Three years had passed since Cromwell had helped to orchestrate the execution of his former colleague, More, and he was not rid of him yet. There were fears that a cult was springing up around More’s legacy, one that could lead to open rebellion if it were not nipped in the bud. And so Cromwell was dispatched, to do some nipping.

The fears were warranted. More was already becoming a figurehead for Catholics, even as he was condemned by evangelicals (Protestants) as a tormenter of God’s people. Cromwell’s reputation, too, was becoming caught up in the religious conflict, presented either as the architect of Henry’s liberation from papal tyranny, or the destroyer of martyrs.

Even today the legacies of these two men are intertwined. When More is presented as a saintly scholar and statesman, Cromwell is a merciless, ambitious politician. And when Cromwell is presented as a dutiful, if flawed, servant of the king, More is shown as a cruel, stubborn zealot.

And so, their deaths ran parallel, separated by only a matter of years. Their legacies are intertwined in a pairing of protagonist, antagonist. But what about their lives? In most popular presentations we get the smallest snapshot of their relationship, one of antagonism and live-or-death struggle for the king’s favour in the context of the Break with Rome.

But my research has discovered that the relationship between these two men went back much further, stretching not over years, but decades. In understanding the longer story of Cromwell and More, we uncover the truth of that final struggle, and discover the real reason for both their deaths.

I. BEGINNINGS

In the popular mythologising of these two men, the story begins with two very different upbringings, Cromwell in the slums of Putney and More in the comfortable halls of the rich and powerful. These different starts explain or justify in some way their different approaches to serving the king: Cromwell a hardened pragmatist, More a sheltered idealist. But this does not square with my findings.

Cromwell, as we know, was born in Putney, probably around 1485, to a middling yeoman of some property, including some farming land, a brewery and tavern, and later a watermill (very little evidence he was a blacksmith). His father, despite suggestions to the contrary, seems to have been an industrious and respectable member of the community, and his mother was most likely a member of a Staffordshire gentry family. One of Cromwell’s Putney connections from his youth was Nicholas West, who went to Eton and Cambridge and in 1515 became Bishop of Ely. Though Cromwell would eventually find himself with riches, he did not exactly begin in rags.

The same can be said of More, though his start is a bit humbler than has often been shown. More was born in 1478, so may have been some 7 years Cromwell’s elder. His father was a young ambitious lawyer, John More, who himself had been the son of a baker, who had died when John was just 16. Somehow, the young man acquired a sufficient education to gain entry into the legal community of Lincoln’s Inn (John More’s early story is a lot like Cromwell’s in that way). More’s mother was the daughter of a tallow-chandler, responsible for turning animal fats into candles, a smelly business, which is probably why we find the Mores living outside the London wall, in the area around Cripplegate Without (and not, as has long been thought, in fashionable, wealthy Cheapside). Rather than growing up next to well-to-do merchants and city officials, More’s childhood was spent near the stinking ditches outside the city wall, among taverns and brothels. He didn’t live in poverty, but he was hardly born clutching a silver spoon, either.

II. EDUCATION

It is in their education that the paths of the two men diverge more dramatically. The young Cromwell made the rather radical decision to leave England completely, spending time in Italy, perhaps in the company of the great mercantile family, the Frescobaldis, and then to Antwerp. Not much is known about this time, but he returned to England with knowledge, connections and a fluency in most European languages (including Latin).

It is tempting to suggest that More took a more traditional route, but even this is not quite true. As a child, More attended the only free grammar school in London, St Anthony’s Threadneedle St, where he learned the basics of Latin grammar and the fundamental texts of the classical tradition (did Cromwell also attend a grammar school as a child? - we just don’t know). From there, More’s father used his legal connections to get More a place in the household of the then Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor, Cardinal John Morton, where More worked as a servant, but also continued his education. Morton secured him a place at Oxford – some of his fees were paid by the Cardinal, some through More’s own work, waiting at table for the monks of Canterbury College. After two years there, More returned to London, and pursued a legal education, eventually becoming a lawyer of Lincoln’s Inn, like his father.

III. LONDON LAWYERS

Let’s journey to London in 1516, to see if we can find our Thomases.

Here is More, in Bucklersbury near Cheapside. It’s the early hours so he’s sat at his desk, furiously working on his ‘little book’ (as he called it), which would come to be titled Utopia. He’d written the bulk of it the summer before, during a trade mission to the Low Countries, when he’d visited the bustling town of Antwerp. It described an ideal, impossible island, where everything was held in common and therefore there was no greed, no pride, no conflict. On his return to London, he’d started work on the opening to the text, in which the character of ‘More’ had a debate about whether a scholar ought to risk the dangers of becoming a councillor to a king. It was a question very much on his mind; Henry VIII had offered him an annuity, which he had refused. He did not want to give up his post as undersheriff in London and the trust and respect of London citizens, which he’d built up as a lawyer and member of parliament.

We can locate Cromwell not far away, also bustling about with papers in many languages. He’d returned to London not long before and may have already bumped into More. In January 1516 he’d appealed to the London Sheriffs against his imprisonment for debt; these cases were often handled in practice by the undersheriffs, including More. In the case, Cromwell had been described as a ‘gentleman’, suggesting he was already a practicing lawyer, handling cases largely to do with commerce and especially the significant Italian mercantile presence in London, a community with which More was also well connected.

Their paths, in other words, are beginning to converge.

IV. PARLIAMENT

We can confidently place them for the first time in the same room on the same day on the 15 April 1523. This is Upper Frater chamber at Blackfriars Priory in London, where Henry VIII’s 4^th parliament was held. More had been re-elected as a member of parliament for the session; it may have been Cromwell’s first time standing amongst the Commons members before the King and his Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey. Three days later, it was Wolsey who summoned More to be the Speaker for the Commons, to speak for them to the king (via Wolsey) and vice versa.

This was Wolsey’s parliament, and he had no doubt manoeuvred More into this important position. More had come to Wolsey’s attention some years before, as an able lawyer and diplomat, and from 1518 he had served as the go-between for Wolsey and the king. Contrary, then, to the usual story around Cromwell and More, in 1523 it was More who was a Cardinal’s man, not Cromwell.

Cromwell’s position in parliament more likely came thanks to his work for the Marquess of Dorset, Thomas Grey (the grandson of Elizabeth Woodville and grandfather of Lady Jane Grey). He might have slightly resented the honour.

It was a difficult parliament, to say the least, and Cromwell was particularly annoyed by it. It was the first in a very busy and violent 8 years, and had only been called because the king and cardinal desperately needed money, some £800,000, to finance the king’s war with France, to be collected through a 20% tax on all lands and goods. The irony was that it was likely that neither Wolsey nor More really supported this request, they were both ardent pacifists. But neither was in a position to do anything other than reinforce the king’s wishes or risk his wrath, never mind their beliefs on the matter.

