounded by pillars and models of angels and saints. It was going to be inside a black marble chapel.” The king saw that as befitting the scale of his ambitions and achievements in life. A tomb on this scale would have functioned as his final statement of royal authority, suitable as the resting place of a monarch who made himself head of the English Church. But the mistake Henry made was that he didn’t complete it during his lifetime. Instead, he trusted his successors to see it through. An unfinished project inherited by unwilling heirs When Henry died in 1547, his tomb was incomplete and enormously expensive. It was a problem that his heirs had little appetite to solve. Edward VI, aged nine, ruled through Protestant councillors who were cutting costs and scaling back on religious symbols. The Catholic-inspired elements of Henry’s design were at odds with the new regime. “Edward VI didn’t continue with the plans for the tomb,” Williams says. “[Edward’s successor] Mary I didn't either.” Mary’s decision was down to more personal reasons. Henry had annulled his marriage to her mother, Catherine of Aragon; their estrangement shaped Mary’s childhood. Honouring her father with a lavish monument held little emotional appeal. Read more | Henry VIII’s six wives: your guide to the Tudor king's queen consorts Then there was the final, and longest-serving Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I. She inherited a financially stretched kingdom. “She took a look into the plans for the tomb and decided against it,” says Williams. The cost was enormous. The political value was negligible. Across a generation, the project moved further from relevance. What Henry imagined as a dynastic centrepiece morphed into a burdensome relic of a former monarch whom no successor wished to resurrect. The Civil War destruction of Henry VIII’s incomplete tomb But that still left the unfinished elements. What happened to these partially completed parts of Henry’s tomb? During the Civil War, royal monuments across England were dismantled as symbols of Stuart kingship and Catholic “idolatry”. Henry’s incomplete bronze effigy (which had never been installed) was seized. “Oliver Cromwell's soldiers melted it down,” Williams says. The destruction reflected widespread Parliamentarian iconoclasm targeting royal and religious imagery with equal fervour. Other elements of the tomb took unexpected journeys. The elaborate sarcophagus originally crafted for Cardinal Wolsey, later claimed by Henry for his own tomb, was eventually repurposed. Today, it stands in the central crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, protecting the remains of Admiral Horatio Nelson, Britain’s most celebrated naval commander. It's questionable whether any royal monuments have had stranger afterlives. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-55920299-560015d-e1765544375718.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Admiral Nelson’s tomb in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral is seen here after restoration in 2005. The black marble sarcophagus was originally commissioned in the 16th century for Cardinal Wolsey — and later intended by Henry VIII for his own burial — before being repurposed to honour Britain’s naval hero following his death at Trafalgar in 1805." title="Restoration Of Nelsons Tomb At St Pauls Cathedral" /> Windsor Castle’s modest marker For generations after Henry’s death, his burial remained effectively unmarked. Only in the 1830s did William IV introduce the simple ledger stone seen today. “William IV thought: ‘maybe we should commemorate the fact that Henry VIII is lying there,’ and he made that slab,” Williams says. But even in William IV’s age of revived Gothic splendour, there was no desire to recreate Henry’s original design. “There was no way he was putting in the black marble and the angels and all the rest of it.” Henry VIII imagined a monumental afterlife. Instead, the king who reshaped England’s political and cultural milieu lies beneath a marker smaller than those of many of his courtiers. The reasons speak to the politics of the Tudor succession, the emotional rifts within the royal family, shifting religious priorities and the disruptive violence of the Civil War. No heir shared Henry’s appetite (or financial capacity) for self-commemoration. By the time a monarch did finally choose to mark his grave, the opportunity for grandeur had long passed. “Henry VIII thought that everyone loved him,” says Williams. “It wasn't quite the case.” Kate Williams was speaking on her HistoryExtra Academy series, Royal residences: secrets and scandals. All episodes are available now ad-free on the HistoryExtra app. Start watching today.
Did Aztec civilisation really ‘collapse’? The reality isn’t as simple as you might think
The Spanish conquest might have toppled the Aztec imperial state with startling speed, but unpicking precisely what ‘collapse’ really means reveals a far more complicated story
At a glance, the fall of the Aztec empire in the early 16th century seems like one of history’s clearest before-and-after moments: a powerful empire crushed almost instantly by a handful of Spanish conquistadors. But that picture, vivid as it is, has long obscured the more complicated reality of what was destroyed, and what endured. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, historian Caroline Dodds Pennock and scholar of civilisational collapse Luke Kemp examine why the Aztec imperial system fell so quickly, why ‘collapse’ is a loaded term, and what lessons it leaves behind. The destruction of Aztec knowledge One of the biggest obstacles to retrospectively understanding Aztec society is that we lack writing from the period, explains Dodds Pennock. Most Aztec records were deliberately destroyed almost immediately after the conquest that began in 1519. Pennock stresses the scale of that loss. After taking Tenochtitlán, Spanish authorities oversaw the burning of vast quantities of Aztec pictorial texts and administrative documents, instigating “a huge destruction of this vast pictographic culture,” that included the loss of “incredible legal records, religious records, political records.” The devastation, she notes, has been likened to “the conflagration of the Library of Alexandria.” Read more | Cortés and Montezuma: the conquering of Tenochtitlán What survives, both in terms of written sources and archaeological material, reveals a sophisticated society, but one viewed largely through Spanish lenses. Acknowledging that bias, suggests Pennock, and looking beyond it, can reveal the immense sophistication of the Aztec empire before its fall. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-51241466-22bf3b1-e1765453906433.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Spanish conquistadors destroying Aztec idols in the aftermath of the conquest. Such acts formed part of a wider campaign to suppress Indigenous religion and assert Christian authority, reshaping the spiritual and cultural landscape of central Mexico in the early colonial period." title="Destroying Idols" /> What the Aztec empire looked like in 1519 Far from a civilisation teetering on the edge of collapse, at the moment of Spanish arrival, the Aztec state was expansive, wealthy and tightly organised. Pennock describes an empire that “stretched across about 80,000 square miles … ruling over 5 to 6 million peoples in over 500 allied and subject cities.” At its heart stood Tenochtitlán (in modern-day Mexico), an island city of perhaps 200,000 inhabitants – larger, in fact, than many contemporary European capitals. Elevated roads and aqueducts linked it to the mainland. Vast markets drew traders from across swathes of Mesoamerica, while ritual and political life revolved around a monumental sacred precinct. Read more | Two worlds collide: Spanish conquistadors and Aztecs The city was a centre of poetry, philosophy and art, and a hub of what Pennock describes as, “relative gender egalitarianism, compared to most societies of that period.” In 1519, the same year that the Spanish arrived, the Aztec empire had its challenges, namely internal tensions and external political rivalries. But it didn’t look like a society on a precipice. It was complex, functioning, expansionist and confident. Why did such a powerful empire fall so quickly? The Spanish conquest, from first contact with the conquistadores in 1519 to the fall of Tenochtitlán in 1521, was extraordinarily rapid. Pennock calls it “one of the fastest collapses of an enormous empire that exists in history.” The speed of the Spanish advance was the result of several converging pressures. The most devastating was disease. Smallpox reached central Mexico early in the conquest, spreading far ahead of Spanish armies. With no previous exposure, communities suffered catastrophic losses. Entire households died within days, leaders were struck down, and the resulting instability weakened political and military resistance at a critical juncture. At the same time, long-standing resentments within the empire proved decisive. Dozens of subject and rival city-states chose to ally with the newcomers, calculating that Spanish support offered a route to independence from Tenochtitlán's tribute demands. These alliances provided the Spanish with tens of thousands of indigenous soldiers, without whom the conquest would have been impossible. Read more | Two worlds collide: Spanish conquistadors and Aztecs The Aztec leadership also misjudged the nature of the threat. Early encounters were shaped by diplomatic norms and forms of warfare that were very different from those practiced by Europeans. Misinterpretations in these crucial first months helped amplify the danger the empire faced, giving the Spanish and their allies further advantages. And, within just two years, the mighty Aztec empire had crumbled. Yet even after accounting for disease, alliances and miscalculations, the story of the Aztec ‘collapse’ isn’t quite complete, says Pennock. What happened after 1521 raises a much more difficult question that Pennock argues is essential to understanding both the Aztecs and the broader study of how societies change. If an imperial system can fall apart so swiftly, what happens to the people it governed? And what does ‘collapse’ actually mean? