HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-04-12T15:00:04.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Think you know everything about the Tudors? Here's 15 facts that will prove you wrong
items: What did Anne Boleyn REALLY look like? Our new research could change everything
items: What was the most important year in history? We asked 9 experts – and this is what they said
items: The SECRETS of Anne Boleyn's most treasured possession
items: Porpoise for breakfast and late night sex visits: Henry VIII's life in a day
items: Married three times by the age of 15: Margaret Beaufort, the woman who birthed the Tudor Dynasty
items: 5 things you (probably) didn't know about the Tudors
items: The lie of succession: did James I steal Elizabeth I's crown?
items: The Virgin Queen? Elizabeth I's forbidden love
items: Tudors in turmoil: deciphering Hans Holbein’s masterwork The Ambassadors

Think you know everything about the Tudors? Here's 15 facts that will prove you wrong
type: item
date: 2026-04-12T15:00:00.000Z
creator: Tracy Borman
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: British queens
subject: Henry VIII's wives
subject: Tudor kings and queens
description: Tracy Borman shares a selection of surprising insights into England’s most famous royal dynasty – from Mary I’s love of gambling to the truth about Henry VIII’s extramarital affairs
encoded: 1. The Tudors weren’t known as the Tudors Although we use ‘Tudor’ as a nifty shorthand for both the era and the dynasty, it wasn’t used at the time either by the monarchs or their people. Neither did they see it as a distinct period: in fact, Henry VII went to great lengths to emphasise the continuity with his royal predecessors, even down to using the same tailor whom Edward IV had employed. He also emphasised his Lancastrian roots and tried to downplay his Welsh origins, aware that his grandfather Owen Tudor had married well above him when he bagged Henry V’s widow Catherine of Valois as a bride. Throughout the period 1485–1603, the people identified as subjects of each successive king or queen, as well as taking pride in their local affiliations, rather than seeing themselves as ‘Tudor people’. 2. They had a pretty dodgy claim to the throne When Henry Tudor won the crown from Richard III at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, he was quick to stress his legitimacy. But there was more than a hint of protesting too much. In fact, the Tudors were descended from Edward III’s fourth son, John of Gaunt, and his long-standing mistress, Katherine Swynford. Moreover, Henry VII’s father Edmund was the child of Henry V’s widow, Catherine of Valois, by her Welsh attendant. With such a dubious bloodline, it’s little wonder that England’s first Tudor king wasted no time in marrying Elizabeth of York, the eldest child of Edward IV. Their marriage united the warring houses of York and Lancaster and, crucially, gave the Tudors some much-needed legitimacy. 3. Henry VII was no miser The first Tudor king has a reputation for penny-pinching. But while he kept a close eye on his expenditure, he knew how to splash the cash when it was to his advantage. In the early years of his reign, when he was under constant threat from rivals and pretenders and many of his subjects questioned his right to be king, he spent lavish sums on dressing the part. Just over a week after defeating Richard III at…

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What did Anne Boleyn REALLY look like? Our new research could change everything
type: item
date: 2026-03-13T17:30:55.000Z
creator: Dr Owen Emmerson
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: British queens
subject: Henry VIII's wives
subject: Royal weddings
subject: Tudor kings and queens
description: Dark or brunette? Fair or swarthy? A paragon of beauty or a refined charmer? Our picture of Henry VIII’s ill-fated second queen has become distorted over five centuries – but new research by Owen Emmerson and others comes closer to revealing her true appearance
encoded: Close your eyes and picture Anne Boleyn. Chances are you can conjure up a pretty clear and detailed image in your imagination – because few figures in English history seem as visually familiar as Henry VIII’s second queen. Representations of her face appear everywhere: in films, television dramas and novels, in museum gift shops and digital reconstructions. She is often depicted in popular culture as an elegant brunette whose sophistication distinguishes her from others at court. Over time, this image has hardened into something close to fact. Anne Boleyn, we are told, was devastatingly beautiful. Yet this certainty is built on fragile foundations, and surviving evidence provides a less concrete understanding of Anne’s appearance. No formal painted portraits from life survive today, though images in a number of smaller, more intimate formats – particularly miniatures – are candidates for having captured her true likeness based on contemporary encounters. The more-familiar portraits featuring the now-iconic ‘B’ pendant necklace, meanwhile, were likely created decades later, influenced by politics, artistic convention and hindsight. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/DXFXNM-38bec64-e1773309603951.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A woman with long dark braids, wearing a white period-style gown, sits on a cushioned bed and gently holds a baby wrapped in richly patterned blue and gold fabric. Dark wooden furniture and white bedding frame the intimate, historical-feeling scene" title="Natalie Dormer played Anne Boleyn in the television series The Tudors, which perpetuated modern ideas of the ill-fated queen as a dark-haired beauty (Image by Alamy)" /> For generations, historians assumed that any accurate representations created during Anne’s life had been lost altogether, erased after her execution in 1536 on the orders of Henry VIII. That story is compelling, but it is wrong. My research – which underpins Capturing a Queen: T…