So it was not Wolsey, nor More, who penned objections to the king’s greed and bellicosity, but Thomas Cromwell. Understanding the reasons laid out by ‘the mouth and report’ of the cardinal as well as ‘by the recapitulation of the right worshipful best assured and discreet Speaker’, (More) he nevertheless dreads the ‘slaughter, must needs ensue’ from such war, and ‘the most lamentable cries, and sorrowful wringing of hands’ as has ‘happened in Christendom many years.’ Supplying the army, he reckoned, would ‘exhaust and utterly consume all the coin and bullion within this realm’ so that Englishmen would be forced to barter with leather.

In the end, Parliament did agree to a tax, but it was significantly less than what Wolsey had demanded, and the cost was high. In the course of sitting, another thirty-four Acts were passed, including four which were simply ‘by the authority of the present parliament’, without any mention of the king.

Cromwell himself summed up the frustrations of the parliament to a friend, sarcastically reflecting that he has ‘endured a parliament’ lasting ‘seventeen whole weeks’ in which was discussed ‘war, peace, strife, contention, debate, murmur, grudge, riches, poverty, penury, truth, falsehood, justice, equity, deceit, oppression, magnanimity, activity, force, attemperance, treason, murder, felony’ and ‘how a commonwealth might be edified and also continued within our realm’. Despite this vast array of topics – or perhaps for that very reason – he concluded that ‘we have done as our predecessors have been wont to do’, in other words, ‘left where we began’. The 1523 parliament had not delivered the sort of administrative efficiency which Cromwell craved.

More was rewarded for his service, a further £100 was given to him by the king on the request of Wolsey, who was impressed with his work.

Within the year, Cromwell found himself in the service of the Cardinal.

V. REFORMATION

Though both men were by now connected with the Cardinal – More in the king’s service, but in constant correspondence with Wolsey, and Cromwell working for the Cardinal in the dissolution of monasteries to found his expensive legacy works – their paths diverge somewhat again after the close of the 1523 parliament. Cromwell travelled widely in his work with the monasteries; More stayed close to the court and king, but both men worked long hours to keep the king and the man known as the ‘other king’ (Wolsey) happy.

Neither man was ignorant of the wider goings-on in Christendom; the lines being drawn across Europe would, too, divide Cromwell and More.

More had first heard of the works of Luther in 1518, not long after the German theologian had published his Theses critiquing the Catholic Church. For the most part, More was indifferent, largely because he was simply too busy to get involved in the growing debates. Those with more time on their hands, More wrote, ‘may assess Luther’s writings for themselves’.

This changed in 1521, when Wolsey publicly burned Luther’s books, and Henry VIII took up his pen against him. A year later, Luther responded, calling Henry “slavish”, “impudent and strumpet-like”, a “damnable… worm”, and suggested that he ought to have his tongue and hands cut off before being burned. Henry could not stoop to responding, and so More was pulled into the debate (perhaps by Wolsey), the first of many (many many) texts he wrote against this ‘heresy’ in the years to come. In 1526, he took a more active role – leading men into the Steelyard in London to round up Lutheran texts and those who read them, to be punished by carrying large sticks or faggots through a freezing cold London that February.

Cromwell was being persuaded the other way on the matter. It is difficult to say precisely at what point he was introduced to unorthodox beliefs – it may have been on his travels to the continent, or sometime in the 1520s, or perhaps even as a child – but certainly by the time that More was rounding up suspected heretics, Cromwell may have secretly been one of them.

What is important to remember here, though, is that these dividing lines were only beginning to be drawn and they were shaky at best – Cromwell had pleaded with the pope to allow the printing of indulgences, More on the other hand was an advocate for an English bible and did not think the Pope was essential to the definition of the Catholic Church.

There is no better example of this fluidity than a meeting which took place around this time at More’s home in Chelsea between Thomas Cromwell and Miles Coverdale, an evangelical who would one day be responsible for the first sanctioned English Bible.

Thus, by the end of 1526, we can find these two men, long known to each other, exchanging a greeting as they busily pass each other in the corridors of power, extending an invitation for a drink or a meal, and engaging in debate about matters of politics and religion with other great minds of the age.

Perhaps they were friends. They were certainly not enemies.

At least, not yet.

PART TWO COMING SOON.

For references see: Joanne Paul, Thomas More (Penguin 2025) and Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cromwell (Penguin 2018).

As a freelance writer, I have to write quickly without losing quality. As a mum of two young children, finding the time is a daily struggle. Here are some of the strategies I’ve found useful over the years, in the hopes they might help you as well.

1. Rhythm is a Writer.

   Figure out what your rhythms are and respect them. Some people advise hitting your desk and writing first thing, and doing emails at the end of the day. I can’t work until I know that there is nothing urgent in my inbox. Likewise I am neither an early bird nor a night owl. I am some sort of daytime sparrow. Of course sometimes you have to adjust to a new rhythm, but don’t force someone else’s on yourself unnecessarily.

2. Strike while the interest is hot.

   Ride the wave of your interest and make the most of it. If you’ve got something to work on and you wake up bubbling about it – go for it. Get it out now. Much better than having to force it later. Writing is like a child, it can read all your forced smiles and efforts and it is not impressed. Of course, interest can often be the mask worn by procrastination on another project so beware, but in general if you are juggling deadlines, work on the one for which you have the excitement now.

3. Free your mind.

   Your mind needs time untethered, when it is allowed to wander, free from reading, listening, talking, or scrolling. All of those things can be crucial fuel to writers, but without the time to settle in your mind and space to develop, they can’t do their work. It’s like skipping corpse pose in yoga; you lose the benefits if you don’t take time to just be. And of course, something to jot down your ideas when they do emerge is essential to a good harvest.

4. Go to bed hungry.

   It can be very tempting to end a writing session with a sense of completion, finishing a chapter, section, etc. It does feel like an invitation to down tools, and get on with the rest of your day/evening. But this can be a recipe for disaster for future-you. The next time you sit down, you will be faced with a new empty page and no idea where to start, without the advantage of momentum and the ideas that marinated overnight. So, do yourself a favour. Spend just another 5 or 10 minutes setting up what’s next. Give your future-self a puzzle to solve, a sense of direction, an outline, a hook and some tempting ellipses. Anything to get the ball rolling. And it’s not just about the next writing session. By just making the smallest start on the next task, your brain will keep working on it as you go about your day. This is the exciting bit, when your brain churns out ideas without your intervention. But it can only happen if you keep the door open, the stew on the simmer. Don’t get up from your desk and cheat yourself of this when you feel that sense of completion. Instead, tear yourself away when you’re just getting excited about what comes next.

