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Anne Boleyn was a beautiful woman who died for an effectively polygamous man, Henry the VIIIth. In 1532, on September the first, he made Anne the Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry created this title for her. These words attributed to her suggest she was very much a woman who was ready for a man: “Seduce me. Write letters to me. And poems, I love poems. Ravish me with your words. Seduce me.” Anne married Henry but when he did not have a son by her to be heir to his throne he had her executed. She spoke...

Every time I go to London, I visit the Tower of London and sit in the little room below grade level, where Thomas More spent his last months. I am reminded often these days of Thomas More and King Henry VIII and the kerfuffle over Anne Boleyn. More, you see, would not sign the oath and proclaim the legitimacy of the marriage of the king to Boleyn because of the inconvenient matter of Henry’s divorce from Catherine. More, good lawyer that he was, determined that his safety resided in him saying nothing — keeping his mouth shut. For a time,...

It was catalogued as an “antique carved wooden bird” when it was auctioned for £75 in 2019. Now it has been identified as Anne Boleyn’s heraldic emblem, the 16th-century royal falcon that probably adorned her private apartments at Hampton Court Palace – only to be removed after Henry VIII ordered her execution and the eradication of all traces of her...The exquisite and richly decorated oak carving is in such extraordinary condition that it even bears its original gilding and colour scheme. In 1536, barely three years after it was made, Boleyn was beheaded on bogus adultery charges – just because...

One of the most famous Kings in the world has to be Henry VIII of England. He is most known today for the fact he had 6 wives, and the fact he ordered the execution of 2 of these, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. Henry VIII's love life certainly was turbulent, and it caused chaos across the country. After being refused a divorce for his first wife Catherine of Aragon, he split from Rome becoming the Supreme Head of the Church of England. This began the English Reformation, which changed the face of religion forever.We know much about Henry's wives,...

IT'S REMARKABLE what five centuries can do for a guy's reputation. When Richard III, the last Plantaganet king of England, was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, his corpse was stripped and hauled in disgrace through the streets of Leicester, "all besprinkled with mire and blood … a miserable spectacle," as Holinshed's Chronicle recounted. Then it was stuffed into a crude grave, naked and coffinless, while "few lamented and many rejoiced." This week, the medieval king, whose bones were found under a parking lot in 2012, will be reburied in Leicester Cathedral with full reverence and honor....

Ram-raiders who left a store empty-handed have inadvertently helped unearth archaeological discoveries dating from medieval and Tudor times. The East of England Co-op in Dedham, Essex, was targeted in an early morning raid on 10 December which caused major structural damage to the building. Archaeologists were then commissioned and a pot, which may have been used to stop "evil influences", was dug up. A timber-framed structure, built during Henry VIII's reign, was also unearthed. The precise nature of the structure has not been confirmed yet, but they have dated it to 1520. Following the ram-raid, villagers pulled together to find...

Among the finds are manuscripts possibly used to perform illegal Catholic masses, silk fragments and handwritten musicWhile most of England was on lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic, archaeologist Matt Champion was working solo at Oxburgh Hall, a moated Tudor mansion in Norfolk. As part of the site’s £6 million (roughly $7.8 million USD) roof restoration project, workers had lifted the floorboards in the estate’s attic for the first time in centuries. Probing the recesses beneath the boards with gloved fingertips, Champion expected to find dirt, coins, bits of newspapers and detritus that had fallen through the cracks. Instead, he discovered...

On this date in 1536, Anne Boleyn lost her head. Any queen decapitated by her king would of course rate an entry in these grim pages. But this does not quite explain Anne Boleyn‘s enduring appeal, relevance and recognizability for the most casual of modern observers, and her concomitant footprint in popular culture, even with the “Greek tragedy” quality of her life. Anne stands at the fulcrum of England’s epochal leap into modernity. Whether she was that fulcrum might depend on the reader’s sympathy for the Great Man theory of history, but little more do we injure our headless queen...

This was the execution date in 1536 of Anne Boleyn‘s co-accused, the undercard to the deposed queen’s beheading. It was the accusation of adultery that furnished Anne’s downfall; some adulterers were perforce required. These were William Brereton, Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, Mark Smeaton … and the ex-queen’s own brother, George Boleyn. They had just days prior been subjected to a trial whose outcome was a foregone conclusion. All pleaded their innocence save Smeaton, a commoner court musician who could not withstand torture and “admitted” fooling around with Queen Anne.*

Elizabeth I- Born: 7 September 1533 - Birthplace: Greenwich, England - Died: 24 March 1603 Best Known As: "The Virgin Queen" of England, 1558-1603 The daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth succeeded Mary I in 1558. Dedicated to her position as ruler, Elizabeth fought off rivals (such as heir to the throne Mary, Queen of Scots, imprisoned for 19 years and executed in 1587) and expanded England's power overseas, eventually succeeding in defeating the Spanish Armada in 1588. Her nearly 45-year reign is considered one of England's high points: it featured luminaries such as Sir Walter Raleigh,...

