Several years ago, someone explained to me that “Bless your heart” is actually a savage insult in the American South. Today’s post is a letter…
Writer of Grants and Historical Fiction
Tag: Mary I
For more than a hundred years, Agnes Strickland was considered the ultimate source…but now we know better how she got a bunch of things wrong…
This was such a huge time for England, the triumph of the people over an attempted coup – the only time since the Battle of…
This is a letter that illustrates one of those Tudor wheel-of-fortune turns. Francis Talbot, 5th Earl of Shrewsbury, was inclined to the old religion, and…
Mary was in a tough place during her brother’s reign: her fierce Catholicism was increasingly at odds with Edward’s fervent Protestantism. While Somerset was Lord…
The Records of the Lord Chamberlain show that Edward’s public funeral resembled Henry’s own (though Henry’s bier traveled from Whitehall to Windsor while Edward’s went…
While I think this marriage was overall a bad idea (indeed, in retrospect it would appear she could have chosen better…), I do love weddings.…
Giovanni Michiel was the Venetian Ambassador to England during almost all of Mary’s reign, and on his departure in 1557, he prepared for his successor…
(Full disclosure: it happened a little before this, but this is the date of the letter that Eustace Chapuys wrote to Charles relating the incident.)…
In March 1551, Edward had been king for four years. Somerset had been removed as Lord Protector, and John Dudley, Earl of Warwick (he wasn’t…