5. Don’t make time. Take it.

   There are 24hrs in a day; you can’t will more into existence (trust me, I’ve tried). Writing time will have to come from these 24 hours, even if they might have been allocated elsewhere. And they might come in smaller snatches of minutes rather than hours. I’ve lately been clearing my kids’ nap time by eating an early lunch with them and getting chores done while they’re playing. This wasn’t possible when they were younger, but it is now. And it gives me an hour or so to write while I still have a bit of energy (as opposed to the end of the day when I just collapse). I used to only get into my work if I had a whole day to work with, but needs must, and I’m enjoying the way it gives me the opportunity to just do a little something for the day - edit a section, finish a scene, or read a primary source.

When I think of Thomas More, with his volumes upon volumes of work, I often think of that line from Hamilton - ‘why do you write like you’re running out of time?’. But the bigger question, I think, is ‘how do you write when you’re running out of time?’. These are some of my tips — what are yours?

Reporting from London, ambassadors were sure that Elizabeth was ‘determined to take th’one’ - Robert - ‘and give [Mary] th’other’ - Ambrose, using the Dudley brothers to exert control over the whole of Britain.1 Mary, for her part, took it all as a bit of fun, scandalising her secretary of state. ‘She wished to God the earl of Warwick,’ he reported, ‘had the grace and good looks of Lord Robert, in which case each could have one.’ As it was, though he was ‘not ugly either, and was not ungraceful’ and ‘was so brave, so liberal and magnanimous that truly he was worthy of being the husband of any great princess’, she could not overlook his brusque soldier ways. His manner, she commented ‘was rather rough and he was not so gentle as Lord Robert.’2

One cannot escape the conclusion that the Queen of Scots was teasing her secretary, and by extension those who heard the tale, including Elizabeth. Neither party seemed to take the suggestion of the pair of Dudley consorts that seriously, but the gossiping ambassadors did.

Ambrose’s court career after his return from Le Havre was not as glamorous or scandalous of that of his brother, but he still played a critical role in some of the most important and dramatic moments in Elizabeth’s reign - especially those to do with the Queen of Scots - and, perhaps most movingly, in his own brother’s life. Ambrose and Robert were a pairing throughout Elizabeth’s reign, and the Dudley dominance in Warwickshire particularly comes from their shared power. The bear and ragged staff, associated with the earldom of Warwick, was shared between the two brothers in a way that was entirely unprecedented in English history.3 It is no wonder that in his will, Robert Dudley broke with convention and became emotional, leaving to his ‘dear and noble brother… as dear an affection as as ever brother bear to other.’4

Read Part One

Not long after Ambrose’s name was bandied around in regard to the Queen of Scots, he became maritally unavailable. On the 11 November 1565, the Earl of Warwick married Anne Russell, the daughter of the earl of Bedford.5 Aged just 16, she was almost half his age and his third wife. No living children had resulted from his first two marriages, the second of which had ended miserably. Anne’s age and pedigree lent new hope to the prospect of a Dudley heir. The wedding was celebrated as if the couple were members of the queen’s own family. Anne and Ambrose wore matching purple velvet - Anne’s embroidered in silver and Ambrose’s in gold. The bride wore a caul of gold over her auburn hair. Once Anne and Ambrose were in place, the queen herself entered, giving her royal blessing to the marriage.

Prime in everyone’s minds, as they watched the grand wedding, was whether the queen might also enter a state of holy matrimony, perhaps with the man who gave the bride away, Ambrose’s brother, Robert. A year into his marriage, Ambrose was instrumental in the preparation and delivery of a petition from parliament to the queen regarding her marriage and the succession. In the past, the queen had taken this kindly, but been firm in her refusal. Now, several years into her reign, she was less accommodating. ‘When I call to mind,’ she railed against them, ‘how far from dutiful care, yea, rather how nigh a traitorous trick this tumbling cast did spring, I muse how men of wit can so hardly use that gift they hold.’6 Ambrose Dudley, grandson, son and brother of executed traitors, would not have taken ‘traitorous trick’ lightly. He had been instrumental in involving the House of Lords in the petition, and was banned from the presence chamber as a result.

This had little effect on Ambrose, however, who dedicated much of his time to provincial over court politics. In Warwickshire, the Dudleys reigned supreme, and Ambrose Dudley was the key presence in the region. This extended, as we might expect, to Stratford-upon-Avon, and Dudley had direct dealings with members of William Shakespeare’s family, which is perhaps why, Shakespeare took advantage of a reference to an earlier Earl of Warwick to warn his audience to ‘hide thee from the bear’.7

Ambrose made an attempt to return to the field in 1569, in opposition to the Northern Rebellion, which had been formed against ‘new set up nobles about the queen’s Majesty’, which almost certainly included the Dudley brothers.8 Mary, Queen of Scots, had fled to England the year before, and several northern Catholic-leaning earls sought to advance her claim over that of Elizabeth’s. In the end, there was only a minor skirmish and the Earl of Warwick requested permission from the queen to disband his troops only a month after they had been commissioned, in part due to ‘sickness’, perhaps related to the wound he had suffered at Le Havre.

The spectre of the Queen of Scots did not cease to haunt the Earl of Warwick, however, and the entirety of the English court. He was a member of the committee that laid out the nature of the Ridolfi Plot - another conspiracy to replace Elizabeth with Mary - and recommend a course of action in response, namely that the deposed Scottish queen be tried for treason. Though this bill passed both Houses of Parliament, it was vetoed by the queen, who did not want to execute a fellow anointed sovereign.

She had no such qualms about members of her own family, however. In 1572, Ambrose Dudley was a member of the jury that tried Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, for scheming to marry Mary and overthrow Elizabeth. The trial lasted 12 hours, but the duke was convicted of treason and sentenced to die, including by Ambrose and his brother. This might have felt like justice in more ways than one, as the Howards had hated the Dudleys for generations, and gloated each time they fell. Though Robert had once sided with this particular Howard, he joined his brother in condemning him to a traitor’s death. It would be almost a hundred years before another Duke of Norfolk graced the English court.

‘If I were as you,’ Ambrose wrote his dear brother in March 1586, ‘I would go to the furthest part of Christendom rather than ever come to England again.’9 Ambrose had not heard from his brother in some months, since he left for the Netherlands before Christmas. But he had heard the reports that Robert Dudley had taken on the role of Governor of the United Provinces, a princely title, without permission from the queen, and incurred her wrath. ‘Our mistress’s extreme rage doth increase rather than in any way diminish’, he warned his younger brother, ‘and giveth out great threatening words against you’. In short, ‘her malice is great and unquenchable.’ Ambrose had been unable to travel to the Netherlands with his brother and other members of their family; he was too infirm. All he could do was write letters that might never reach Robert, warning him of the deep and dangerous trouble he was in, and do his best to intercede with the queen.