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-122319907-e3e49d7-e1765454216625.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This colour illustration reconstructs the ceremonial heart of Tenochtitlan, with the twin pyramids of the Templo Mayor rising above the city. At its 15th-century height, the Aztec capital was a vast island metropolis of temples, marketplaces, and canals." title="Clouds over pyramids, Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan, Mexico City, Mexico" /> Did the Aztec really collapse? The notion of collapse risks implying that, after 1521, the Aztec culture was made extinct. As Pennock notes, that’s not true. “A million people still speak the Aztec language of Nahuatl in Mexico today,” she says, emphasising that “much of their culture continues”. “Their society remains vibrant, even in the face of devastating disease, warfare, and enslavement.” The Aztec empire as a structure might have come to an end. But the survivors adapted and kept crucial elements of their culture alive. Read more | How many people did the Aztecs sacrifice? This distinction, between political collapse and cultural endurance, is central to how scholars interpret the end of complex societies. Luke Kemp, whose research surveys cases of collapse across world history, argues that failure rarely comes from a single cause. Fortunes, he explains, “can often turn very quickly, and very unforeseeably.” He says that most societies living through a decline “didn't foresee that they were going through a collapse”. “Many of the challenges faced by these past collapsed societies are reflected in our own. Things like competition, warfare, climate change, internal rebellion, inequality, poor leadership. These are all things that have happened throughout history and different societies have had different ways of dealing with these – for better and for worse.” Caroline Dodds Pennock and Luke Kemp were speaking to Matt Elton on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Lauren Johnson charts how Margaret Beaufort skilfully navigated the chaos of the 15th century – and ultimately gave us the Tudor dynasty
Born in the tumultuous 15th century, Margaret Beaufort – mother of Henry VII – endured personal tragedy, dynastic danger, and the ever-shifting fortunes of power. Yet she emerged as one of the most influential figures of late medieval England. In this episode, Emily Briffett is joined by historian Lauren Johnson to delve into the remarkable life of Margaret – a mother and patron whose autonomy, determination and political acumen helped forge the Tudor dynasty. Lauren Johnson is the author of Margaret Beaufort: Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker (Apollo, 2025). Buy it now from Amazon
Porpoise for breakfast and late night sex visits: Henry VIII's life in a day
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
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 archery at the Field of the Cloth of Gold – the extravagant summit he hosted with Francis I of France in 1520. While the king no longer enjoyed a life of “continuous festival”, he was still physically active in his early forties (Image by Alamy)" /> An “improbably large codpiece” To get Henry ready for whatever the day held, his privy chamber staff had to rise even earlier than he did. Having cleaned the king’s chambers, the grooms would wake the esquires of the body, who slept in the ‘pallet chamber’ next door to the royal bedchamber. The esquires would enter their royal master’s bedchamber to “array him and dress him in his [under]clothes”, which were strewn with fresh herbs to keep them sweet-smelling. Having been “loosely dressed” by his esquires, Henry would step into the privy chamber so that his six gentlemen could complete the ceremony of robing with whichever garments he had chosen for that day. Henry loved to show off his physique – as well as his riches – in the quality and quantity of the cloth from which his garments were fashioned. His broad shoulders were emphasised by padded and embroidered sleeves, the curve of his calf muscles was shown off to best effect by white silk hose, and his improbably large codpiece symbolised his masculinity and power. Clearly, he pulled it off. The Venetian ambassador, Sebastiano Guistinian, described Henry as “the best dressed sovereign in the world”. Hair, ear wax and urine When the king was dressed for the day, his barber would begin shaving his royal master and dressing his hair. He had to be a man of infinite trustworthiness: after all, he would be holding sharp blades to the king’s throat! During the early years of his reign, Henry was clean-shaven, as Catherine of Aragon preferred. But what she liked mattered less by 1533, when he sported a fine beard, which the barber would ensure was neatly trimmed. Read more | The swordplay’s the thing: Henry VIII's Masters of Defence and the thrilling world of 16th-century fencing Luxury pervaded the business of hairdressing and shaving, as it did every other element of Henry’s daily routine. Inventories of his possessions list silver basins for shaving and facecloths trimmed with black silk, as well as a comb of “gold garnished with… stones and pearl”, a toothpick case of gold, and an “ear pick of silver”. Among the many gifts that the king had showered Anne Boleyn with during their courtship was a gold ear wax scoop. Who says romance is dead? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/2GettyImages-544278466-a6f7064-e1764861641975.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A painting showing Henry VIII, bearded with a large hat on, wearing maroon robes and a large gold chain" title="A copy of Hans Holbein the Younger’s famous 1536–37 portrait of Henry VIII. The king’s neatly trimmed beard and “improbably large codpiece” are very much present in this depiction (Image by Getty Images)" /> Next up, Henry would be examined by one of his team of physicians. They came armed with bladder-shaped flasks for inspecting the king’s urine and would also examine his stools. In submitting himself to the frequent attentions of his medics, the king was following royal protocol – after all, a sovereign’s health was of the utmost importance to the state. But Henry had always been prone to hypochondria and would be thrown into a panic at any sign of illness at court. The French ambassador described him as “the most timid person in such matters you could meet”. Mrs Cornwallis’s sweet treats Having been washed, groomed, dressed and examined, the king was at last ready to go out into the court. The first meal of the day was generally served at around 10.30 or 11 o’clock, although sometimes it was as late as midday (breakfast was not a thing until the reign of Henry’s daughter Elizabeth). This was known as ‘dinner’ and was substantial enough to maintain the king and his courtiers until late afternoon. It comprised an array of different meats, such as boar, pork, lamb and venison, as well as game birds like pheasant and rabbit, swan and more unusual fare like conger eel and porpoise. The king had a sweet tooth, too, and regularly gorged on custards, fritters, tarts, jelly, cream of almonds and quince marmalade. His favourite confectioner was a woman named Mrs Cornwallis, whom he rewarded with a fine house close to the Tower of London. In contrast to the popular image of Henry seated at the top table of a great feast, devouring endless chicken legs and throwing the bones over his shoulder, he was a very fastidious eater and preferred to take his meals in private. He didn’t like to linger over his meals, either, because he was impatient to get on with his day. WATCH | Kate Williams discusses the origins of Henry VIII's vast leisure complex, Hampton Court Palace View Green Video on the source website Hunting, archery, bowling and tennis took up several hours. Sir William Kingston, who was a regular at Henry’s court (and was later Anne Boleyn’s gaoler at the Tower), observed that even after more than 20 years on the throne: “The king hawks every day with goshawks and others… both before noon and after.” Having practised these sporting pursuits from childhood, Henry was highly skilled, particularly at tennis. The Venetian ambassador enthused: “It is the prettiest thing in the world to see him play.” “Tedious and painful” The distinction between work and play was blurred during Henry’s reign. He would discuss politics with ambassadors and ministers while enjoying a game of bowls or practising archery, and would hold more private audiences with his advisors while being dressed or undressed, taking his meals or bathing. The privy council was the beating heart of Henry’s government and would meet almost every day at around noon. By 1533, Henry was attending those meetings much more frequently than during the carefree early years of his reign. They would discuss all the most pressing matters of the day – of which there was no shortage in the year that the king rid himself of one wife, took another and separated England from Roman Catholic Europe. Thomas Cromwell was the most influential member of the privy council and worked closely with Henry, often holding private meetings with the king. Read more | The lie of succession: did James I steal Elizabeth I's crown? Supper was served between three and four o’clock each afternoon and would typically comprise soups, pottage, roasted meats, tarts, custards, fruits, nuts and cheeses. If Henry was peckish in the evening, his cooks would prepare a snack known as a ‘rear night’ or ‘all night’, which was usually served between eight and nine o’clock. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/3GettyImages-2198973715-a81c1a0-e1764861900600.jpg" width="1500" height="972" alt="A lavish display of fruit, vegetables, nuts, poultry and meat depicted by Flemish painter Joachim Beuckelaer, c1560–65. Henry would have been treated to similarly sumptuous spreads, although he preferred to eat his meals in private (Image by Getty Images)" title="A lavish display of fruit, vegetables, nuts, poultry and meat depicted by Flemish painter Joachim Beuckelaer, c1560–65. Henry would have been treated to similarly sumptuous spreads, although he preferred to eat his meals in private (Image by Getty Images)" /> Henry was renowned for his piety and spent a significant part of every day in worship. One ambassador reported: “He hears three masses daily when he hunts and sometimes five on other days.” This had been encouraged by his first wife, a devout Roman Catholic. By contrast, Anne Boleyn was a reformer and introduced Henry to radical religious texts that encouraged him to break from obedience to Rome. Although he admitted to finding writing “tedious and painful”, the king was a voracious reader, and his private library was filled with classical and theological texts from across the world. Long trips to the loo Every so often, the king would take a bath in his private apartments. But the leading physicians of the age cautioned against regular bathing in hot water because it opened the pores and allowed deadly diseases such as the plague, sweating sickness and smallpox to enter the body. Instead, cold water was used for washing the king’s hands and face first thing in the morning and before and after every meal. Even if Henry’s baths were infrequent, they were predictably luxurious. At the palaces of Richmond and Whitehall, Henry had steam baths installed, fragments of which are still preserved at Hampton Court. Henry had his own private close stool (a type of portable toilet) in each palace. His ‘stool chambers’ at Greenwich and Hampton Court were kitted out with pictures and bookshelves to keep the king amused during the long hours that he spent there. His close stools were covered in embroidered velvet, stuffed with swan’s-down and studded with gilt nails. To emphasise his magnificence, Henry staged lavish evening entertainments at court. His Master of the Revels devised plays, pageants and musical interludes to be performed in front of the king and his guests. Some of the more ambitious set-pieces involved mock battles and the famous ‘Château Vert’ pageant of 1522, when a certain young lady called Anne Boleyn made her first appearance at Henry’s court. As well as being an accomplished musician, Henry loved to show off on the dance floor. He “exercised himself daily in dancing” and “does wonders and leaps like a stag”, reported an astonished onlooker. Most evenings, the king and his courtiers would indulge in gambling. Huge sums would be won and lost at cards, dice and board games. Between the years 1529 and 1532, Henry squandered a staggering £3,243 (equivalent to £2.36 million today). But there was always a jester or ‘fool’ on hand to cheer the king after his losses. Henry’s favourite fool was Will Somer, who entered his service in 1525 and kept the king entertained for the next 20 years. It was said that “in all the court few men were more beloved than was this fool”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/5GettyImages-463967531-c9338ca-e1764862158221.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A scene of revelry and merriment published in the 1902 book Henry VIII by AF Pollard. According to Tracy Borman, Henry “loved to show off” on the dance floor (Image by Getty Images)" title="A scene of revelry and merriment published in the 1902 book Henry VIII by AF Pollard. According to Tracy Borman, Henry “loved to show off” on the dance floor (Image by Getty Images)" /> Henry’s bedroom antics The king rarely retired before midnight, “which is our accustomed hour at court to go to bed”. An elaborate ceremony of disrobing began as soon as he stepped into the bedchamber. His gentlemen and esquires of the body would carefully untie, unbuckle and remove every item of clothing and then put on his nightgown. Another attendant would bring a basin of water and a cloth so that he could wash his face and clean his teeth. The king’s body servants would then comb his hair and cover it with a ‘night-bonnet’ of scarlet or black embroidered velvet before helping him into bed and lighting a candle next to it. Their work complete, all but one of the privy chamber attendants bowed low and backed out of the room, leaving their royal master to his rest. Every detail of this protracted routine would be observed each night without fail. It only differed when Henry chose to visit his wife. On such occasions, he would summon his grooms of the chamber, who would dress him in his nightrobe and escort him with lighted torches to the door of the queen’s bedchamber. The king would rarely spend the night there, though, and would return to his own bedchamber once his, erm, ‘business’ there had been concluded. But given that Anne Boleyn was almost certainly pregnant at the time she married Henry in January 1533, these conjugal visits would have been rare or non-existent until she gave birth in September. The wisdom of the day dictated that sex during pregnancy was harmful to the unborn child, so instead Henry found comfort with other women. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/6GettyImages-533506999-960aef2-e1764862263626.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A painting showing a large man standing in gold regal clothing and a large cloak, being served a goblet on a tray by a man kneeling on the floor. Other people stand around and watch" title="An 1835 painting imagines Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn’s first meeting. Despite his early obsession with Anne, the king’s affection for his second wife waned only a few months into their marriage (Image by Getty Images)" /> This caused the first serious rift between the newlyweds in August 1533, when Anne was about to enter her ‘confinement’ – the month-long period when a royal wife would live in complete seclusion to await the birth of her child. “The king’s affection for her [Anne] is less than it was”, reported the Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys. “He now shows himself in love with another lady, and many nobles are assisting him in the affair.” When she heard of this, Anne was “very jealous” and confronted her royal husband. To her dismay, rather than offering placatory assurances, he spat back that she must “shut her eyes and endure” as more “worthy” persons had done. Henry’s affection for his new wife took another nose-dive when she gave birth to a daughter (the future Elizabeth I) on 7 September, rather than the hoped-for son. Read more | Inside the six wives' bedchamber: the stories of Tudor ladies-in-waiting Adultery, treason and execution As the year 1533 drew to a close, the court moved to Greenwich for the Christmas celebrations. “The King’s Grace kept great court, as merry and lusty as ever”, one guest observed. There was a good reason for Henry to be cheerful: Anne Boleyn was pregnant once more. Her New Year gift to the king was an exquisite table fountain of gold, studded with rubies, diamonds and pearls. Designed by Hans Holbein, it featured three naked women standing at the foot of a fountain, water issuing forth from their nipples – a clear allusion to her impending motherhood. WATCH | HistoryExtra's Kev Lochun explores the story of the wife of Henry VIII who had a lucky escape View Green Video on the source website Sadly, the queen lost the child a few months later and miscarried twice more in the two years that followed. The king, who in the early days of their courtship had been so enraptured that he had overturned his entire kingdom in order to marry Anne, now “shrank from her”. In May 1536, Anne was condemned on trumped-up charges of adultery, incest and treason and executed. Earlier that year, Henry had suffered a serious accident whilst jousting, which brought the physical activities that had filled so many of his days at court to an abrupt end. Plagued by pain and humiliated by his expanding girth, this most famous of kings became the bloated tyrant of legend.
