HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: The official website for BBC History Magazine
date: 2025-12-05T17:01:03.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Porpoise for breakfast and late night sex visits: Henry VIII's life in a day
items: What was the Habsburg jaw?
items: Star witness: how the Royal Observatory transformed our understanding of astronomy and time
items: Not 1066 again! Should we ditch our obsession with dates?
items: From tragic Tudor queens to restless Roman soldiers: Britain's 8 most haunted houses
items: BORN to be king!? Dan Jones and Helen Castor anatomise Henry IV
items: Your history guide to Frogmore Cottage: who has lived there before?
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: Love learning like Æthelstan

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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What was the Habsburg jaw?
type: item
date: 2025-11-26T10:13:30.000Z
creator: Jonny Wilkes
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Evergreen
description: One family was an ever-present force in European affairs from the Middle Ages to the modern era, but, as Jonny Wilkes explores, the Habsburgs’ desperate bid to keep power within the family gave them a distinctive physical callsign, as well as dynastic longevity…
encoded: For centuries, the Habsburgs were one of the most prominent royal dynasties in Europe. They ruled as kings of Germany, from the 13th century, and as archdukes of Austria from the mid-14th century. They sat on the throne of the Holy Roman Empire from the 15th to 19th centuries. Their house dominated swathes of the continent with Habsburg rulers in a host of countries, most notably Spain. But there was something else that became prominent about the Habsburgs: their jawline. What was the Habsburg jaw? Many members of the dynasty had the same physical trait of a protruding bottom jaw – a mandibular prognathism, medically speaking. The jutting chin could be so pronounced that the flattering portrait artists of the day could not manage to hide them. The condition even prevented some members of the dynasty from eating or speaking properly. Read more | The Habsburgs: the dynasty that wouldn’t die The ‘Habsburg jaw’ was a biological result from generations of inbreeding. In a bid to keep their power, the Habsburgs kept everything within the family. They relied on ‘consanguine’ marriages that partnered close relatives, such as first cousins, or uncles with their nieces. View Green Video on the source website Why did the Habsburgs intermarry so much? It’s true that close-family marriages weren’t exactly unusual among the royal houses of Europe, but the Habsburgs were the champions of consanguinity. Of the 11 marriages during the reign of the Spanish Habsburgs, from 1516 to 1700, only two were not incestuous. “The arrangement made good political sense, guaranteeing that the two lines would support each other militarily,” writes historian Martyn Rady, “which paid dividends in the Thirty Years’ War (the bloody religious conflict fought across central Europe from 1618–48). “Biologically, however, it was a disaster. As first and second-cousin and uncle-niece marriages became the norm, madness and deformity followed.” In 1517, Italian diplomat Antonio di Beatis described the future …

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Star witness: how the Royal Observatory transformed our understanding of astronomy and time
type: item
date: 2025-11-26T09:00:37.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Education
subject: Historical events
subject: Space
subject: The Restoration
description: From the moment it was founded 350 years ago, the Royal Observatory in Greenwich drove our understanding of astronomy, navigation and time. Louise Devoy explores eight milestones in the history of this pioneering scientific institution
encoded: The big bang moment 1675: Charles II sparks a star-gazing revolution In the 17th century, the great maritime nations were vying to solve a puzzle that had confounded philosophers for many centuries: how to determine exact positions on the Earth’s surface. And in Britain, Charles II took a major step to ensure his realm’s position at the head of the pack. On 4 March 1675, the king signed a royal warrant appointing John Flamsteed as the first “astronomical observator”, tasked with “perfecting the art of navigation”. Flamsteed’s specific objective was to devise a method by which sailors could establish their longitude (east–west position) at sea – which involved measuring the positions of celestial bodies – and of knowing the time at a ship’s local position. And Flamsteed would get to carry out this vital research from the surroundings of the country’s first state-funded, purpose-built scientific institution: the Royal Observatory. It was urgent work, because England’s great rival, France, had stolen a march: Louis XIV had established an observatory in Paris nearly a decade earlier. Flamsteed was, in effect, playing catch-up. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/T809MT-CMYKWeb-Ready-7606aa3.jpg" width="2663" height="1775" alt="an illustration showing a large crowd looking at several artefacts including a globe, a map, and a satellite dish" title="King Louis XIV visits the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris in 1671. The creation of an observatory in the French capital had left England playing catch-up (Image by Alamy)" /> The size of the task facing the astronomer clearly wasn’t lost on Charles II, for the king appointed none other than the celebrated architect Christopher Wren to design the observatory. Wren’s chosen site was the hilltop ruins of Greenwich Castle – and it was here that the foundation stone was laid on 10 August 1675. With its lofty windows, royal portraits and accurate pendulum clocks, the octagonal ‘star chamber…

