Claire | February 18, 2023
On this day in Tudor history, Queen Catherine of Aragon, first wife of King Henry VIII, gave birth to a healthy baby girl, a little girl who would grow up to be Queen Mary I, England’s first official queen regnant. Mary was the result of Catherine of Aragon’s fifth pregnancy. You can click here to […]
Claire | December 15, 2022
New Bonus zoom debate – Mary I – Bloody Mary, a failure queen? Transcript: Hello! It’s not long now until my Discovering Mary I event starts on 16th January 2023 and I thought it would be fun, in the lead up to the event, to do a zoom video debate with historian Johanna Strong. Johanna’s […]
Claire | November 25, 2022
Queen Mary I, who ruled from 1553 to 1558, has gone down in history as Bloody Mary due to the heresy burnings of her reign, but there’s far more to her than that, and she really is a fascinating Tudor personality. In the video and transcript below, I share 16 things you might not know […]
Claire | November 18, 2022
Thank you to everyone who left comments on my “What do you think about Queen Mary I?” video. Today, I’m sharing the results, the words you used to describe Queen Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. The results were very interesting and I was pleasantly surprised… If you’d like to join […]
Claire | November 13, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 13th November 1553, in the reign of Queen Mary I, Lady Jane Grey was tried for treason. The former Queen Jane was tried at Guildhall in London along with her husband Lord Guildford Dudley, his brothers Ambrose and Henry Dudley, and Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, who were accused […]
Claire | November 7, 2022
Queen Mary I was the daughter of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, sister of Edward VI and Elizabeth I, and wife of Philip II of Spain. She had a relatively short reign, ruling from July 1553 to her death in November 1558, but although she is often neglected in favour of her more […]
Claire | October 18, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 18th October 1555, in the reign of Queen Mary I, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was finally given permission from her half-sister the queen to leave court and travel to her own estate at Hatfield. Previously, Elizabeth had been confined in the Tower of London and […]
Claire | October 10, 2022
I know from comments on my “Becoming Elizabeth” videos and social media that many people, myself included, thought that the recent Starz series, “Becoming Elizabeth”, was actually more about “Becoming Mary”. I thoroughly enjoyed this look at the pre-accession Mary – and Mary definitely stole the show for me. It is so disappointing that there’s […]