In the end, a combination of pleading with the queen and scapegoating Robert’s poor secretary worked, and Robert was returned to the queen’s favour. The mission to the Netherlands was disastrous all the same, and cost the life of Ambrose’s nephew and protege, Sir Philip Sidney.10 As Philip lay dying in Arnhem, three hundred miles away, at Fotheringhay Castle, Ambrose Dudley attended the arraignment of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had once joked would be his bride. She said little throughout her trial, though, perhaps reminded of that exchange two decades before, reportedly turned to Ambrose specifically and told him ‘that she had heard he was an honourable gentleman’, and wished him ‘not to believe all things he had heard of her’.11 Ambrose did not attend the Star Chamber meeting that determined Mary’s guilt, and it was his brother who was instrumental in delivering the execution order that killed her.

Robert himself died on the 4 September 1588, weeks after preparing troops to face the prospective invasion of the Spanish Armada. Ambrose Dudley had been too ill to participate. He was named in as his younger brother’s heir, but died only 18 months later, reportedly in great pain and his wife distraught. In his final will, written a month before his death, he bestowed most of his lands and properties to his wife, who was also named as executrix, largely to pay off his substantial debts. Bequests also went to his nephews, Thomas Sidney and Robert Sidney and Ambrose’s sister, Katherine, countess of Huntingdon, as well as providing financial protection for his niece, Elizabeth Sidney. Neither Dudley brother left behind a legitimate son, and both their titles died with them.

Ambrose was buried just feet away from his brother in the Beauchamp Chapel, St Mary’s Church, Warwick. There you can find a life-sized effigy of the earl as he wished to be remembered to posterity, in full armour, his sword by his side. The marble tomb is inscribed with the titles and honours he received from his queen.

Ambrose Dudley’s life lacks the glamour of that of his younger brother, as the Queen of Scots well recognised. He was rougher, less graceful, and perhaps for that reason has been overlooked by histories and left out of screen representations of the period. He could be unfeeling, as he appears to have been to his second wife, but also had a great capacity for affection. He endured great hardships as a Dudley son and served his queen with unrivalled dedication. He was the son of a traitor, and very nearly the brother of a king (and perhaps even one himself). His deepest loyalty was to his family - namely his beloved brother, and one of his last acts before pain and death took him was to ensure the care of his son’s illegitimate son… but that’s another story.

How can you make your non-fiction book read like a novel? There are a number of strategies, and I am sure I will come to many of them in subsequent posts. One of the most important, however, is the inclusion of dialogue.

This becomes very tricky, of course, when you are writing about subjects hundreds of years old. Making the dead speak ought to be approached with caution (and I loved this recent article that questioned our right as historians to bring to light the secrets of the dead at all). WORD OF WARNING: you always need to frame (and cite) your ‘dialogue’ appropriately, so that the source and its limits are clear.

So here are some strategies I have employed in my books to enliven my narrative with speech.

1. Texts and Letters

   This is the easiest way to make sure that, every so often, you include some quotation marks (/inverted commas) to break up your writing. Using bits from letters to provide contemporary commentary or - if you’re very lucky - emotional insights is an essential strategy of the narrative non-fiction writer. This was especially important to me in writing my biography, Thomas More. I wanted to tell his story, at least partially, ‘in his own words’, as words were so important to More. He produced millions of them in his lifetime (‘why do you write like you’re running out of time’ indeed!) and though there are levels of self-fashioning to work through, this is still part of understanding the person he was.

   This does allow your characters to ‘speak’, but not directly to each other, and not in a way that was ever intended as speech. For that, you need some other strategies.

2. In-Text Dialogue

   This might not come up unless you’re writing about a writer. Thomas More wrote books known as ‘dialogues’ (the beginning of Utopia, for instance, is one), where two characters engage in a discussion/debate. In my biography, I was able to lift such conversation and present it as dialogue. It helped that in many of his dialogues, there was a figure identifiable with More himself engaging with a less informed interlocutor (though Utopia is more complicated than that). More also wrote a History of King Richard III which included invented speeches and dialogue, which I pulled from, in describing those years, with an acknowledgment, of course, that these were More’s recollections/inventions.

   Again, this won’t come up often, and you are dealing with fictionalised speech and often fictionalised characters, even when they are identified with the author. “More” is not always More.

3. Ceremonies and Rites

   ‘If anyone knows of any impediment to the marriage,’ Gardiner intoned, ‘he should declare it.’ There was silence – previously existing ‘impediments’ had put an end to all but one of the king’s last five marriages – followed by relieved applause.
   Henry then took Catherine’s right hand and, repeating after Gardiner (though surely the king knew the words by now), ‘I, Henry, take thee, Catherine, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us depart, and thereto I plight thee my troth.’
   - THE HOUSE OF DUDLEY, Joanne Paul (Penguin, 2022)
   

   This is probably the most straightforward source for speech/dialogue. Given how much was invested in the choice of vocabulary for important ceremonies, we can be pretty certain that what was on the page was what was actually uttered. Religious ceremonies and rites like weddings or baptisms require getting one’s hands on the appropriate liturgy. Likewise, secular ceremonies like coronations usually have a formula which is written down to follow. You do want to be careful with this from a narrative standpoint, however, as these ceremonies can get wordy and repetitive, especially when dealing with a king who marries six times.

4. Epistolary Exchanges

   Here’s where you can get a little more creative. I’ve already mentioned letters, which can be used to enliven the narrative and bring depth to your characters. Of course, letters are often part of an on-going dialogue, so the trick becomes presenting them in a way that allows that dialogue to take place, without presenting huge blocks of text. Connecting the bits of the letters that are speaking to each other together allows this dialogue to live directly on the page.

   NOTE: With great creativity comes great responsibility. You want to be careful here to be transparent; this is not a ‘conversation’ that happened directly. You are pulling out the relevant statements from the letters and bringing them together to present to the reader. But unlike the ceremonies above, these were not words spoken, and were not intended to be.

5. Reported Speech

   You have to be very lucky to get your hands on this, and be very careful how you use it. There are three main ways that this comes up for me. The first is reports of speeches: the opening of parliament, sermons, scaffold speeches, etc. These are not dialogue, but they can be useful all the same. The aren’t usually verbatim, and when you have more than one source for a speech (even rarer!) they don’t usually wholly agree. When they do, there’s probably an agenda. Chronicles also fall into this category.

   The second source needs to be treated with even more caution. Ambassadors are great sources for reported speech, as it is expected that they will relate everything back to their rulers, without editing. This, of course, they might well do and we at a distance of centuries might not know. That being said, this is where the juicy stuff happens, and as long as you handle it with care and transparency, it’s the best dialogue you’re likely to get.
   My favourite example of reported speech that I used in The House of Dudley was Thomas Blount’s reports of his discussions with townspeople and servants after the death of Amy Robsart Dudley. Talk about juicy.

