European history: Renaissance

In 1533, Katherine Willoughby married Charles Brandon, Henry VIII's closest friend.

The Tudor Family is the most intriguing royal dynasty in British history.

Of the many executions ordered by Henry VIII, surely the most horrifying was that of sixty-seven-year-old Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, hacked to pieces on the scaffold by a blundering headsman.

Follow in the footsteps of Anne Boleyn from Hever Castle, to Richmond Palace and ultimately to the Tower of London.

Although the Seymours arrived with the Normans, it is with Jane, Henry VIII's third queen, and her brothers - Edward, Duke of Somerset, and Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley - that they became prominent.

Thomas Cromwell, the king's Principal Secretary, Mark Smeaton, court songster and musician, and Henry VIII are all caught up in Anne Boleyn's catastrophic fall from power and grisly death.

The Wars of the Roses were a bitter and bloody dispute between the rival Plantagenet Houses of York and Lancaster.

The reports and despatches of Eustace Chapuys, Spanish Ambassador to Henry VIII's court from 1529 to 1545, have been instrumental in shaping our modern interpretations of Henry VIII and his wives.

In recent times, globalisation has made the world more interdependent than ever before.

The six monarchs of the Tudor dynasty are phenomenally well known.

For a King renowned for his love life, Henry VIII has traditionally been depicted as something of a prude, but the story may have been different for the women who shared his bed.

Amelia Bassano was born in 1569 into a family of Venetian Jews who were court musicians to Queen Elizabeth I.

The story of Henry VIII and his six wives has passed from history into legend - taught in the cradle as a cautionary tale and remembered in adulthood as an object lesson in the dangers of marrying into royalty.

Katharine of Aragon was a central figure in one of the most dramatic and formative events of Tudor history - England's breach with Rome after a thousand years of fidelity.

As Tudors go, Elizabeth of York is relatively unknown.

The story of Anne Boleyn goes to the root of all history; what makes an individual or event memorable to later generations?

EIGHT GENERATIONS OF BOLEYN WOMEN FROM THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY TO 1603The Boleyn family appeared from nowhere at the end of the fourteenth century, moving from peasant to princess in only a few generations.

The Tudors are one of history's most infamous families and the era over which they reigned still captures the public's interest without rival.

Henry's fifth queen is best known to history as the stupid adolescent who got herself fatally entangled with lovers and ended up on the block.

During the late 1980s, a collection of sixteenth-century merchant letters appeared for sale.

'A paradise - tall, slender, grey-eyed, possessing an extreme pallor.

The complete letters, dispatches and chronicles that tell the real story of Anne Boleyn.

Ever since she first appeared in the Tudor court, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second queen, has been a mystery and a source of controversy.

On 26th April 1564, William Shakespeare was baptised in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The amazing life of Margaret of York, the woman who tried to overthrow the Tudors.

From an obscure family in a small provincial town, Shakespeare had no formal education after the age of thirteen.

Everyday life in the teeming metropolis during William Shakespeare's time in the city.

Anne Boleyn entered Henry's life just as he was seeking to discard his wife, Catherine of Aragon, for failing to give him a son.

Bessie Blount was the longest-lasting mistress of Henry VIII, and one of the earliest known.

Anne Boleyn is perhaps the most engaging of Henry VIII's Queens.

An intimate biography of the public and private life of Elizabeth I.

An accessible biography of Henry VIII by one of the country's leading Tudor experts.

A magnificent tale of family rivalry and intrigue set against Henry VIII's court.

Mary Tudor was the first female English sovereign - a ruling queen who was not simply the consort of the king.

The extraordinary true story of the 'Red Queen'.

A biography of Henry VIII's fifth wife, beheaded for playing Henry at his own game - adultery.

The marital ups and downs of England's most infamous king.

Wife, widow, mother, survivor, the story of the last queen of Henry VIII.

The first ever biography of Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third wife, who died in childbirth giving the king what he craved most - a son and heir.

The first major biography of Henry VIII least favourite wife - but the one who outlived them all.

A major new biography of the most infamous king of England.

The scandalous true story of Mary Boleyn, infamous sister of Anne, and mistress of Henry VIII.

Doomed queen of Henry VIII, mother to Elizabeth I, the epic story of Anne Boleyn.

Babies are born every day, but only once or twice in a lifetime, a child arrives who will inherit the throne.

The Tudor Age began in August 1485 when Henry Tudor landed with a small force at Milford Haven intent on snatching the English throne from Richard III.

The Henry VIII of popular legend and historical fiction is a bacchanalian figure of gargantuan proportions.

Our capital city has always been a thriving and colourful place, full of diverse and determined individuals developing trade and finance, exchanging gossip and doing business.

Thomas Cromwell was a self-made lawyer who served first Cardinal Wolsey and then Henry VIII.

Learn what went on behind closed doors in the Tudor court.

The Dramatic Rise & Fall of Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell, chief architect of the English Reformation, served as principal minister of Henry VIII from 1532 to 1540, the most tumultuous period in Henry's thirty-seven year reign.