YouTube Live Q&A on the Boleyn Family this Sunday – 11 July

Yes, then I won’t have to watch England and Italy during extra time.
Look forward to seeing you there.

OMG this was so good last night. Really good of you and Tim to take time to do this at the time you are so busy.

So many questions and you did very well answering them. I love these events although I think my device went to an earlier one and back again at some point as your hairstyle changed at one point lol. That’s technology. Wonderful Q and A session. I will be watching back later in the week. Always love to see things a second time. I was wondering if its possible to do zoom sessions at some point in the future? Perhaps you could zoom live from Hever Castle or Hampton Court or the Alhambra as a guest expert.

I am starting today the course with Miranda Kaufman on Black Tudors. Over 1500 people signed up. It looks good. Have her book so now is a time to read again. The guy from Black History and who does the history of a house on telly is also presenting. Maybe every England fan should take to educate them lol. Really looking forward.

Thanks again for an awesome time. By the way, we are off to Ludlow in September for a return visit. Here’s something I didn’t know until last night. The beautiful view at the back of the town is called Gallows Hill and the Gibbet was right where the picnic bench is. Well it makes sense I suppose as that’s where people normally where executed up the hill on high ground and outside of the city walls. Tyburn was outside in the countryside, not as it is now, in the middle of London, actually Marble Arch marks the triple gibbet spot. The park outside of Lancaster and the monument there is the place that the Pendle Witches were hanged and many other people. The Ridgway in the South was the place of execution for over a thousand years. That is where the beheaded Vikings where found from the nineth century. A high ground was a good place for this as many people for miles could see and it was a place of warning and ancient rituals. Tower Hill is another perfect example and of course it wasn’t built up as it is today. Only 7 people were actually executed inside the Tower by beheading, excluding of course prisoners shot during the Civil War and First World War and unofficial execution and murder.

The famous beheaded and one drowning were
Anne Boleyn
Jane Boleyn
Lady Jane Grey or Q Jane
Lord William Hastings beheaded after Court Marshall in 1483
Kathryn Howard
Margaret Pole
Robert Devereux Earl of Essex
George, Duke of Clarence, executed privately inside the Tower walls, probably drowned in a large barrel of wine on the orders of Edward iv.

Many others died as prisoners, murdered or naturally. Charles, Duke of Orleans and Henry vi are famous. Many more perished on Tower Hill and their names are memorialised there. Of interest to Tudor fans are people like Thomas More and John Fisher, Thomas and Edward Seymour, George Boleyn and his fellow accused, the 4th Duke of Norfolk and so on. Others simply vanished into thin air, such as Edward v and Richard if Shrewsbury and Henry Pole. Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick also ended his life there in 1499. The last person killed at the Tower was Josef Jakobs in 1941. He was unfortunate that he was injured on his mission to spy on weather information in England for Germany and was captured. He was given a military execution inside the Tower walls. The chair he was sat in is still there on show. Gruesome. His granddaughter received his last letter in the late 1990s to his wife and baby. His widow never saw it. She gave an interview for the series on the Tower of London in the early 21st century. She came every year to see his grave. It was very emotional to hear her stories and read his last letter. It was a stark reminder that the people of history were real people with real emotions and lives and we must remember them with humanity even if they were, as in this case, on the other side in a horrible and savage war.