Want to live like a Tudor? Historian Ruth Goodman did, and here are five crucial lessons she learned
What did everyday life look like for the millions of ordinary people living in Tudor England? Historian Ruth Goodman found out by living the way they did, uncovering a world that was hard, industrious – but also fulfilling
“Fridges are a bit overrated.” That’s one of the conclusions that Ruth Goodman came to after spending six months living the life of an ordinary Tudor. Living and working in a farmstead meticulously constructed to be Tudor-authentic, she immersed herself in the granular details of 16th-century Britain, eating Tudor food, sleeping in a Tudor bed, and doing Tudor work. It’s a stark contrast to the popular focus on the Tudor-era that’s often seen through the prism of palaces and politics. Landmark moments in history such as Henry VIII’s marital troubles, the Reformation, and Elizabeth I presiding over an age of exploration take the limelight. But these headline events have never been the sole focus of Goodman’s interests. Instead, she wanted to know about the ordinary people. “I'm not posh, I'm not rich, I'm not a bloke, and I'm not one of the elite,” she said. “Why would I be interested in them?” “I wanted to know about people like me in the past. I wanted to know about the ordinary details,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to try and get inside the skin of someone: to think those thoughts and to feel those feelings. “It's time travel, but it's also anthropology and self-exploration too.” But other than a disdain for fridges, what did Goodman really learn about ordinary Tudors and the rhythms of their lives? Goodman poured her knowledge and experience into a HistoryExtra Academy series on Tudor Life, and speaking about that series on the HistoryExtra podcast, she reflected on five key lessons learned. Lesson one: Tudor childhood was an apprenticeship for adulthood In 16th-century England, childhood was brief and productive. For most families, survival depended on the contributions of every member, and children entered the world of useful labour much earlier than we might expect. “Tudor children needed to know how to do things such as milk a cow, or grow a crop of beans, or make a piece of clothing,” Goodman explained. Formal schooling existed but was limited; literacy levels were slowly rising, but for most families, practical competence was what mattered most. Read more | The most common accidental way to die in Tudor England reveals surprising truths about daily life Daily life followed the agricultural calendar, and children had to play their part. “Kids generally were hauled in to do the ancillary jobs from quite young ages to learn by doing.” For a Tudor family, this served two functions. Firstly, having an extra pair of hands was a genuine help. But secondly, it meant that children would learn the skills that would make them competent and useful members of their community in adulthood. In small, tightly knit communities, the knowledge shared among households sustained entire villages. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-162500876-b757a32-e1764846147617.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This 1563 illustration shows a Tudor family at prayer, reflecting the central role of religion in daily life during a time of intense religious change. Scenes like this capture the influence of the Reformation on both public worship and private devotion." title="Tudor Family At Prayer" /> Lesson two: Tudor work centred on the land The Tudor economy is sometimes imagined as a one of busy merchants, bustling inns, guild workshops and market towns. But in reality, England remained overwhelmingly rural. “Almost everybody was making a living off the land,” Goodman said. “Even people with job titles like ‘carpenter’ would probably have had a patch of land as well.” Work was physically demanding and shaped by daylight and weather. Agricultural tasks were relentless, and “men spent so many hours ploughing”, says Goodman. Read more | Tudor England had no standing army, but this humble hobby kept its people ready for war As for women, “every stitch of clothing has to be made entirely by hand, and so that involved nearly the entire female population spinning yarn, then making that yarn into cloth, and then turning that into clothing.” This was the essence of Tudor work, Goodman emphasises. Everything that a person needed to be able to sustain themselves had to be made. Today, she says, “our work tends to be very separate from survival, and it tends to be very self-contained. And that's not how Tudor work was. It was very clearly about staying alive, in a visceral way.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-639161340-be26d9e-e1764846258529.jpg" width="1500" height="1002" alt="This modern reconstruction drawing imagines a rural English landscape around 1600, highlighting the rhythms of Tudor farming life. Agriculture dominated the economy, with seasonal labour, smallholdings, and common land shaping the everyday experience of most of the population." title="Rural landscape, c17th century, (c1990-2010)" /> Lesson three: Tudors had fun too Despite such demanding lives, Tudor England was rich in a blossoming culture of entertainment. Feast days, fairs and Sunday games punctuated the year. Inns hosted musicians and travelling performers would ply their trade for entire towns. “They’re going to the playhouse, they’re enjoying the bear baiting, they’re engaged in all sorts of sports, they’re dancing, they’re playing music, they’re writing poetry, they’re getting drunk,” Goodman says. But the pinnacle of leisure and entertainment for an ordinary Tudor was the theatre. Read more | 5 facts about Shakespeare’s Globe theatre “Theatre was a vibrant and lively world. There were lots of street theatres, school kids were being encouraged to do their own plays, and there were town plays going on too.” In addition to the church, Goodman says this was something that could tie a community together and create deep communal bonds. Lesson four: Tudor food was seasonal and varied Tudor diets revolved around bread and grain, supplemented by dairy, vegetables and preserved foods. For most, meat was an occasional addition, while fish, particularly herring, was more common, especially on church fast days. As for how it tasted, Goodman says, “they used a greater variety of herbs than we do nowadays,” which helped to add pops of flavour. “It was a varied diet,” Goodman explains, largely dictated by availability. “It’s a very fresh diet. It’s a very seasonal diet. I like it, I’ll be honest.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-639160814-b5b88a0-e1764846038428.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This modern reconstruction shows a Tudor kitchen at Kenilworth Castle, prepared for Queen Elizabeth I’s visit in July 1575. The lavish reception, hosted by the Earl of Leicester, was part of his prolonged — and ultimately unsuccessful — courtship of the queen." title="Tudor kitchen, July 1575, (c1990-2010)" /> Read more | Tudor dining: a guide to food and status in the 16th century But what about when fresh food wasn’t as available? Households instead relied on salting, smoking, pickling and cool storage, and most food lasted longer than we might expect – even without a fridge. Instead of using a fridge, which Goodman says were designed for the climates of the southern US rather than the cooler weather in Britain, Tudors used airy pantries and suspended cages to store their food. “Bacteria don’t like the conditions of a traditional pantry with lots of air flowing through. These pantries don't need it to be as cool [as a fridge] to get the same amount of safety.” For anything that needed to be kept away from vermin on the floor, Goodman shares that an “open cage suspended from the ceiling with lots of air flowing through worked really well.” Lesson five: Tudors were no smellier than people today To modern eyes, perhaps the most