“Two such courts as those of France and England have not been witnessed for the last fifty years.” Niccolo Sagudino, 1515 They had to be strong if they wanted to make it in a man’s world. They lived on the brink of the golden age of the European Renaissance and witnessed social and religious upheavals as the medieval world they knew crumbled to dust, replacing the old with the new. In this new book, Sylvia Barbara Soberton paints a vivid picture of the rivalry between the courts of England and France during the reigns of Henry VIII and Francis I. Set against the backdrop of sixteenth-...

Everyone knows that Henry VIII had six wives, two sisters and two daughters. All of these women received attention in academic circles and are the subjects of countless biographies. Not many people, however, realize that Henry VIII also had a niece, a daughter-in-law and a mistress, who were close friends, but who today remain on the fringes of history. Margaret Douglas was the daughter of Henry VIII’s elder sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland. She was imprisoned thrice, and each time, as she admitted, “not for matters of treason, but for love matters”. Her legacy includes marrying her...

Gertrude Courtenay led a dangerous life, both in a personal and political sense. Daughter of a prominent courtier, she started her career as maid of honour and then lady-in-waiting to Katharine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife. She sided with the Queen during the Great Matter, as the divorce case between Henry VIII and Katharine of Aragon was then often known. A bitter enemy of the King’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, Gertrude plotted and intrigued with Henry VIII’s enemies, brushing with treason on many occasions. Wife and mother of the last Plantagenets of the Tudor court, Gertrude ...

“Partners both in throne and grave, here rest we two sisters Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of one resurrection.” This inscription is visible on the tomb where Elizabeth I and her half sister, Mary I, lie buried together in one vault in the North Aisle of Henry VII’s Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey. It is the relationship between Elizabeth and her Scottish cousin Mary Stuart that is often discussed and pondered over while the relationship between Elizabeth and her own half sister is largely forgotten. Yet it is the relationship with Mary Tudor that forged Elizabeth’s personality ...

Anne Boleyn was raised in Belgium and France, spending seven years at the most glittering and progressive courts of Europe. Her mentors were the most brilliant and fascinating women of the sixteenth century: Margaret of Austria, Louise of Savoy, Claude of Valois and Margaret of Navarre. It is from them that Anne received a spiritual and humanistic education and learned how women could wield power and use it for greater good. When she returned to England, Anne was equipped with knowledge and Continental gloss that most of her female contemporaries lacked. In The Forgotten Years of Anne ...