Tudor England: A History

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Obviously for the elites—who are tutored at home and who then might go to Oxford or Cambridge University, or, indeed, who very often traveled Europe and went to universities abroad—for them, there is an education of quite extraordinary range, which is why Elizabeth I is supposed to have spoken about seven languages. It’s really not uncommon for people at the very highest levels of society to be extraordinarily gifted in terms of language and literature. BOGAEV: Hmm. Well, is this why you think, Henry VII didn’t get his own Shakespeare play? I mean, he does appear just at the end of Richard III as Richard’s successor after the Battle of Bosworth Field. But that’s it. Shakespeare didn’t take him on.

I think that they did live through times of trial, and I think we’re experiencing times of trial. I think some of the resourcefulness with which they responded to that is perhaps an inspiration for a modern audience. BOGAEV: Well, we’ve barely scratched the surface, but how could we? It’s been so interesting. Thank you so much for talking today. Richard Gardiner, Profitable Instructions for the Manuring, Sowing and Planting of Kitchen Gardens, STC 11570.5 (1599), Sig. D2v. Lucy Wooding offers a new perspective on the period—a treasure chest of real people enduring war, poverty, chaos and contagion. Fascinating characters are crowded into a narrative of superb dramatic pace. Do we need yet another Tudor history? Yes, apparently we do.”— Times (UK), “Best History Books of 2022”In this episode Dr Lucy Wooding tells us more about these two fascinating characters. Mary and Elizabeth were the first women to rule England in their own right. United in complicated ways by their blood, it turned out that there would be an even greater division when it came to their faith. Come to that, there’s a great deal of debate within Catholicism as well as to, you know, where the sort of center of gravity of Catholic belief and worship should be. Other people would see him as a kind of reluctant—or not quite a reluctant Protestant—a Protestant who was a bit slow on the uptake, you know? That he had some of the ideas. He appreciated the importance of the Bible. He appreciated, you know, that the reform was needed, but that he just didn’t get very far with the doctrine. Lucy Wooding’s Tudor England: A History is a beautifully written account of the society, culture, and beliefs of the Tudor period. Along the way, she punctures many of the stubborn myths that clinging to the period and its headlining figures. The Times of London called it, “A classic in the making.” This bleeds into a revisionist account of Henry VIII that portrays our most notorious monarch not as a sex-crazed monster but as an “oddly bookish king”, who gathered the finest legal and theological minds of his age to try and resolve his “Great Matter”, the divorce of Catherine of Aragon (no less sharp but determined to remain married), in the pursuit of a male heir. It is the dust raised by these tome-flippers that irritates religious orthodoxies, leading in significant part to the Reformation (or indeed reformations – Wooding stresses that it was Henry VIII’s son, Foxe’s “godly imp” Edward VI, whose tenure saw the first Book of Common Prayer, the everyday impact of reform with a meaningfully Protestant character, and a great explosion of anti-papal rhetoric).

Generous, heroic history—populist rather than popular—that will shake up long-held views. . . . Tudor England is so well-cited that it’s easy to recommend to someone trying to get up to speed with current historical debates, but it’s also far from dry—liberally scattered with grisly tales and memorable digressions into everything from gardening to the theatres.”—Daniel Brooks, Daily Telegraph I think that this is also an age of such sort of vivid imaginative communication. It’s such a great age of literature, that so much of that still shapes our imagination today. And that has a kind of universal appeal still. I mean, you know, Shakespeare’s never really lost his ability to inspire. You know, we’re looking at a population which is very often hovering on the poverty line. Where a landscape can seem, yes, full of riches and fertile and full of promise. But where probably every five or six years a harvest will fail. And, if a harvest fails two years in succession—or as it did in the 1590s, three years in succession—then you are seeing people who are starving. WOODING: Shakespeare didn’t take him on, did he? But then, I mean, I don’t think Shakespeare is interested in the kings who succeed, exactly. I mean, he’s more interested, isn’t he, in the turbulent era of the Wars of the Roses.

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Scene Three: Late 1557, The Works of Sir Thomas More, sometime Lord Chauncellor, wrytten by him in the Englysh tonge are published by the printer William Rastell, who was also More’s nephew. WOODING: Well, because Britain became a Protestant country, because Protestantism became a big part of its identity, we assumed for many years that when Protestantism first arrived in England in the 1520s, that it was enthusiastically welcomed, endorsed by in a great sways of society. We used to think that by 1547, England was already fairly Protestant. There is some mild revisionism. Henry VII is rescued from later Tudor propaganda and shown to be a half decent king. Mary I's reputation as the sadistic burner of Protestants is put into the context by the more than double the number killed under Elizabeth after the failed Northern uprising (although of course it is the burnings that did for Mary's reputation, not simply the number). It’s interesting that, you know, with Anne Boleyn, he’s already had an affair with her sister. So yeah, no surprises there. So, I don’t think seeing him as some kind of sexual predator is really at all appropriate. BOGAEV: Does it shed light on a play like the Taming of the Shrew? I mean, how did audiences of the day interpret the ending of the play? For instance, Kate’s big marriage speech.