counterintuitive aspect of Tudor domestic life is cleanliness. While infrequent bathing is today often taken as proof of dirtiness, Goodman argues that the Tudor approach was just as effective, given what they had at their disposal. “Having a bath is not the only way to keep clean,” she says. Read more | This unassuming accessory gave the poor of Tudor England a vital way to survive Instead, Tudors depended on their linen underwear, which covered the whole body, to soak up daily grime. “Linen is exceedingly absorbent,” she notes. “When you take it off, you’re taking all that sweat and any grease and dirt with it.” Regular changes of linen, combined with vigorous household laundering, kept bodies remarkably smell-free. During her six months living as a Tudor, Goodman tested this in practice. “It was perfectly comfortable,” she said. “I remained in very good health.” Could you live the life of an ordinary Tudor? While ordinary Tudors lived close to the land, close to each other, and close to the limits of subsistence, their days were also filled with music, games, storytelling and tactile work. It was a world of hard work and community, and it was, as Goodman told the HistoryExtra podcast, “a very nature-centred world.” It’s an easy lifestyle to romanticise, but there’s no denying the challenges. The crucial difference, Goodman concludes, was the culture. “We’re all human beings. Our bodies are the same. Our brains are the same. But the culture that we live in is utterly different, and that's what makes the Tudor world so fascinating. Tudors were people like us, but living in a different world.” Ruth Goodman was speaking to Rachel Dinning on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Married three times by the age of 15: Margaret Beaufort, the woman who birthed the Tudor Dynasty
The mother of Henry VII is often characterised as a domineering woman who plotted her son’s rise to the throne. But how true is that depiction? Lauren Johnson explores the life of the founding matriarch of the Tudor dynasty
In March 1457, a short, slight widow left Pembroke Castle to embark on a 100-mile journey across territories stalked by civil war and pestilence. Her husband had died only four months earlier, carried off by plague contracted during imprisonment at another Welsh castle during the spurts of Yorkist resistance that marked the early Wars of the Roses. It was just weeks since she had given birth – a traumatic labour, endured without her family or support network. But she set out now to Newport with a firm sense of purpose. She would protect herself in one of the only ways a woman could at that time: by finding another husband. This widow and mother was Margaret Beaufort. She was 13 years old. The newborn she left at Pembroke would, in 1485, become King Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch. Reading history backwards, it has become fashionable to portray Margaret as an obsessive, Machiavellian mother so consumed by the idea of her son’s divine right to the throne that she would commit child murder to bring it about. She, it is insinuated, was the true assassin of the princes in the Tower who threatened the claim of her “good and gracious prince, king and only beloved son”. But this interpretation is entirely fictional, and mired in misogynist oversimplification. Margaret did not aspire to a crown, either for her son or herself, until the unprecedented events of the Wars of the Roses made it essential for their survival. Child bride The notion that Margaret’s child might inherit the throne would have been laughable in 1457. The king then was Henry VI (a Lancastrian), who had a healthy son and myriad cousins sharing his royal blood. In contrast, the Beauforts were products of an illicit liaison generations back between a Lancastrian prince and his children’s governess. And, though in later life Margaret and her son were close both personally and politically, for much of Henry’s youth her maternal style can best be described as ‘hands off’ – arguably, emotionally neglectful. Little wonder, given the circumstances of Henry’s birth. Today we would consider Margaret a victim of child abuse. Her marriage to Henry’s father, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, took place when she was about 12 – the age of consent for medieval girls (for boys it was 14.) This was her second marriage, her first having been dissolved in 1453, during a period of political turmoil. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/2D4WH0N-2webready-b450274-e1764244782566.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A painting of a woman in a black dress and grey hood, holding a small maroon Bible in her hands" title="A painting of Margaret Beaufort. Despite being separated from her son, Henry Tudor, for many years, she battled to secure his inheritance as Earl of Richmond – and, ultimately, king of England (Image by Alamy)" /> Even in the 15th century, when marriages were arranged for cradle-bound babies, it was highly unusual for unions to be consummated before a bride was 16, and 20 was the average age of first pregnancy for most noblewomen. For good reason: medieval women’s bodies were still developing until then, and early childbirth was far likelier to end in stillbirth, maternal death or physically damaging complications. In later life, Margaret’s confessor, John Fisher, alluded to how underdeveloped Margaret had been when she gave birth, writing: “She is… a woman not of a great stature, but at that time it is said she was much smaller still, to such a degree that it almost seemed a miracle at her age that so little a body could bring forth a child at all.” Margaret was forced into motherhood so that her husband could claim her considerable inheritance. Her father had died before her first birthday, leaving her an heiress worth, in modern terms, hundreds of thousands of pounds a year – and with a distant royal claim that had seen her welcomed to court as the king’s “right well-beloved cousin”. Ironically, Edmund Tudor died before his child was born, leaving Margaret to face childbirth alone, half a kingdom away from her family, whose main seat was in Lincolnshire. Read more | The rise of Henry VII: how a life of cheating death prepared him for the throne as the first Tudor king Given the trauma of this experience, it is understandable that Margaret left her baby as soon as was physically possible and set out to regain control of her life. Barely three months after leaving Pembroke Castle, she was betrothed again; before her son’s first birthday, Margaret remarried and moved back to Lincolnshire. Henry’s wardship was granted to his uncle, Jasper Tudor, and later to the Yorkist William Herbert. Henry would remain in the care of these Welsh lords, 300 miles from his mother, until he was 14. Meanwhile, Margaret – still not yet 15 – was on her third marriage. She had reasserted the security torn from her by the marriage to Edmund Tudor. Her new husband, Sir Harry Stafford, was at least a decade older than her, but respectful and affectionate. Their household accounts show the couple working and travelling together, with thoughtful exchanges of anniversary and New Year gifts. In his will, Harry called Margaret his “best beloved wife”. Margaret was welcomed with open arms by the Stafford clan, especially Harry’s politically astute mother, Anne, Duchess of Buckingham, who took “my daughter Richmond” under her wing and protected her interests at court. Most happily of all for Margaret, the Stafford marriage brought her back to her own adored mother and half-siblings, close to the estates where she had grown up. It must almost have felt to Margaret as if the last few terrible years – encompassing marriage, widowhood and childbirth – had never happened. Distant mother It was not unusual for medieval children to grow up apart from their parents, but it is noteworthy – given that both Margaret and Henry grew up without fathers – that, whereas she lived with her mother until adolescence, she left her son shortly after birth. And though there is little surviving evidence for the first decade of Henry’s life, it is unclear if mother and son were in contact. Margaret did not return to Wales for almost a decade. Perhaps she rationalised that she was acting in her son’s interests; he was a boy, in need of male role models. Given the violent turbulence of this period, though, it is significant that Margaret kept her distance. She had chosen her alliance with the Staffords because, with civil war looming, they represented a dominant, stabilising force. But even they could not keep the incompetent Henry VI on his throne. In March 1461, he was deposed in favour of his charismatic young kinsman, Edward of York. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/Cardiffcastle-Eingangshalle1bErkerfensterwebready-00a5c3f-e1764244858208.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Jasper Tudor, depicted in stained glass in Cardiff Castle, accompanied Henry into exile for more than a decade (Image by Wikipedia/Public domain)" title="Jasper Tudor, depicted in stained glass in Cardiff Castle, accompanied Henry into exile for more than a decade (Image by Wikipedia/Public domain)" /> Margaret and her relatives quickly came to terms with the new king, Edward IV, but her brother-in-law, Jasper Tudor, was a diehard Lancastrian whose rebellions incited Yorkist reprisals. Pembroke Castle was besieged, with Margaret’s son, Henry, inside. Fortunately, as titular Earl of Richmond, Henry was a valuable commodity. His life was spared and his wardship granted to a leading Welsh Yorkist, William Herbert. There is no sign that Margaret protested; perhaps she could not cope emotionally with the responsibility of mothering a child after enduring so much at such a young age. Mother and son would not meet again until Henry was 10. The causes of their parting and ultimate reunion probably stemmed from the same root: Margaret hoped that she and Harry Stafford would have children of their own. But Henry’s birth had scarred her physically and psychologically, and as years passed it became clear that he would be her only child. Only when confronted with this realisation did Margaret belatedly seek to re-establish a relationship with her son. In September 1467, she returned to Wales for the first time since her remarriage, spending a week with Henry at Raglan Castle. He had grown tall and serious, with her capacity for quick learning. Perhaps she saw in his appearance and character glimpses of herself or her half-siblings – and perhaps, less comfortably, of Edmund Tudor. The visit to Raglan marked the beginning of Margaret’s self-identity as Henry’s mother, but she was no closer to taking physical possession of her child. Two years later, after another outbreak of civil war, she attempted to regain legal control of her son. When William Herbert was executed after the battle of Edgecote in 1469, Margaret struggled to assemble lost legal documents; to reassert her guardianship of Henry, she convened assignations in the manor houses of aristocrats, and with lawyers in alehouses. Mother and son were reunited briefly in 1470, touring London and Surrey together, indulging their shared love of hunting. Presumably they discussed Margaret’s hope of regaining Henry’s birthright, which had been stripped from him and parcelled out to leading Yorkists – not the crown, which was still entirely outside her aspirations, but the earldom of Richmond. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/BAL3309180webready-c464ebd-e1764245134726.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A painting of a large stone castle, with trees in front of it and a large path leading up to it" title="An early 19th-century coloured engraving of Raglan Castle, seat of William Herbert, who was granted wardship of young Henry Tudor after 1461. Following a long separation, Margaret visited her son here in 1467 (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> Dangerous blood The same forces that reunited Margaret and Henry also drove them apart. The internecine chaos unleashed on England in 1469 was finally resolved in 1471, when Edward IV conclusively vanquished his rivals in battle. Henry VI and his teenage son were killed. So, too, were several of Margaret’s Beaufort cousins and, within a few years, even Edward’s Lancastrian former brother-in-law, the Duke of Exeter. Suddenly, the possession of Lancastrian blood, no matter how thin, was dangerous. According to the Tudor poet Bernard André, Margaret advised Henry to flee into exile with his uncle Jasper: “Unless my imagination or maternal instinct deceives me… [Henry’s] life will be safer on the ocean’s waves than in this tempest on land.” In September 1471, Henry and Jasper sought asylum in Brittany, where they remained until 1483. Meanwhile, Margaret was left in limbo. Alive to the dangers inherent in Henry’s distant royal claim and traditional family loyalties, she warned him not to return to England until she had assurances for his safety. Mother and son could communicate only through intermediaries, trusted servants who braved the Channel crossing. Margaret demonstrated a profound sense of responsibility to Henry. The rightful Earl of Richmond was heir to a proud inheritance and, as any medieval aristocrat would, she fervently believed that her son should claim it. Read more | 5 things you (probably) didn't know about the Tudors But it wasn’t until 1482, when Henry was 25, that making such a claim seemed possible. The death of her mother, and the ensuing business of settling her estate, enabled Margaret to cut a deal with Edward IV to bring Henry home safely. On 3 June 1482, Edward and Margaret publicly agreed that, if Henry returned “in the grace and favour of the king’s highness”, he could claim his grandmother’s substantial West Country estates. An undated pardon now in the archives of Westminster Abbey suggests that this may have been a precursor to the restoration of Henry’s earldom. More privately – though loud enough that several leading courtiers later reported it – Margaret and Edward discussed how they were “related in the fourth… degrees of kindred”. This was almost certainly the first step in arranging a marriage between Henry and one of Edward’s daughters which, because of their relation, would demand a papal dispensation. Margaret, always less risk-averse than the men in her life, was willing to gamble her son’s life for this bright future. Unfortunately, 11 years of political exile had left Henry paranoid, and even these substantial guarantees did not convince him that he would be safe. He refused to return. Then political upheaval simultaneously dashed Margaret’s careful plans and enabled her to contemplate a future for her son that would have previously been inconceivable. Maternal kingmaker Margaret’s hopes of regaining Henry’s Richmond inheritance were thwarted when, in April 1483, Edward IV died unexpectedly. With two adolescent sons, Edward’s dynasty should have been assured. Instead, his brother Richard detained those young princes and claimed the throne himself. A contemporary eyewitness reported that the princes “were withdrawn into the inner apartments of the Tower proper, and day by day began to be seen more rarely behind the bars and windows, until at length they ceased to appear altogether”. It was rumoured that Richard had murdered them. For Margaret, like much of the English nobility, Richard’s accession was an unanticipated complication. Her hoped-for marriage between Henry and a Yorkist princess was dead in the water, and the princesses had fled into sanctuary. Moreover, after Harry Stafford’s death in 1471, Margaret had remarried the northern lord Thomas Stanley, whose family were stalwarts of the regimes of Edward IV and his son. Over the years, the Stanleys had had several ugly confrontations with Richard. Indeed, Stanley was briefly arrested during Richard’s coup. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/hip2705239webready-894c19a-e1764245293950.