   
   Special Mention: Leicester and Davison

   This was a fun one - it’s the dialogue I included at the top of this article. This was a letter that Robert Dudley wrote in disgrace, after agreeing to become Governor of the Netherlands and enraging Elizabeth I. He blamed it all on his secretary, William Davison, who had spent the previous weeks in London, pleading Leicester’s case to the Queen. In other words, it was a real d**** move and Davison was beside himself. He wrote in the margins rebuttals to each of Leicester’s accusations against him. I presented this like dialogue (while of course, acknowledging what the source actually was) to give it the sense of emotion that actually lay behind it, and emphasise the depth of Leicester’s betrayal. Talk about throwing someone under the coach.

   

What strategies have a missed? What other questions do you have about writing lively stories about the dead?

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I was about 12 years old when I was first introduced to Ever After, and wore out my precious VHS copy in the years that followed. It was only on a recent rewatch that I realized it was my first introduction to Thomas More’s Utopia, the work I would later spend much of my career on. Though it is a retelling of a fairy tale, it had a profound effect on me as a budding historian, thanks to the little historical tidbits scattered through the film.

If you haven’t seen it (and you really must) Ever After (1998) is the tale of Danielle (Drew Barrymore, with a fabulously bad English accent), who has been raised by her step-mother, Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent (deliciously played by Anjelica Huston), following the death of her father. Her step-sisters, Marguerite (Megan Dodds) and Jacqueline (an early performance by the hilarious Melanie Lynskey) are raised as ladies while she is reduced to the status of a servant. Of course, she and the Prince (Dougray ‘millennial’s first crush’ Scott) fall in love, and with the help of a ‘fairy godmother’, Leonardo da Vinci (the late great Patrick Godfrey), find their happily ever after.

It may seem odd for the first instalment of Tudor Cinema Club to select a film which does not feature a single Tudor, but it is one of my favourite films about the 16th century and one of my first introductions to it as a child.

So, let’s look at some of the ways that this film touches on the Tudor period and see if we can identify how it grounds itself in historic 16th-century France.

1. The French Court

   The Prince Charming in this iteration of the Cinderella story has been given the name Henry, with parents King Francis and Queen Marie. Given the clues scattered throughout the film, I believe the intention is that Prince Henry is in fact the young Henry II, son of Francis I. He was born in March 1519, and became the dauphin after the death of his elder brother, Francis. His mother was not ‘Marie’, but Claude, who died in 1524 (Francis I then remarried Eleanor of Austria). Of course, Prince Henry did not marry Danielle de Barbarac - largely on account of her not existing - but rather Catherine de’ Medici, at the age of 14. He, however, did fall in love with a French noblewoman named Diane de Poitiers, who remained his mistress until his death.

2. ‘Divorce is only something they do in England’

   Uttered pointedly by the Queen as advice to her son, it is undoubtedly a reference to affairs in Tudor England and the divorce of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, which was indeed much-discussed in France. Of course, ‘divorce’ as a modern term does not quite capture Henry’s Great Matter, which is better understood as an ‘annulment’ (the two terms were used interchangeably at the time). ‘Divorce’ in the modern sense - whereby the marriage was acknowledged to have existed, but was subsequently terminated - was not something that they did, even in England. If the Queen and King were to ‘divorce’ by the Tudor meaning of the phrase, Prince Henry would be rendered illegitimate (as Mary I had been), which at least would make it the more likely he could marry poor Danielle.

3. Leonardo da Vinci

   So far, we have Prince Henry, who was born in 1519 and thus was a young man in the 1540s, and an awareness of Henry VIII’s Great Matter, which again puts us somewhere in the 1530s or 1540s. The appearance of Leonardo da Vinci, who died in 1519, somewhat muddles things. Yes, it is true that da Vinci spent time in France in the court of Francis I, following the latter’s capture of Milan. These were, however, the final years of da Vinci’s life, and the sketch which is shown at the end of the film (see below), known as La Scapigliata likely comes from an earlier period.

   His presence, however, does lead us to another Tudor connection, for also resident at the court during da Vinci’s tenure was none other than Anne Boleyn. Though there is no evidence that they ever interacted, it is likely the young Anne encountered the aging artist and perhaps even enjoyed some of the work he did for the king and his court.

4. ‘The Prince has read Utopia’

   It’s one of my favourite moments in the film, and as far as I’m aware, this is the only film to quote Utopia at length. They have chosen a passage from Book One - a debate about poverty, injustice and - as Danielle does here - giving advice to a prince. It’s a remarkable choice for a film aimed at such a young audience, and clearly paid dividends with this viewer.
   First published in Latin in 1516, Thomas More’s revolutionary text was translated into French in 1550, though both Danielle and the Prince might have read it in its original Latin. The line that she quotes to the Prince: “If you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners corrupted from infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded, sire, but that you first make thieves and then punish them?” can indeed be found in Utopia (here quoted from the 1551 English translation): “For by suffering your youth wantonly, and viciously to be brought up, and to be infected, even from their tender age, by little and little with vice; then a-God’s name to be punished when they commit the same faults after being come to man’s state, which from their youth they were ever like to do. In this point, I pray you, what other thing do you, than make thieves and then punish them?” It’s a stunning statement of some of the themes of the film while also linking to the historical moment in which it takes place.

Despite the final line of the film (below), there is not much true history in this cinematic fairy tale, but the tidbits they drop in do help create world which (slipping accents aside) does its job of making you believe. It stirs the imagination and, for me at least, left me wanting to know more. And, of course, some 20 years later, I found myself poring over the line that Danielle quotes to her Prince, working on an edition of Utopia and a biography of the man who wrote it.

What historical films mattered to you growing up? Which would you like to see next in the Tudor Cinema Club?

You have an idea. Maybe several. You have written some of that idea down. Maybe you have a whole manuscript. WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT?

To enter the world of publishing, it is a Very Good Idea to have a literary agent. They are your protectors and advocates in what can be a very cut-throat industry. That’s not to say that editors are out to get you. Some of my best friends are editors. But they will low-ball when they can, and there are some bad apples out there who will happily take you for a ride. Publishing is confusing and opaque and a good agent can illuminate the intricacies of it for you, while making sure you get the deal you deserve.

Here is the asterisk*: self publishing is definitely an option. It is something I know very little about, but many people advocate strongly for it, and I can certainly see the benefits. It’s just not something I can speak to.

So, here are my tips for getting a literary agent:

1. Practice writing and get something (maybe several things) out there.

   For me, this was actually all it took. I was fortunate enough to write a feature in BBC History Magazine, my agent saw it, got in touch and I signed with him. That’s not always going to be the case of course; I got lucky, but showing that you can write in the way that you propose to in your book really strengthens your case, and gives you something you can show a prospective agent. It’s also just good practice (and sometimes pays!).