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Not 1066 again! Should we ditch our obsession with dates?
type: item
date: 2025-11-19T13:00:01.000Z
creator: Dr Rob Blackmore
subject: General History
subject: Magazine
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical events
description: From 1066 to 1918, our obsession with battles, elections and even voyages of discovery risks distorting a true understanding of the past
encoded: In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. That, at least, is what the famous rhyme tells us. Memorising such dates is a common experience of being taught history – a cliché superbly lampooned by the witty 1930 book 1066 and All That. “History is not what you thought,” its preface suggested. “It is what you can remember.” Accordingly, as per its subtitle, it offered a “Memorable History of England, Comprising All the Parts You Can Remember, Including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates.” Conspicuously, though, “two out of the four dates originally included were eliminated at the last moment” because “they are not memorable.” Though evidently both humorists, the book’s authors – Punch writers WC Sellar and RJ Yeatman – were making a serious point. History has long been thought to be concerned with preserving the past. The 12th-century historian and Byzantine princess Anna Komnene observed how “time in its irresistible and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things and drowns them in the depths of obscurity”. Her solution was the study of history, which “forms a very strong bulwark against the stream of time”. This is a powerful idea – one that perhaps moved King Charles I, moments before his execution in January 1649, to utter a last single word to William Juxon, the former bishop of London, instructing him: “Remember.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/1066-and-all-that-later-edition-CMYKWeb-Ready-dfb5326.jpg" width="2295" height="1530" alt="The cover of a book, with the title 1066 And All That across the top, and two men standing side by side in green and pink clothing" title="The 1930 book 1066 and All That wittily parodied the conventional approach to teaching history in schools at that time (Image by Amazon)" /> But do our efforts to remember really require us to do something so trivial as memorising dates? More radically, do the historical events these dates mark even matter? The Oxford Eng…

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From tragic Tudor queens to restless Roman soldiers: Britain's 8 most haunted houses
type: item
date: 2025-10-30T15:00:03.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: British queens
subject: Castles
subject: Death
subject: Henry VIII's wives
description: From tragic Tudor queens to restless Roman soldiers, Caitlin Blackwell Baines introduces us to the terrifying cast of phantoms said to dwell within the nation’s spookiest homes
encoded: 1. Stirling Castle, Scotland From elusive sea monsters to shrieking banshees, Scotland is home to a host of supernatural beings – including, of course, ghosts. One of their best-known spectral celebrities is the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, who is said to haunt a staggering 10 properties, making her, perhaps, the best-travelled ghost in the nation. Among her main haunts is Stirling Castle, her childhood home in central Scotland. Perched atop a volcanic crag, surrounded by cliffs overlooking the River Forth, Stirling Castle was constructed in the early 12th century, originally as a military stronghold, acting as a strategic line of defence during the Wars of Scottish Independence (1296–1357). However, almost from the very beginning, Stirling was also a favourite royal residence. By the time a young Mary Stuart lived there in the 1540s, it was as much a palace as it was a fortress: her father, James V, had transformed it into one of the most opulent homes in Renaissance Britain. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Stirling-Castle-Bannockburn-1-8d83973.jpg" width="1200" height="960" alt="A large brown castle stands on a tree-covered hill, against a dark grey cloudy sky" title="Stirling Castle is one of several historic buildings said to be haunted by the ghost of Mary, Queen of Scots – the ill-fated monarch who was imprisoned – and executed – upon the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I (Image by SpookyScotland.net)" /> Whatever happy childhood memories Mary may have had of Stirling would be tainted by the events of 21 April 1567. It was here on this day that the embattled queen would see her infant son (the future King James VI & I) for the last time. Soon after, she was forced to abdicate, flee the country, and eventually, in 1587, she was executed for treason under the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I. Perhaps it is for this reason that the melancholy monarch returns to the castle, perpetually searching for her long-lost ch…

