Portrait of King Henry VIII, Jane Seymour and Prince Edward. (Photo by Getty Images)

Tudor

The daughter and great-niece of Henry VIII respectively, Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots didn't feel strong family ties when it came to their relationship. (Photo by Getty Images)

Queens at war: Elizabeth I vs Mary, Queen of Scots.

Ladies-in-waiting

General History

Q&AWhat did a lady-in-waiting actually do?

Mary, Queen of Scots and her ladies-in-waiting. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Mary, Queen of Scots: what happened to her ladies-in-waiting?

A 16th-century map showing Magellan's ship

A voyage from hell: how Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world changed history.

A portrait of Sir Walter Ralegh

Q&ADid Sir Walter Ralegh really lay down his cloak for Elizabeth I?

An 1824 cartoon depicting the drinking escapades of Oxford students. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The history of student life: 7 things you didn’t know.

Q&A'God Save The Queen': how old is the British national anthem?

Da Vinci's Mona Lisa portrait

Q&AWho was the Mona Lisa?

9 notable ambassadors in history.

A depiction of the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh (10 September 1547), the last formal battle between England and Scotland. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

Q&AWhen was the last battle between England and Scotland?

For our forebears, the secret to a good night's sleep lay in the contents of your gut. (Photo by Leemage/UIG via Getty Images)

6 sleeping tips and tricks from history.

Henry VIII's Mary Rose (© 19th era/Alamy)

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose

A cartoon showing a man in a suit of armour on the moon

Q&ADid NASA really pick the brains of the Tower of London armoury when designing the first space suits?.

Britain’s 7 most amazing stately homes

Dornier 217 bombers of the Luftwaffe bomb London during the Battle of Britain. "The crucial role of the RAF in denying the Germans control of the air in 1940 and therefore persuading Hitler to abandon his invasion plans is so well known that it might seem almost sacrilegious to question it, " says Sean Lang. "But was it solely responsible for saving Britain from invasion? Not quite." (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

9 of the most overrated battles in history (and one underrated one).

The ruins of Dunluce Castle, which sit on the coastal cliffs of North Antrim in Northern Ireland. They are thought to have been the inspiration for CS Lewis’s castle Cair Paravel in ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ (1950–56). (Photo by Andrea Ricordi/Contributor/Getty Images)

9 of Britain’s best castles.

St Fagans Castle and gardens

A visit to St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff.

The four-month Siege of Malta.

The Great Siege of Malta, 1565: the crusaders' last stand

At home with the royals.

Anna WhitelockConfronting slavery’s legacy.

A history of women’s football in Scotland.

A Tudor rose on a wooden ceiling beam.

Monarchy and faith in Tudor England.

The first state visit by American President George W Bush in 2003 was highly controversial, attracting protesters opposed to the involvement of the United States and Britain in the Iraq War. Here the president is pictured with the Queen in 2008. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)

From pageantry to controversy: a brief history of state visits.

Men enjoying a drink and a chat in a coffee house, 1674. Coffee houses became known as ‘schools of the wise’, where people would gossip, argue and discuss the breaking news of the day. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A drink for the devil: 8 facts about the history of coffee

In 1937, Amelia Earhart, one of the world’s most famous aviators, apparently disappeared without a trace during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)

From Jack the Ripper to Amelia Earhart: 17 unsolved historical mysteries.

After her recovery from smallpox, Queen Elizabeth I started using a ceruse foundation on her face, neck and chest. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

5 weird habits of royals through history

A 16th-century woodcut by Albrecht Dürer entitled 'The true and false apostles of Christ'. As the Reformation recast Europe's spiritual landscape, many believers fretted that their religion no longer felt true to them. (Photo by Alamy)

The fury that fuelled the rise of atheism.

Henry, who would would later accede to the throne as Henry VIII, as a baby. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Young Henry VIII: the boy who would be king

Jim Sturgess as George Boleyn and Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn. in the film 'The Other Boleyn Girl' (2008) (Photo by Alamy)

The rise and fall of the Boleyns.

Rye House in Hertfordshire, which became the Parr family home in 1517, when Katherine was around five years old. (© James Schutte/Alamy Stock Photo)

8 places associated with Henry VIII’s wives.