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A painting of a pan with a long, narrow build and a hat on his head" title="Northern magnate Thomas Stanley, who married Margaret Beaufort in 1472, shown in an engraving of a Holbein portrait. Having opposed Richard III, he and his family played a key role in bringing Henry to the throne (Image by Topfoto)" /> A pragmatist above all else, Stanley soon came to terms with Richard and so, apparently, did Margaret. But the circumstances of Richard’s accession had entirely changed the political landscape. Disaffected opponents plotted rebellion, and Margaret – whose territories stretched from Flintshire to Lincolnshire, Surrey to Devon – had myriad connections through whom she gained intelligence about these nascent conspiracies. The anti-Ricardians were a disparate band. There were servants of Edward IV who hated his queen’s Woodville relatives; the Woodvilles themselves, fearing reprisals; attendants of the lost princes, jealous of missed opportunities or genuinely concerned for their charges; even Lancastrian stalwarts who wanted rid of the Yorkists altogether. Read more | Inside the six wives' bedchamber: the stories of Tudor ladies-in-waiting Their very heterogeneity was a boon to Margaret. If the princes were dead – and by August it seemed they must be – then the rebellion needed a new figurehead. It needed to be an adult with royal blood and no loyalty to Richard – and, because they would have to fight for the crown, a male. Most of all, it needed to be someone impartial enough to unify these factions. In short: Henry Tudor. The exceptional circumstances of summer 1483 made it possible for the first time for Margaret to hope not merely for her son’s return but for his accession as king. A lifetime of political and economic activity had readied her for this moment. Even the collapse of their first rebellion in autumn 1483, which left Margaret under house arrest and deprived of her fortune, could not cow her. She was linked by blood, marriage and loyalty not only to most of the nobility of the realm but also to the working men and women who served them. Her vast network of connections can be read in her memberships of religious guilds, gifts and letters exchanged with neighbours, favours recorded in her household accounts, payments to merchants and craftsmen who provided for her husbands and family, and in many more ways – scarcely tangible then and almost entirely lost now. The loyalty of these associates to Margaret was longer-standing, and more immediately beneficial, than their allegiance to Richard III. When Margaret mobilised her network, she was able to gather considerable sums of money – and money meant weapons and manpower for Henry, which he used to invade and then defeat Richard in battle at Bosworth. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/gr0036018Hwebready-068df39-e1764245479790.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An engraving showing a battlefield, with one man on a black horse, being handed a crown by a man in armour on the left" title="Henry receives Richard III’s crown from his stepfather following the 1485 battle of Bosworth, in a 19th-century engraving. Funds for Henry’s military campaign were raised by Margaret (Image by Topfoto)" /> Thus the mother who had been absent from her son’s life for so long was essential to the success of the campaign that won him the throne. Margaret enabled Henry to be crowned Henry VII in 1485 – and so to re-enter her life and build a close, lasting relationship. In an undated letter as king, son told mother: “I am as much bound [to you] as any creature living, for the great and singular motherly love and affection that it hath pleased you at all times to bear towards me.” Perhaps Margaret had not shown that affection “at all times” – mother and son both had a habit of rewriting their pasts to better suit their present circumstances. But, after a long, difficult journey, they ultimately built a relationship that proved unbreakable. Mother-in-law from hell? After claiming the crown at Bosworth, Henry wed Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, helping to heal dynastic rifts. The myth goes that Margaret was the ideal mother but a nightmare mother-in-law, so power-crazed that she even directed how her daughter-in-law must give birth. This idea is founded on a book of ordinances (rules for the royal household) attributed to Margaret by an 18th-century antiquarian, but there is no evidence that she wrote them. Other contemporary writings have also been misunderstood. In 1498, three Spanish ambassadors reported that “the Queen [Elizabeth] is a very noble woman, and much beloved [but] she is kept in subjection by the mother of the King.” However, it is not certain that those writers actually met either woman. Stopping only briefly in London, the ambassadors probably padded their reports with rumours, and their claims were tainted by jealousy. They sought to undermine their rival Rodrigo De Puebla, then pre-eminent in English affairs, who was close to Elizabeth. By insinuating that the queen was powerless, De Puebla’s enemies made his carefully fostered relationship appear self-serving and futile. De Puebla himself, who observed the two royal women first-hand, never represented their dynamic as problematic, and nor did other European agents in England. There is a powerful strand of misogyny to such claims – an interpretation of female relationships that persists today: that powerful women cannot coexist. But the (albeit sparse) evidence testifies to mutual respect and affection between Margaret and Elizabeth. Official documents and private letters refer, virtually in one breath, to “the queen and king’s mother”. They jointly founded a chantry chapel, and intervened to protect the royal children. After Elizabeth endured a difficult childbirth in 1496, Margaret wrote that the queen’s health was not “so good as I would [wish], but I trust heartily it shall [be soon] with God’s grace”. We do Elizabeth an injustice when we interpret her conservative queenship as a passive infliction rather than a pragmatic choice. She had lost many relatives in the Wars of the Roses, and saw the danger of promoting political agendas. Such shared trauma was a further connection between her and Margaret – another chain in a strong bond between two royal women who backed and shaped Henry’s reign. Lauren Johnson is a historian specialising in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Her new book is Margaret Beaufort: Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker (Apollo, 2025) This article was first published in the December 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Stephen Greenblatt sheds light on the brief life of playwright Christopher Marlowe, one of the great rivals of William Shakespeare, whose death in a Deptford tavern in 1593 still leaves a great many unanswered questions
From his possible espionage work for the Elizabethan state to his open flirtations with atheism and subversive sexual themes, the brief life of playwright Christopher Marlowe tells us much about the shadowy edges of 16th-century England. Stephen Greenblatt joins Elinor Evans to discuss the subversive, dangerous life of 'Kit', who became both a collaborator and rival of his contemporary, William Shakespeare. Stephen Greenblatt is the author of Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival, Christopher Marlowe (Bodley Head, 2025). Buy it now from Amazon
Tracy Borman tells David Musgrove about the secrets of the royal Tudor water closet
Did constipation turn Henry VIII into a tyrant? For the third episode of our mini-series Toilets Through Time, David Musgrove revisits the luxurious surroundings of the royal Tudor water closet. To tell him more about unappealing 16th-century alternatives to loo roll, 'grooms of the stool' and Henry VIII’s gut health, David is joined by author and public historian Tracy Borman.
