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

Tudor

The pirate Blackbeard

10 brilliant beards from history

A depiction of Henry VIII and his only recognised illegitimate child, Henry Fitzroy. (Illustration by Glen McBeth for BBC History Magazine)

Q&ADid Henry VIII acknowledge any of his illegitimate children?

Seeking to remove opponents who questioned his right to be head of church and state, Henry VIII was ruthless in his pursuit of those he deemed traitors. (Image by Alamy)

Henry VIII's hitmen: the Tudor king's secret hunt for traitors. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Hever Castle, Anne Boleyn's childhood home in Kent. (Photo by Prisma Bildagentur/UIG via Getty Images)

8 must-visit castles with Tudor connections

Portrait of a young woman believed to be Henry VIII's fifth wife, Catherine Howard. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Did Catherine Howard commit adultery?

In only two years, Hernán Cortés brought about the downfall of an efficient military civilisation through a combination of diplomacy, warfare, tactics, luck and sheer force of personality, writes Caroline Dodds. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Cortés and Montezuma: the conquering of Tenochtitlan

(Photo by Alamy)

Brexit lessons from history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Marlborough Pie. (© Jessica Hope)

Historical recipeMalborough pie. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Sexing up history: how to study and tell the history of sex. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

English countrywoman (right) with a lady of the court. From ‘Civitates Orbis Terrarum’, 1572. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Tudor women: what was life like?

Oil on canvas of the Princes in the Tower

An enigma at the heart of British history: who killed the Princes in the Tower, Edward V and Richard Duke of York?

10 famous people in history and their bizarre pets

The downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A British military post in a street in Dublin during the Easter Uprising, 1916. (Photo by ullstein picture via Getty Images)

The history of Ireland: 11 milestone moments

A 19th-century portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

Elizabeth I’s love life: was she really a ‘Virgin Queen’?

Danny Dyer’s Right Royal Family. (Image Credit: BBC/Wall to Wall Media/Jack Coathupe)

Danny Dyer is “making people think again” about history, say historians

A maid polishes a silver dish. Female domestic servants were highly vulnerable to sexual exploitation, but in Reformation France they found some ways to fight back. (Photo by: Christophel Fine Art/UIG via Getty Images)

The women who wouldn’t be silenced in Reformation France. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

c60 AD, Queen Boudica of the Iceni holding a spear. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

8 things you may not know about British history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Tudor advent calendar

24 facts about Christmas in the Tudor period

Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, c. 1521 - 1608, known as Bess of Hardwick (Photo by Alamy)

Bess of Hardwick: a Tudor success story. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Queen Elizabeth II (centre) makes her 2016 Christmas speech (Photo by YUI MOK/AFP/Getty Images). What would queens before her have said in their festive speeches, if they'd had the chance? Clockwork from top right: Elizabeth I (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images); Queen Anne (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images); Mary Tudor (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) and Queen Matilda (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

Alternative Queen's Christmas speeches: what would Elizabeth I and Matilda have said?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

How did Henry VIII and Elizabeth I celebrate Yuletide? (Illustration by Becca Thorne for BBC History Magazine)

Tales from a Tudor Christmas. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots

Deadly rivals: Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Queen Victoria, c1860s. Victoria attended her son's wedding in March 1863 wearing full mourning dress – her husband, Prince Albert, had died some 15 months earlier. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Troublesome royal in-laws through history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Droeshout Portrait. This engraving appeared as the First Folio frontispiece. (© Getty Images)

8 places that shaped the life of William Shakespeare. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Rags and riches: Enslaved people wash diamonds in Brazil, guarded by armed overseers, in a German engraving of 1828. Diamonds were discovered in Minas Gerais state in the late 17th century. (Picture by Alamy)

Brazil: a society shaped by slavery. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Circus performer Otto Witte, who in 1912 successfully pretended to be the new king of Albania. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

14 weird things that have happened in November through history

Thomas Cromwell (Illustrated by Sarah Young)

Thomas Cromwell reconsidered. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A portrait of Henry VIII with Prince Edward, his son by his third wife, Jane Seymour. If the future Henry IX had survived, there may have been no cause for Henry to annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn in 1533, says Amy Licence. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

6 royal births that changed the world (or could have). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Diana, Princess Of Wales, Prince William And Prince Harry visit Thorpe Park amusement park. (Photo by Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)

How to raise a royal... with Tracy Borman. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.