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BORN to be king!? Dan Jones and Helen Castor anatomise Henry IV
type: item
date: 2025-10-28T07:01:21.000Z
creator: Emily Briffett
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Dan Jones and Helen Castor delve into the turbulent life and reign of Henry Bolingbroke, to explore how he became the usurper Henry IV
encoded: Henry Bolingbroke has gone down in history as the usurper that stole the English crown from the tyrant Richard II – and was later plagued by rebellion and ill health. But is this all there was to the man who later became Henry IV? In the second episode of our three-part HistoryExtra podcast series 'Tyrant, Usurper, Hero', Dan Jones speaks to Helen Castor to reveal more about the chivalric hero, who could have made the ideal king had he truly been born into the royal role. Watch now, or listen to the ad-free podcast below: View Green Video on the source website (Ad) Helen Castor is the author of The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV (Penguin, 2024). Buy it now from Waterstones (Ad) Dan Jones is the author of Henry V: The Astonishing Rise of England's Greatest Warrior King (Bloomsbury, 2024). Buy it now from Waterstones

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Your history guide to Frogmore Cottage: who has lived there before?
type: item
date: 2025-10-27T12:16:16.000Z
creator: Elinor Evans
subject: 20th Century
subject: Georgian
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: The royal family
description: How much do you know about the history of Frogmore Cottage, previously home to Prince Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex? Who has lived there before, and why was it built?
encoded: Where is Frogmore Cottage? Frogmore Cottage, set in the grounds of Frogmore House, is part of the Frogmore estate in Windsor, Berkshire. Frogmore is situated around half a mile south of Windsor Castle, within Home Park (the private estate of the castle). It’s close to the river Thames and built upon historically wet marsh ground, which led to the estate’s name; the low-lying plot attracts a high number of frogs from the nearby riverbank. Today the cottage, nestled in a quiet corner of the estate grounds, is a private residence, and served as the British home of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, from 2019 when it was gifted to them by the late Queen Elizabeth II. Prince Harry and Meghan were requested to vacate their British base in March 2023, as they took an official step back from participation in royal duties. It is owned by the Crown Estate, though there are no current residents based at the house, royal or otherwise. It was reported in October 2025 that Prince Andrew, younger brother to King Charles III, is considering Frogmore as his residence after leaving Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park. Read more | Why has the British monarchy survived – and thrived? Can people visit Frogmore Cottage? The cottage is not open to the public, though Frogmore House and estate can be visited on a number of charity days held each year. When and why was Frogmore Cottage built? The cottage has served as a royal refuge since it was built in 1801. It was commissioned by Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III, who bought the Frogmore estate as a country retreat for herself and her unmarried daughters in 1792. Her husband, often referred as ‘Mad King George’, ruled Great Britain and Ireland from 1760–1820 and suffered from an illness (sometimes attributed as porphyria, a rare hereditary disease) that prompted episodes of eccentric behaviour. Historian Sean Lang explains how the king once ordered his carriage to stop in Windsor Great Park while he popped o…

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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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Love learning like Æthelstan
type: item
date: 2025-09-22T08:00:48.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove
subject: Anglo-Saxon
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical people
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: The first king of the English can teach us valuable lessons about how to navigate a world revolutionised by AI, says Professor David Woodman
encoded: Are we losing the need to learn? That’s one of the things that people are worrying about with the advent of AI. Feels like a fair concern to me. Rather than learning something yourself, you can ask AI to tell you the answer, translate something for you, tell you how to fix something, even transcribe a medieval manuscript, if that’s your bag. It’s all a bit too easy, isn’t it, and humans, like water, tend to seek out the easiest route, the path of least resistance. So that’s potentially a pretty big problem. If we don’t need to learn, will we bother to learn, and if we don’t bother to learn, are our minds going to atrophy? Academics talk about ‘digital dementia’, and researchers are looking at whether AI is going to cause a general downturn in our cognitive abilities. Unless something changes, and with AI’s rapid development, chances are that we won’t actually need to learn in the future, or at least not in the same way that we do today. So maybe we need to learn to love learning, if we’re going to avoid falling victim to brain rot. And that, perhaps surprisingly, is where Æthelstan, first king of England, comes into the mix. Creator of the kingdom Æthelstan, to remind you, was the grandson of King Alfred the Great, son of King Edward the Elder. Crowned in 925 in Kingston-upon-Thames (an event marked to this day by a tooth-shaped stone ringed by Victorian railings on the side of the road), Æthelstan went on to create the kingdom of England as we recognise it today. Famously he won a substantial victory over an alliance of his adversaries at the battle of Brunanburh in the year 937. Read more | King Æthelstan: England's colossus Professor David Woodman, from Cambridge University, is Æthelstan’s most recent biographer, and he is a keen observer of the apparently contradictory sides of the character of the man: “One of the great paradoxes of early medieval history is that Æthelstan absolutely was a great military figure. He was somebody who secured his position by milit…

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