Inspiring Excitement and Passion about History and the Humanities
About 2o years ago I read Alison Weir’s Six Wives of Henry VIII. I remember starting it, laying in my bed in my attic bedroom when it was snowing outside. I was immediately hooked on this saga of drama and the way lives could be forever changed because of the inability to bear a son. Little…
In March 1527 Henry VIII and his wife Catherine of Aragon visited Cardinal Wolsey’s new foundation – Cardinal’s College – in Oxford. John Taverner, one of the most famous composers of his time, was commissioned to write an appropriately stunning piece of choral music that would wow the King and his Queen. Taverner turned out…
Mary Tudor (aka Mary I, aka Bloody Mary) is the Person of the Month over on the Tudor Times website. I did a podcast episode on her about a year and a half ago, and I wanted to revisit this much-maligned woman. So here, for your reading pleasure – some random facts about Mary I that…
I’ve been on a bit of a Boat Craze over on the Renaissance English History Podcast for the past few months. I did an episode on the Rise of the Tudor Navy, the Iron Industry of the Weald (which helped propel the navy forward with the blast iron furnace that made artillery so much cheaper),…
If you were looking for the hippest place to be in 11th century Europe, you wouldn’t go to Paris. Or London, which was an outpost badgered by centuries of Viking invasions, and was about to be conquered by the Normans. You wouldn’t go to Berlin, or Florence, or even Rome. Or Athens. Nope, if you…
I have said it before, and I’ll say it again – I find the best music via the Millennium of Music show, which is on both Sirius and NPR. I have a membership and can listen to old episodes (it’s the best $2.99/month I spend) and I was perusing episodes from a year ago, and…
A crumbling castle in rural Andalusia with a Scottish history? And you can go wander around for free, and it only costs like €2 to get in to the building itself? Say what? Yep, that’s the Castle of the Stars at Teba. Teba itself is a pueblo blanco (white village – quintessential whitewashed Andalusian mountain town)…
In about a week and a half I’m going back to London to attend (and write about) the launch of the ORA Singers, a new choir that is based on commissioning contemporary composers write reimagined reflections of Tudor masterworks. Full disclosure – I know Suzi Digby, the founder. About 5 years ago I met her via…
I just spent the morning recording and pushing out a new podcast episode on the summer of 1588 when England successfully defended her borders from the Spanish Armada, intent on invading and overthrowing Protestant Elizabeth. At the same time, my babygirl is transitioning from her crib into a big girl bed. These two things are…
I had this idea that January would be a good time to journey to the wilds of Northumberland to commune with my internal monks and vikings in the magical Holy Island, Lindisfarne. And I was right. Lindisfarne is a small island off the coast of Northumberland near Berwick upon Tweed, accessible via a causeway that…