Tracy Borman shares explosive new research that challenges what we thought we knew about the end of Elizabeth I's reign
On her deathbed Elizabeth I named the Scottish James VI as her successor, ensuring a smooth transition from the Tudor to Stuart monarchies. That, at least, is what we've long believed. But an explosive new discovery casts doubt on this version of events, suggesting that the Stuart succession was far less secure than we may have thought. In her new book, The Stolen Crown, historian Tracy Borman draws on this research to paint a vivid new picture of these turbulent years, which she explores in conversation with Rob Attar. Tracy Borman is the author of The Stolen Crown: Treachery, Deceit and the Death of the Tudor Dynasty (Hodder & Stoughton, 2025). Buy it now from Waterstones
Elizabeth I’s shadowy spy network was tasked with uncovering secret conspiracies. Here’s what it found
In a kingdom recently divided by faith, Elizabeth I’s government turned to espionage to defend the Protestant crown. This is how her spymasters built a culture of fear that reshaped England’s religious and political life
Elizabeth I’s England of the late 16th century was a Protestant nation riven by anxieties that were a consequence of a bitter divorce. The blame lay at the feet of her father. But it wasn’t Henry VIII’s famous separations from Catherine of Aragon or Anne of Cleves that were the source of the trouble. It was his divorce from Rome. Only a generation earlier, England had been a staunchly Catholic country. That had changed when Henry VIII, seeking to wrest power away from the papacy, had broken from Rome in the 1530s. Following his death, Elizabeth’s half-sister, Mary I, had tried to reverse that, burning Protestants and restoring the pope’s authority. But, when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558, she reinstated her father’s Protestantism through the Elizabethan Religious Settlement: a middle way that was designed to bring the realm back. It only partly worked. To Protestant hardliners, Elizabeth’s church was still too Catholic. To Catholics, she was a heretic and an illegitimate queen. Abroad, Philip II of Spain and the papacy viewed her as an enemy of the faith, and in 1570, Pope Pius V excommunicated her – releasing her subjects from allegiance to the English Crown. From that moment on, the Catholic institutions across Europe became Elizabeth’s greatest enemies. And Catholics in England now lived under intense suspicion. The myth of the Tudor ‘secret service’ As fears of foreign invasion and internal rebellion grew, Elizabeth’s court increasingly viewed intelligence as a potent weapon to be wielded against the Catholic threat, and it fell to two men to spearhead its use: Sir Francis Walsingham, her shrewd and zealous secretary of state; and Robert Cecil, the brilliant son of Elizabeth’s long-time advisor William Cecil, Lord Burghley. “Both of these men, Robert Cecil and Francis Walsingham, have got a reputation of being the M figure out of MI5 – the head of a vast and highly organised secret service,” says Professor John Cooper, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast’s four-part series on the Gunpowder Plot. But how much are their reputations as England’s pioneering spymasters deserved? “I don’t think that the intelligence networks, either of Francis Walsingham or Robert Cecil, were ever as vast as people believe them to be,” says Cooper. “But that’s part of the illusion they create. They deliberately create that sense that everywhere is infiltrated with spies.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-2664424-348e757-e1763028515692.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This depiction of Anthony Babington (1561–1586) shows the Catholic conspirator whose plot to assassinate Elizabeth I and place Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne was uncovered in 1586. Behind him, executions in St Giles’s Field reflect the brutal fate that awaited Babington and his fellow plotters after their failed conspiracy." title="Babington Plot" /> Building the network Under Walsingham, Elizabeth’s government professionalised the business of espionage. “He puts a lot of secretly accounted-for money into paying informers,” Cooper explains, “and also paying people to be something like modern-style professional intelligence agents. “The most dangerous thing about their spies is how they go into deep cover.” Through these networks, he exposed plots like the 1586 Babington Plot, which aimed to assassinate Elizabeth and place Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne. Coded messages were intercepted and double agents were deployed to great effect. The unravelling of that conspiracy sealed Mary’s fate, and confirmed the crown’s conviction that Catholicism and treason were inextricable. Spies in the pews By the 1580s, attending or hosting a Catholic mass was illegal. Despite the suppression, Catholics still found covert ways to worship in secret gatherings. And it was these kinds of meetings that were ripe for infiltration. “One of the most extraordinary things about Francis Walsingham’s intelligence network is the extent to which he secretly penetrated the English Catholic community,” says Cooper. The Elizabethans | A short course from HistoryExtra Academy Member exclusive | In this four-week course, you’ll discover everything you need to know about the life and reign of Elizabeth I, guided by historian and broadcaster Professor Tracy Borman Explore the course now “As a Catholic celebrating and attending the mass in late Elizabethan England, you were never quite sure who the other people in the room were; whether one of them might actually be a secret plant – a counterfeit Catholic as it were, in the pay of Francis Walsingham.” Read more | The dark side of Elizabethan England The information that was gathered had direct consequences. Priests who had returned from exile to minister in secret were hunted, often betrayed by those they thought allies. Many were captured, tortured and executed. Walsingham’s reach extended abroad too. “[He] managed to place young men in the English Catholic training colleges in Europe,” Cooper says. “These men are supposed to be training to be Catholic priests alongside their fellow students, but they're actually reporting back this stream of intelligence to Walsingham on which of the priests are going to be coming on this secret Catholic mission to England.” For every priest who landed on the English coast, there was a real chance his name was already known in London and marked down for monitoring. As much as the intelligence gathered was intended to have direct results, there was another outcome too. Walshingham’s goal was to spread a climate of fear, and the impact was the creation of a kind of panopticon. Catholics knew that spies were watching, but they didn’t know where, or when. “They know that they have to be suspicious,” Cooper says. Robert Cecil’s inheritance After Walsingham’s death in 1590, the work continued. “Robert Cecil, after Walsingham’s death, picks up a lot of these individual agents and these contacts, and continued to maintain these intelligence networks,” says Cooper. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-1036112824-c61b75f-e1763028287714.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This 1607 engraving shows Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, the statesman and spymaster who served both Elizabeth I and James I. A key architect of early modern government, Cecil steered foreign policy, managed intelligence networks, and helped secure the Stuart succession." title="Robert Cecil" /> Those networks proved their worth to Cecil in 1605, when informants helped uncover the Gunpowder Plot – arguably the clearest demonstration of how deeply the state’s surveillance culture had taken root. But even under Cecil’s control, espionage networks had become amorphous and difficult to control. “In fact,” Cooper says, “there were rival intelligence networks operating at the court of Elizabeth I and James VI and I. It isn't all one organised secret intelligence service, because knowledge is power, information is power. “Everybody is competing to try and be the person who is reporting to the government, because it increases your power at the royal court.” In this way, factions used informants to outmanoeuvre rivals and advance their own ambitions, too. While the Elizabethan spy networks might not have been as extensive as later rumour suggests, those rumours alone speak to its influence, and its impact was certainly profound. “They deliberately create that sense that if you're a Catholic, you need to be fearful,” says Cooper. This created a pervasive feeling that someone, somewhere, was always watching, working to stabilise the Protestant state in what was a moment of significant fragility, and exposing genuine plots along the way. John Cooper was speaking to Danny Bird on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.