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Tudor life

The Tudor era lasted from 1485 – when Henry VII defeated the Yorkist king Richard III at the battle of Bosworth – until the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603. So what was life like during Tudor times?

A memorial tomb to King Æthelstan, the first Saxon king of all England, in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire. (Photo by Geography Photos/UIG via Getty Images)
Anglo-Saxon

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

Tales from a Tudor Christmas

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Hever Castle. (Photo by: Prisma Bildagentur/UIG via Getty Images)
Tudor

8 must-visit castles with Tudor connections

First built in 1576, the Globe theatre burnt to the ground in 1613. During a performance of the play now known as 'Henry VIII', a set of stage cannons were fired and a piece of flaming material from one of the cannons landed on the theatre’s thatched roof, causing the fire. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
Elizabethan

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

Tudor women: what was life like?

Anne Boleyn was executed on 19 May 1536. (Photo by World History Archive/Alamy)
Elizabethan

Tudor timeline: 10 momentous dates

A crowned Tudor rose. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Stringer via Getty Images)
Tudor

Why the Tudors grab us

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Henry VIII “regarded his wars as the worthy successors of the great martial victories of England’s past”, says Steven Gunn. (Photo by PHAS/UIG via Getty Images)
Tudor

Total war in Tudor England

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John Blanke. (Illustration: Rose Wilkinson for BBC History Magazine)
Tudor

The Library Black faces of Tudor England

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Tudor

Black Tudors

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Tudor

Life in Tudor London

A view of Hampton Court Palace, London. (Getty Images)
Tudor

Simon Thurley on the architectural history of the Tudors

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Musician and dancing fool in Paris, 14th century. (Christophel Fine Art/UIG via Getty Images)
Medieval

What was life like for a court jester?

Cardinal Wolsey going in procession to Westminster Hall. Reproduced from the original by Sir John Gilbert in 1886-7. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)
Tudor

Through foreign eyes: the forgotten ambassadors to the Tudor court