2. Research agents.

   This can seem daunting and difficult, but there’s a pretty straightforward way of doing it. Find the authors who are writing like you do, or who you aspire to write like. Search who represents them (that information should be accessible online). Are they accepting submissions? Are they in your country? If you have friends or contacts who write, get in touch, do they know that agent? What do their clients think of them? Some agents are very hands on and provide emotional support during the writing process. Others deal with their authors at much more of a business level just at negotiating time. What are your expectations and needs?
   NB: You will find that there are small, medium and large literary agencies out there. Small ones are sometimes just one or two people. Large agencies can involve several different departments, including film & TV, children’s, etc. There are pros and cons to each. I am with a large agency; that suits my needs very well, as I’ve had the opportunity to be represented at different points by 4 different agents within that agency. Some people prefer smaller.

3. Get in touch.

   Keep the email to the agent short and to the point. Who are you, what experience do you have, what is your idea, and is it sellable. It should be at most two or three paragraphs. This is when you link to published work (step 1!) and say something about how your writing fits within that agent’s portfolio (step 2!).
   TIP: If you have a contact who is working with that agent, use it. I’ve now had two friends sign with my agent (and my editor, as it turns out), because I introduced them. Importantly, I needed to see from my friends that they could write and had an idea. No writer will want to lose credit with their agent by bombarding them with submissions that lack substance or potential. You still need everything above, your contact might just be forwarding it on for you, which will ensure the agent actually sees it.

4. Accept rejection.

   A straight ‘no’ is a blessing. It means you move on to the next contact on your list. Some agents will string you along without signing or moving on your proposal. You need someone who will take action with your work right away. You want someone who is genuinely excited about your writing, just as you are. If they aren’t meeting that, then move on. Plenty more fish in the sea.

Like the king’s champions of old, my agent does battle on my behalf. He is also a frank-speaking councillor offering advice on my writing and a crafty diplomat in the conniving courts of publishers. Just as a ruler cannot do without these, I would not advise a writer embark on the path of traditional publishing without an agent.

Best of luck, and drop any questions below. I’ll write something on next steps soon.

Ambrose has been frequently overlooked in the histories of the Elizabethan period, in favour of his younger, far more charismatic brother. As far as I am aware, he has not once been represented in film, including when his father or brothers appear. Even I can be accused of somewhat overlooking Ambrose. He appears in The House of Dudley, to be sure. But this episode in particular, Ambrose’s expedition to France, is missing, as is a lot of detail of Ambrose’s life separate from Robert’s.

There are reasons, perhaps, not to be entirely enamoured with Ambrose. As I detailed in The House of Dudley, he arguably mistreated his second wife, Elizabeth (who, by the way, was the daughter of Bessie Blount, and thus there was a chance was an illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII). She wrote desperately to Robert, begging him to to ‘send my lord home’ as she had become ‘severed from my lord’.1 It does not paint the most endearing picture.

But we also must acknowledge Ambrose’s important place in the Dudley family, and Tudor history. Born the fourth son of John and Jane Dudley in about 1531, his early life was overshadowed by those of his elder brothers, Henry and John (another older brother, Thomas, died as a child). Four brothers followed him (Robert, Guildford, another Henry and Charles) and he had 5 sisters (Mary, Margaret, Katherine, Temperance and another Catherine), though only two (Mary and Katherine) survived to adulthood.

His father, John Dudley, had risen from traitor’s son (John’s father, Edmund Dudley, was executed by Henry VIII in 1510) to Earl of Warwick by the time Ambrose was 16, based largely on his military prowess. John Dudley’s sons frequently followed him into battle. Ambrose’s eldest brother, Henry, died on the battlefields of France in 1543. Perhaps for that reason the new eldest son, John, stayed home in 1549 when Ambrose and Robert took to the field to put down Kett’s Rebellion.

In July 1553, Edward VI died, leaving the crown to Ambrose’s sister-in-law, Jane Grey Dudley, the wife of Guildford. Ambrose once again went with his father to face the forces of the Lady Mary (later Mary I), though no battles were fought. John Dudley surrendered and was soon after executed. Ambrose joined his brothers in the Tower of London, convicted of treason. There, his elder brother, John, commissioned a touching tribute to his brothers, carved into the stone walls of their prison. Ambrose is the ‘rose’, joined by his brothers Robert (‘robur’, oak leaves), Guildford (gillyflowers) and Henry (honeysuckle). John, however, fell sick at the Tower, and died days after his release. When Ambrose emerged, it was as the eldest of the Dudley sons.

And there would soon be more death. Released and pardoned thanks to the work of the women in their family (including the wife he would later abandon), the Dudleys were indebted to the new Spanish court of Philip II, recently married to Mary I. And so they joined the English forces fighting alongside the Spanish in France. There, young Henry Dudley died. From eight brothers born, only Ambrose and Robert were left.

Thanks to his brother’s close relationship (👀) to the queen, Ambrose rode just behind Elizabeth I at her coronation in 1559. By September 1561 there was talk that the queen’s continued ‘goodwill’ towards Lord Robert would result in Ambrose’s elevation to the peerage.2 This took place a few months later; Ambrose was created Baron Lisle on 25 December and earl of Warwick the following day, titles previously held by his father and elder brother, along with a number of lands largely in Warwickshire.3

He was commissioned to aid the French Protestant cause in France on the 1 October, but weather delayed his departure. This meant he was still in England when Elizabeth I fell ill with smallpox on the 10th October and soon after named Ambrose’s brother, Robert Dudley, regent with an annual income of £20,000 (that’s something like £4.6million in today’s money), should she die.4 The fact that Ambrose remained in the country, at the head of some 3,000 troops, is often overlooked in this moment, when the second Dudley coup in a decade seemed possible. As it was, by 25 October the queen was largely recovered. Ambrose Dudley made an aborted attempt to leave for Le Havre on 23 October and finally set off two days later, arriving at Le Havre on the morning of 29 October.5

The task facing Ambrose was Sisyphean. There were insufficient troops to defend the town, and not enough labour to build more defences. But Ambrose had the utmost respect for his comrades at arms. Though, he conceded, there was the usual swearing and whoring, he considered the men with whom he served ‘as noble a garrison as ever served [a] prince’. The men ‘fight like Hectors, they labour like slaves, they are worse fed than peasants, poorer than common beggars’, but they never give up.6

Ambrose, however, found his hands tied by his queen’s infamous indecisiveness. He was there to reinforce the town, but he was unable to leave it to engage the enemy, meaning Le Havre was constantly besieged. He begged Elizabeth ‘that I may have leave to go into the field with such aid as it shall please you to send for this great and weighty service’.7 And he wished ‘I were in the field with the [French] admiral’ - Gaspard de Coligny - ‘with a thousand footmen to join with his horsemen.’8

Though chaffing at the bit imposed by his queen, Ambrose did manage to improve the defensibility of Le Havre, and he was commended by those around him for his ‘wisdom, courage, wit and towardness’.9 The real problems, however, began the following summer.

