I had planned to review OWEN on its own. Indeed, I get so little time to read these days I set aside three weeks to do so. When I opened OWEN I thought it might be a bit of a slog – not because the book looked like it would bore me, on the contrary,… Read More Review: The Tudor Trilogy
The problem with the Tudors is that they’re all too interesting for their own good. The colourful lives of Henry VIII and his children somewhat overshadow those who came before them, though their lives were no less interesting. The royal claim of the Tudors came through John of Gaunt, son of Edward III, who after… Read More The Life and Times of Owen Tudor
It’s not often I get to do this, but I am very excited to present a guest post! Author of The Tudor Trilogy, Tony Riches, shares his thoughts on the benefits of writing a trilogy when considering historical fiction. If you’re interested in reading about the very underrepresented in fiction early Tudors, details of The… Read More Why You Should Consider Writing a Trilogy
If you’re here looking for the answer to that question: no. No, he didn’t. We don’t know for certain of course, but no. It is highly, highly unlikely that he did given that by the standards of the time Henry VII and Elizabeth of York had an affectionate and loving marriage.
The most frequently asked question of 2017 (on this blog at least, I missed it at Prime Minister’s Questions) was: Did Henry VIII have sex with Anne Boleyn? Now I’m assuming that this refers to premarital sex as we can say with some certainty that they slept together after Anne became Henry’s Queen in 1533.… Read More Did Henry VIII sleep with Anne Boleyn?
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester is famously known as the favourite of Elizabeth I. His reputation in history is that of an ambitious womaniser and though he hardly had a slew of lovers, what relationships he did have were certainly dramatic This was mostly because they were conducted in the court of a Queen who considered… Read More Leicester’s Love Triangle
While we know her as the ‘Nine Day Queen’, Lady Jane Grey would probably have passed into history as an irrelevant, albeit intelligent, Tudor cousin had it not been for the ambitious machinations of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. Having schemed his way to the position of Lord Protector during the reign of young Edward… Read More The Nine Days of the Nine Day Queen
While Elizabeth I’s reputation as the Virgin Queen has been in question since her own lifetime, the ladies around her certainly didn’t aspire to the virginal state, despite their mistresses repeated lectures on the matter. It’s not known exactly why Elizabeth shied away from taking a husband, though theories range from witnessing her father’s violently… Read More The Virgin Queen’s “Virgins”
21 months ago I posted as we waited for the announcement of the royal baby’s name. They beat me to it this year though, and last week we heard that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have named their daughter Charlotte Elizabeth Diana. Recent changes to the law assure that Charlotte’s place in the succession will… Read More The Second-Borns who took the Throne
Conspiracy theories are a way of life, they’re everywhere. Chances are you could find a conspiracy theory about anything and the Tudors are no exception. Forget wondering whether Elizabeth and Leicester were an item, here we see how not only were they an item, but parents to, amongst others, Shakespeare himself. These are not the… Read More Was Elizabeth I a man and other theories…
