One Thing About The Tudors That Always Fascinates Me Is What They Were Actually Like As Individuals,

One thing about the Tudors that always fascinates me is what they were actually like as individuals, how they were as people - What did Henry VIII sound like? How tall exactly were his wives? Did Anne Boleyn have a slight French accent? One Tudor monarch we have a significant description of is Queen Mary I. A Venetian ambassador had this to say about her:

“She is of low rather than of middling stature. She is of a spare and delicate frame, quite unlike her father, who was tall and stout; nor does she resemble her mother, who, if not tall, was nevertheless bulky. Her face is well formed, as shown by her features and lineaments, and as seen by her portraits. When younger she was considered, not merely tolerably handsome, but of beauty exceeding mediocrity. At present, with the exception of some wrinkles, caused more by anxieties than by age, which makes her appear some years older, her aspect, for the rest, is very grave. Her eyes are so piercing that they inspire not only respect, but fear in those on whom she fixes them, although she is very shortsighted, being unable to read or do anything else unless she has her sight quite close to what she wishes to peruse or to see distinctly. Her voice is rough and loud, almost like a man’s, so that when she speaks she is always heard a long way off.”

Every Emma Connell moment as Anne Boleyn: 46/?

This letter snippet is “Ma Maitress etc Amy” — My Mistress and Friend.

It is the first letter in the bound book of love letters at the Library.

(Courtesy of the Vatican Library)

“For three years of Anne’s reign, Chapuys’s correspondence had been filled with predictions of rebellion. Now, five months after her death, the predictions were fulfilled. First Lincolnshire and then the north rose in revolt. The rebels found a charismatic leader in Robert Aske […] [and they formed a list of demands]. The monasteries were to be restored. Mary was to be declared heir. Cromwell, Rich, and Audley were to be executed or at least exiled. And Anne’s heretic bishops, Cranmer, Latimer, Shaxton, and Hilsey, were to be burned.”

— The Queens of Henry VIII, David Starkey (via madamedepembroke)

The Lady Catherine is a proud, stubborn woman of very high courage. If she took it into her head to take her daughter’s part, she could quite easily take the field, muster a great array, and wage against me a war as fierce as any her mother Isabella ever waged in Spain.

(as requested by anon)

Hello! I really want to start getting into the fandom (14 15 16 centuries England) and i also want to learn history. What are 5he best books and articles about it, and where can i learn history if i am not from England?

Thank you kind Tudor bitch Xx

Hi there!

I mean, I basically mainly know Tudor stuff but I’ll mine and see what I can find / rec ...

I’ve also answered this to a degree in other asks, so I’ll link those:

Ask 1

Ask 2

Ask 3

Ask 4

Ask 5: Podcasts (I’ll update this, if anyone would like me to do so)

And then, the last university level thing I did, was a 20-page research paper on the historiography of the relationship of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Before that, it was a research paper on the historiography of Henry VIII (particularly through the lens of how, why, and in what terms and language he was regarded as ‘monstrous’), and before that, it was a presentation on the Great Matter.

Here is part of the bibliography for the above:

Benger, E. (1821). Memoirs of the life of Anne Boleyn, queen of Henry VIII. By Miss Benger, author of memoirs of Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton, John Tobin, &c. In two volumes. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row.

Cavendish, George, and Samuel Weller Singer. 1825. The life of Cardinal Wolsey. London: For Harding, Triphook, and Lepard.

Froude, J. (1856). History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Gowing, L. (2017). Gender Relations in Early Modern England. London: Routledge, p.17.

Herbert of Cherbury, Edward Herbert, Mary Clark, Anne Mearne, Thomas Sawbridge, and William Faithorne. 1683. The life and reign of King Henry the Eighth.

Hume, D. (1778). History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688.

Kewes, P. (2005). The uses of history in early modern England. Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of California Press.

Sander, N. (1877). Rise and growth of the Anglican schism ... Published A.D. 1585, with a continuation of the history, by the Rev. Edward Rishton, B.A., of Brasenose College, Oxford. Translated, with introduction and notes, by David Lewis, M.A.. London: Burns and Oates.

Strickland, A. (1868). Lives of the queens of England, from the Norman conquest, Vol II.. 2nd ed. London: Bell and Daldy, p.271.

Woolf, Daniel R. 2005. Reading history in early modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Wyatt, G., Wyatt, T. and Loades, D. (1968). The Papers of George Wyatt Esquire, of Boxley Abbey in the county of Kent, son and heir of Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger ; ed. for the Royal Historical Society by D.M. Loades. London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, p.21.

Well, a start, at least. I will unearth my USB drive to find the rest.