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What was the most important year in history? We asked 9 experts – and this is what they said
type: item
date: 2026-03-09T15:30:15.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: British queens
subject: Fascism
subject: Historical events
subject: Roman rulers
subject: Tudor kings and queens
description: Our crack team of historians, broadcasters and authors offer their takes on a conundrum that continues to divide opinions
encoded: AD 1000 Norse power: when worlds collide This moment is surely imbued with the most global symbolism. It was when, according to the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas, adventurers sailed across the north Atlantic from settlements on the west coast of Greenland to the edge of the North American continent. There they met inhabitants of coastal regions of what’s now Canada: ancestors of peoples such as the Beothuk and Algonquin. The circle of humanity was closed for the first time in recorded history. In the 1960s, archaeologists found a Norse overwintering site at L’Anse aux Meadows, at the northern tip of Newfoundland. This backed up what the sagas had already described: a series of voyages west from Greenland, the discovery of new lands and resources, and increasingly violent encounters with the people they called Skrælingar – an unpleasant name meaning ‘wretched ones’. These cross-cultural encounters began promisingly enough, with red cloth and dairy products traded for animal pelts. Eventually, though, relations disintegrated into distrust, violence and murder – an uneasy foreshadowing of what would follow centuries later. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/2RA49CHwebready-675b6fb-e1772549042852.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A cluster of reconstructed Viking buildings with sod-covered roofs sits inside a white wooden fence near a rocky coastline. The turf-walled structures vary in size and line a central dirt path, with wooden beams and tools displayed outside. Low hills and open water frame the background, evoking the historic Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland." title="Viking dwellings reconstructed at L’Anse aux Meadows in northern Newfoundland, likely the site of the first Norse settlement in North America (Image by Alamy)" /> This is, of course, a moment of retrospective significance. Those voyagers didn’t realise that they had reached an entirely new continent. Their expeditions did not make big new…

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The SECRETS of Anne Boleyn's most treasured possession
type: item
date: 2026-01-09T08:05:54.000Z
creator: Dr Owen Emmerson
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Tudor kings and queens
description: Discover the prayer book that Anne Boleyn carried around "like a handbag", as Dr Owen Emerson and Professor Kate Williams get closer to Anne’s treasured Book of Hours, a personal prayer book on display at Hever Castle
encoded: Get closer to a remarkable Tudor artefact, as Dr Owen Emerson and Professor Kate Williams get closer to Anne Boleyn’s treasured Book of Hours, a personal prayer book on display at Hever Castle. Including illustrations and prayers to be conducted at different times of day, this Book of Hours would have governed Anne Boleyn’s daily schedule – and it even features Anne’s handwriting. Discover the marginalia that shows how the doomed queen turned to the book for solace in times of tumult – from when she was close to death from a disease known as the Sweating Sickness, to the fearful moments when she waited for King Henry VIII to decide her fate. View Green Video on the source website

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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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Married three times by the age of 15: Margaret Beaufort, the woman who birthed the Tudor Dynasty
type: item
date: 2025-12-01T09:00:03.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Historical people
subject: Tudor kings and queens
description: 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
encoded: 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. L…