The fabric at St Faith's Church in Bacton has been identified by experts as a piece of a 16th Century dress. An examination by Historic Royal Palaces curators has strengthened a theory it formed part of a court dress. The Queen is depicted in the Rainbow Portrait wearing a similar fabric, but no documentary evidence has been found to suggest the dress was worn by her. Historians believe the monarch could have gifted the garment to one of her servants, Blanche Parry. Dating back to the last decades of the 16th Century, the altar cloth that hung in a glass...

1 Henry VIII was slim and athletic for most of his life At six feet two inches tall, Henry VIII stood head and shoulders above most of his court. He had an athletic physique and excelled at sports, regularly showing off his prowess in the jousting arena. Having inherited the good looks of his grandfather, Edward IV, in 1515 Henry was described as “the handsomest potentate I have ever set eyes on…” and later an “Adonis”, “with an extremely fine calf to his leg, his complexion very fair…and a round face so very beautiful, that it would become a pretty...

Did Henry VIII suffer same brain injury as some NFL players? February 3, 2016 by Bill Hathaway Henry VIII may have suffered repeated traumatic brain injuries similar to those experienced by football players and others who receive repeated blows to the head, according to research by a Yale University expert in cognitive neurology. Traumatic brain injury explains the memory problems, explosive anger, inability to control impulses, headaches, insomnia—and maybe even impotence--that afflicted Henry during the decade before his death in 1547, according to a paper published online the week of Feb. 1."It is intriguing to think that modern European history...

RJ Balson and Sons, a butchers based in Bridport, Dorset, boasts an astonishing history that is almost 500 years old. Experts have traced the businesses roots back through 25 generations to when founder John Balson opened a stall in the town's market on South Street in 1535. Since then dozens of family members have worked as butchers in the market town, passing their skills down the generations. And 476 years later, the shop remains a thriving business and has been named Britain's oldest family run retailer. At that time Henry VIII was still married to Anne Boleyn, the first complete...

Could blood group anomaly explain Tudor king's reproductive problems and tyrannical behavior?DALLAS (SMU) – Blood group incompatibility between Henry VIII and his wives could have driven the Tudor king's reproductive woes, and a genetic condition related to his suspected blood group could also explain Henry's dramatic mid-life transformation into a physically and mentally-impaired tyrant who executed two of his wives. Research conducted by bioarchaeologist Catrina Banks Whitley while she was a graduate student at SMU (Southern Methodist University) and anthropologist Kyra Kramer shows that the numerous miscarriages suffered by Henry's wives could be explained if the king's blood carried the...

The Vatican has opened its secret archives, the repository of centuries worth of documents pertaining to the Holy See, to let the world get a closer look at a document presaging England’s split from the Church of Rome. Dated July 13, 1530, and addressed to Pope Clement VII, the letter, right, asks for the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon and includes the seals of dozens of peers of England who concurred with the request.

... Every half-millennium or so an event occurs in our history that changes the basis of society. The Romans come, the Romans go. The Normans come; and between their arrival in 1066 and the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 there is one seismic event after which society sets off (after a false start or two) on an entirely new course: the Reformation in England. When the Convocation of Canterbury of the Church in England agreed in March 1531 to accede to Henry's demands about church governance that included the clergy's recognition of him as head of the English...

'The bones of Elizabeth I, Good Queen Bess, lie mingled with those of her sister, Bloody Mary, in a single tomb at Westminster Abbey. But are they really royal remains — or evidence of the greatest conspiracy in English history?. If that is not the skeleton of Elizabeth Tudor, the past four centuries of British history have been founded on a lie.'

The bones of Elizabeth I, Good Queen Bess, lie mingled with those of her sister, Bloody Mary, in a single tomb at Westminster Abbey. But are they really royal remains — or evidence of the greatest conspiracy in English history? If that is not the skeleton of Elizabeth Tudor, the past four centuries of British history have been founded on a lie. And according to a controversial new book, the lie began on an autumn morning 470 years ago, when panic swept through a little group of courtiers in a manor house in the Cotswold village of Bisley in Gloucestershire.The...