Do you find most of the portraits of Elizabeth I frustratingly aloof? The majestic ‘Virgin Queen’, her face and hair puffed and powdered to within an inch of her life, her body stiff and her gowns brimming with the carefully crafted symbolism of power, purity and wisdom? I do. That was until one lazy afternoon …
Tomorrow marks the day when an English queen was executed on charges that were almost certainly entirely fabricated. She joined her five co-accused in death at the hands of the swordsman from Calais. Her name was Anne Boleyn. In this article, we are honouring her memory in a slightly unusual blog. I invite you to …
This is the story of a legend. It concerns Anne Boleyn; a woman who in so many ways remains an enigma, despite the huge amount of interest in her life. One such mystery is wrapped around her time spent in France, where legend states that Anne stayed in the Château de Hurepoix, in Briis-sous-Forges, just …
To Charles Brandon, Katherine of Aragon was simply ‘the most obstinate woman that may be’. Having been discarded by her second husband, Henry VIII, she was cast into exile, being moved from one property to another, understandably much to Katherine’s chagrin. The penultimate of these was Buckden Palace on the edge of the Cambridgeshire fens. …
Easter is upon us; it is a time of rebirth and celebration. But in Tudor terms, what springs to mind for you when you think of Easter? For me, well, I immediately think of Greenwich Palace. For it was at Greenwich Palace that Anne Boleyn was first publicly presented as queen, at Easter, on the …