The Truth Behind “Bloody Mary” - A Beginner’s Guide
When you hear the name Mary I, you probably hear one phrase: “Bloody Mary”. A queen of fire and fear. A religious fanatic. A failure compared to Elizabeth I. But that version of Mary is a shortcut, ...
10 Feb 38min
Mary Boleyn’s Lost Years (1513–1522): What the Sources Actually Say
What really happened during Mary Boleyn’s lost years? Between 1513 and 1522, Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne Boleyn, slips in and out of the historical record, leaving behind one of the most debated gaps...
7 Feb 18min
Anne Boleyn’s Lost Future: The Marriage She Almost Had
When Anne Boleyn returned to England from France in late 1521, she wasn’t coming back for love, ambition, or a crown. She was being recalled for politics. Her return was prompted not by royal intere...
3 Feb 25min
The Strangest Tudor Cures (And the Ones That Actually Worked) - A Beginner’s Guide to Tudor Medicine
Hare brains. Hedgehog testicles. Mouse skin. Live pigeons. Tudor remedies are famous for sounding grotesque, and ridiculous. But were they really nonsense? In this second part of A Beginner’s Guide ...
30 Jan 8min
Tudor Medicine Wasn’t Stupid, It Was a System
Imagine waking in Tudor England with a fever and no paracetamol, no antibiotics, and no doctor to call. In this first part of A Beginner’s Guide to Tudor Medicine, we step inside the Tudor worldview,...
26 Jan 14min
Was Anne Boleyn Really “Corrupted” in France?
The idea that Anne Boleyn was "corrupted in France has been repeated in popular histories and documentaries, often stated as fact, sometimes even placed in quotation marks, as if it were securely sour...
22 Jan 12min
The Foreign Courts That Created Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn didn’t arrive at Henry VIII’s court as an inexperienced girl dazzled by a king. She arrived as someone who had already been shaped inside two of the most sophisticated Renaissance courts i...
20 Jan 30min
Mary Tudor and the Will to Fight
Mary Tudor is often remembered through a single, brutal label: “Bloody Mary.” But in the summer of 1553, she revealed a very different side of herself. In this second part of my series on the two tou...
17 Jan 9min