‘A strange disease,’ Ambrose reported on 7 June 1563, had come amongst them, ‘whereof nine died this morning (and many before) very suddenly’.10 The plague swept through the camp at terrifying speed. Accelerated by the heat and the poor conditions, within a month Ambrose was reporting as many as 500 deaths in a week, and sometimes 100 deaths in a day. The plague, as he wrote, ‘more weakened and spoiled the best soldiers, than the enemies’ power could otherwise have wrought’.11

The plague spelled the final end of Ambrose’s expedition. At the end of July, with the queen’s permission, Warwick surrendered Le Havre. This surrender marker the final attempt by an English monarch to recover French territories, an endeavour pursued since the Hundred Years War. It also, however, marked the first of many English interventions into the European religious wars, which would continue for centuries.

The time Ambrose had spent a Le Havre had been hard, hellish even, but his bravery and leadership had earned the respect of his men, which he returned in full. His job finished, he prepared to leave. But Le Havre was not done leaving its mark on Ambrose Dudley. As he left, he was struck in the thigh by a shot from an arquebus, a long firearm. He would never recover, and he would never lead an army again.12

This did not mean, however, the end to his role in the Elizabethan court, and within a few years it was being rumoured he was being considered for another dangerous mission: husband to the Queen of Scots….

PART TWO COMING SOON.

You can find them all - and a few more! - in my shop on Bookshop.org.*

1. Handbook of Dates for Students of English History by C. R. Cheney

   This is an oldie (first published in 1945) but definitely a goodie for writing history, and a godsend for writing narrative history. It does what it says on the tin: it is a repository of dates - regnal years, Church festivals, legal calendar, etc - essential to reckoning time like a Tudor. I use it to get a sense of what a given date might have actually meant for someone living at the time - was it Whitsunday? Or perhaps it was Passion Sunday? Or the Feast of St Nicholas? This would have been incredibly meaningful for someone living in the 16th century, and it’s easy to miss, without your Cheney nearby that is.

   

2. Houses of Power by Simon Thurley

   I don’t think there are many other modern books I reference as much as do Houses of Power. Thurley describes the major palaces of the Tudor age in intimate detail, focusing on their architecture and design, along with a number of extremely helpful floor plans and images. Want to understand how to get to the king’s private chambers at Whitehall, or the layout of the renovations at Hampton Court? This is the book for you.

   

3. A Map of Tudor London by Caroline Barron, Vanessa Harding and Giles Darkes

   Not technically a book, but it is on my bookshelf, so I think it qualifies. This is a detailed, fold-out map of London in the 1520s, with many of the buildings - churches, homes, monasteries, inns, etc - labelled. There is no better way to walk the streets of Tudor London than this map (though I must also mention the brilliant Agas map project!).

   

4. Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England by David Cressy

   One of the advantages of working on the Tudor period is that so much of life was ritualised, and thus there are records concerning how these moments were meant to take place, as well as how they sometimes deviated. I turn to this book constantly for anything to do with such milestones: courtship, getting married, giving birth and dying. Cressy gives information on either side of the Reformation divide and details the debates about these changes. I can’t transport a reader to Tudor England without this one.

   

Do you have any Tudor must-haves on your shelf?

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In April I had the privilege of co-leading a tour alongside (and special guest Prof Kate Williams) for Author Fan Travel. We put together a 6-day tour of some of the most important sites in the story of Elizabeth I and The House of Dudley, and especially the mystery surrounding the relationship between the Queen and her favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.

While I can’t detail all of it here (there’s just too much!) I would like to share a few of the sites and artefacts that meant the most to me.

1. ‘His Last Letter’ - The National Archives

   I’ve written about it in The House of Dudley, but had never seen it with my own eyes. This is the letter that Robert Dudley wrote to Elizabeth I on the 29 August 1588 from Rycote. As it turned out, it was the last letter he would ever write to her, as he died suddenly a week later, on the 4 September.

   I’m not ashamed to admit I teared up seeing it in person. There are a number of reasons it is an intensely moving manuscript.

   

   Sometime after receiving it, and hearing the news of Robert’s death, Elizabeth wrote the words ‘his last letter’ on the back, and kept it by her bedside until her own death, fifteen years later. It speaks volumes, I think, to the affection that these two shared over their lives. Whether or not they were ever lovers in the modern sense, there was undeniably love between them.

   What I think a lot of people miss, and what I made sure to point out to our tour guests, was another sign of their connection, hidden in the first line of the letter. There, Robert writes that he is Elizabeth’s ‘poor old servant’ and adds two little dashes over the ‘oo’s in ‘poor’. This is their secret little symbol between them, a nod to Elizabeth’s pet name for him, her eyes. He is more than just her ‘poor old servant’, he is the man she danced with, flirted with and depended upon. He is and always will be, hers.

   

   You can see more images and read a transcription here.

2. ‘The Noble Imp’ - St Mary’s Church, Warwick

   
   Robert spent most of his life torn between the duty he had to his queen and that he had to his family. Often, they went hand-in-hand. By prioritising service to his queen, Robert ensured her favour and thus his and his family’s standing in the Elizabethan court. But there was a fundamental conflict. Robert was aware that if he married again (and more on the mysterious end of his first marriage soon) he risked displeasing her. As he put it to his mistress, Douglas, Baroness Sheffield, there was nothing he wanted more than to continue his family line “being now the last of my house” except, that was, to retain the favour of his queen. So when Douglas bore Robert a son, he was illegitimate.

   
   But Robert’s awareness that he could have a son - this was his first - might have changed things for him. And in 1578 he married Lettice Knollys, Countess of Essex (for more on her, do read Nicola Tallis’s fantastic book!) in secret. Of course, the queen eventually found out, and threw them both out of court. Robert’s standing recovered, Lettice’s never did, but in 1581, she gave birth to their son, named Robert for his father, and it all seemed worth it.

   

   
   Robert doted on his son, titled Lord Denbigh. No fewer than three portraits were produced of him before he reached the age of three (one where he was naked!), entirely unprecedented for a Tudor child. We also know he destroyed a bit of art toddling around; a portrait of a gentlewoman in their home at Leicester House was ‘All broken and quite defaced by my young Lord of Denbigh’. 1
   
   Unfortunately, at the age of three, Robert, Lord Denbigh died. His parents were devastated. When another courtier wrote to offer his condolences, he did so by telling Robert ‘‘God will increase you with many good children, which I wish with all my heart’. Robert responded that ‘I do thank you for the care you take for the loss of my young son, which was indeed, my good Lord, great to me for that I have no more and unlikely to have, my growing old.’ - Lettice was past the age at which she would have children, and thus Robert would not have any more either. They paid for an elaborate tomb in the Beauchamp Chapel at St Mary’s Church in Warwick for ‘the noble imp’ as they called him. When Robert and Lettice later died, they were laid to rest in the same chapel as their son.