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5 things you (probably) didn't know about the Tudors
type: item
date: 2025-10-20T08:00:29.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Historical people
subject: Tudor kings and queens
subject: Tudor life
description: Ruth Goodman, who teaches our new HistoryExtra Academy course on Tudor life, shares five insights about the dynasty’s legacy
encoded: 1. The Tudors brought peace and prosperity to England Bringing peace was probably the most important thing the Tudors did for us. The British countryside is littered with the sites of medieval battles – places where opposing forces stomped over crops, burned barns and rounded up people’s sons. For centuries, rival aristocrats made and broke alliances, and killed those who got in their way. Henry Tudor took the throne in exactly this way at Bosworth in 1485, when he persuaded a number of warlords to desert their king, Richard III. But there it stopped. Intrigue and power politics were thenceforth undertaken by more covert means. Everyone became a bit safer, the day-to-day became a bit more predictable, and lots of people got a little bit richer. Less war meant that more crops made it to market, more young men were available for work, and there was less damage done to buildings, less thievery with menaces and safer travel. In turn, this meant more trade and a greater willingness to invest. The peace the Tudors brought to their lands benefited all – rich and poor alike. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/GettyImages-540735906webready-614eaac.jpg" width="5572" height="3714" alt="An engraving shows Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester during the Reformation, presenting an English translation of the Bible to Henry VIII (Image by Getty Images)" title="An engraving shows Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester during the Reformation, presenting an English translation of the Bible to Henry VIII (Image by Getty Images)" /> 2. Henry VIII was a reluctant reformer When the Tudors came to power, the Catholic church was already struggling to maintain its grip upon the minds and souls of Europe. New ideas about the nature of God and the state of Christianity were circulating. So when Henry VIII lost patience with the pope, there were plenty of people delighted by the opportunity to rethink England’s official religious position. Read more | Tudor Eng…

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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 Virgin Queen? Elizabeth I's forbidden love
type: item
date: 2025-07-04T08:00:14.000Z
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: British queens
subject: Historical people
subject: Life in Elizabethan England
subject: Tudor kings and queens
description: In 1579, the queen embarked on a romance with a French duke she affectionately dubbed her “frog”. The pair seemed destined for marriage. Yet, writes Elizabeth Tunstall, the people of England had other ideas…
encoded: On 17 August 1579, a ship sailed up the Thames and dropped anchor in Greenwich. Moments later a duke emerged, dressed in the finest clothes that money could buy, and conversing with his entourage in French. The prince’s nationality might have provoked the suspicion – if not the outright hostility – of many residents of Tudor London. Yet this Frenchman was about to be welcomed into the heart of Richmond Palace. There he would be entertained lavishly, wined and dined at parties and balls. And all with good reason. For this Frenchman was being lined up to marry Queen Elizabeth I. Over the centuries, Elizabeth’s romantic travails have become one of the great soap operas of English history. When Elizabeth ascended the English throne in 1558 as a 25-year-old, it was widely expected that she would find herself a husband and produce an heir to carry on the Tudor dynasty for another generation. However, while the queen had several suitors over the years, each proposed match hit the rocks before she could be tempted to offer her hand in marriage. From English earls to Scandinavian kings, none quite fitted the bill. And so, by the time the party of Frenchmen disembarked in Greenwich in the summer of 1579, Elizabeth was well on her way to securing her place in the history books as the ‘Virgin Queen’: the woman who would, so we’re told, sacrifice her heart for the good of the nation. Yet she wasn’t done with trying just yet. As her 46th birthday closed in, Elizabeth would embark on one final bid to find a husband. And this one would take her closer to marriage than perhaps any courtship yet. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/FFWM82-cmyk-WL-0294cdd.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A cow stands in the middle of the image, being ridden by a man in a dark cloak and hat. Behind the cow, a man wearing light pink holds its tail, while another man milks the cow. In front of the cow stands Elizabeth I, dressed in white and another man dressed …

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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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