   

   
   You can feel the grief that Robert and Lettice felt at the death of their son standing next to his tomb, just meters away from their own. It is the grief of any parents at the death of a child, compounded by the fact that there would be no more of their union. The Noble Imp was the last of the House of Dudley.
   

3. A home for veterans, then and now - The Lord Leycester Hospital, Warwick

   
   Just a short walk away from Robert Dudley’s resting place at St Mary’s is a ‘hospital’ (from ‘hospitality’, a home) that he established for retired soldiers, the Lord Leycester. Founded in 1571, the Lord Leycester still provides a home for retired British service members, who lead tours of their historic building.
   
   Our tour guide was the brilliant and witty Gordon, who took us through the rooms, courtyard and garden. You could feel what the space offered to those who came to live there - a retreat, a community, a peaceful home. He shared with us that several former residents - and his friends - had asked that their ashes be laid to rest in the garden, and it was impossible to escape the deep, enduring meaning of what Robert Dudley had established on this site, 455 years before.

   

   
   Robert was a soldier himself, he had first joined his father’s campaign in 1549, at the age of just 17, and one of his last major acts was to oversee preparations for the Spanish Armada in 1588 at West Tilbury, just weeks before his death. He had lost two brothers to war - even decades later he spoke of how the younger’s death, which he witnessed, was always before his eyes - and his elder brother, Ambrose, had been severely injured in battle. Robert knew the costs of being a soldier, and so he established a place of rest and respite for those who had served their country.
   
   That the Lord Leycester Hospital continues to provide this 455 years later is a testament to Robert’s endowment, the work of all who have protected it and the community that has been carefully fostered there over the centuries. It is a living legacy and history in the present, and I would highly encourage giving it a visit, if you have not been already.

   

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1. How did the Tudors talk about sex?

   I have a list of some of my favourite Tudor slang (perhaps I will post that another time!), but of course it’s the sex/body parts that add the most colour to a Tudor production. Some of my favourites include: for female genitalia - ‘pie’, ‘pond’, ‘corner’, ‘plum’ and the rather unoriginal ‘hole’, for male genitalia - ‘prick’, ‘shaft’, ‘tool’, horn’, ‘pollicock’ and ‘pride’, for pubic hair - ‘feathers’, fleece’, ‘flush’, ‘moss’, ‘plush’ and ‘plume’, and for having sex - ‘bedsport’, ‘swiving’, ‘tupping’ and the very classy ‘tilling the fields of Venus’.

2. What was a wedding reception like?

   This was actually a hard one, as there were set services for the ceremony, but the parties afterward varied significantly, and not much was written down. We do know they were seldom dry affairs; people were often drunk before they got to the church (which was first thing in the morning!) and very riotous. Once they got back to the home for the meal and dancing it was a party indeed. There were lots of saucy games - kissing games, games with garters and so on. They did not throw a bouquet, but they did throw the bride’s stocking - at her! The first man to hit her in the nose would be next married. And there was no wedding cake, but there was a ‘bride-pie’ (which, given the above, had a double meaning!).

3. What were the Tudors like at meal-time?

   As the question was about Tudor nobility, I focused on a large midday meal (notably, not called a ‘banquet’ - that was something else!) held in a hall. Food was served on trenchers - large plates or bread - and you were expected to bring your own cutlery (BYOC), a knife and spoon (forks were for foreigners). Napkins were slung over the shoulder (like parents do with a burping baby). Ideally you would use this for wiping your hands and blowing your nose, but blowing your nose into your hand was still common. Bread could also be used as a napkin, especially for cleaning your cutlery - plus then you get to eat it.

4. What did they do when they were bored?

   We know more about what Tudors weren’t supposed to be doing with their leisure time than what they actually did. ‘Idle activities’ were looked down upon and often made illegal. Football, for instance, was banned by statute. Instead, Tudor men were required by law to spend their Sunday afternoons practicing archery, and women had too much to do around the house to have much free time! But when there were some moments of boredom, there were games involving dice - ‘main’ where the aim is to get as close to 31 but not over, cards - ‘prime’ where you count up the points of the cards in your hand, and coins - ‘shovegoat’ - where you slide your coins across the table to marked targets (think of curling in miniature, with money). And of course, there was always swiving!

5. How did the Tudors insult each other?

   Here’s some more fantastic Tudor slang to add colour to any story or drama. A lot of them have to do with - you guessed it - sex. A woman you could describe as a ‘bawd’ (a procuress), a ‘quean’ (a prostitute), or a ‘punk’ (a lower-class strumpet). A man might be a ‘smell-sock’ (someone who smells women’s underwear!) or a ‘carl’ (someone of low or rude manners). They had a lot of words for whores, including ‘drab’, ‘guinea hen’, ‘trull’, ‘jill’, ‘goose’ and ‘mackerel’. My favourite insult, however, and one I would not much mind, is a ‘candle-waster’ - in today’s language - a book-worm!

So, my fellow candle-wasters, do you have any fun questions you’ve been dying to ask?

John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, wrote a heartfelt letter reflecting on his decision to return to court, just a year before he put his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey on the throne, for which he was executed. His mother, Elizabeth Grey, has barely been studied, and yet was one of the powerhouses of the early Tudor period. Thomas More was not born where the plaque says he was but (entirely coincidentally!), a place now called ‘Thomas More Gardens’. Two of the most history-changing events of the 16th century happened on the same day in 1527, a thousand miles apart.

Making History is about the period I study, Tudor England and Renaissance Europe, but it is also about the art of producing history. I’m a historian and I’m a writer, and I am dedicated to both crafts. I’ve spent years working both on how to study the past, and how to communicate it in a captivating way - in books, on television, in lecture halls (and to any passerby who will listen).

This is a space to think about both sides of what it is to be a historian. The history itself: profiles of overlooked historical figures, insights into discoveries I’ve made in the archives, excerpts from my work that never made it into print, and some fun bits - counterfactuals and film/tv breakdowns.

But also the making of that history: how I craft my scenes, advice I’ve received that I’ve found helpful (or not!), books I cannot do without and insights from other genres.

And, of course, I will be hoping you will tell me a little bit about what you’d like to see here, too.

The writing here is free, all of it, always. If you are kind enough to support my work, paid supporters will get to suggest topics, join Q&A, get advance access and other benefits. Founding members based in the UK (the first 20) will also get a signed copy of one of my books in the post as a special thank you.

I look forward to making history with you,

Joanne

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