Tudor History with Claire Ridgway

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Was Bess of Hardwick a Tudor gold-digger, or was she simply a remarkably shrewd woman who knew how to make the most of her opportunities?

Bess married four times, outlived all four husbands and became one of the wealthiest people in Elizabethan England. It's hardly surprising that she's sometimes been accused of marrying her way to a fortune!

But was that really what happened?

In this video, I'm investigating Bess's four marriages...

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Did Henry VIII really have a stairlift? It sounds extraordinary, but there's a historical account claiming that, towards the end of his life, Henry VIII had become so large that he couldn't manage stairs and had to be moved up and down by a mysterious device.

But what exactly was this device?

In this video, I'm digging into the historical evidence, from the testimony of the Duke of Norfolk's mistress, Elizabeth Holland, recorded by...

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I've spent years researching Tudor history, written books about it and made hundreds of videos. But I've been wrong about Tudor history, and I'm perfectly happy to admit it!

In this video, I'm talking about why changing your mind isn't a weakness, particularly when you're researching history. Sometimes the evidence challenges things you've believed for years, and sometimes familiar stories turn out to be far less reliable than you'd thought.

I'll share how my...

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Could people really smell Henry VIII coming from three rooms away?

You may have heard the story that Henry VIII's leg ulcers were so awful that people could smell him coming from several rooms away. It's certainly a horrible thought, isn't it?But where does this story actually come from? Who first wrote about it? Was it someone at Henry's court, one of the ambassadors, or perhaps one of his physicians?

After doing all...

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To celebrate 80,000 subscribers, Tim takes on my Tudor History Challenge! Play along with five rounds of Tudor trivia and tell us your score out of 45 in the comments. Did you beat Tim? Thank you for being part of The Anne Boleyn Files community. Subscribe for more Tudor history, mysteries and research.

QUESTIONS

Round 1: Fact or Fiction?

What was wrong with Henry VIII's legs? Was it a jousting injury, chronic ulcers, an infection, or even syphilis? And did that famous jousting accident in 1536 really cause the leg problems that plagued the Tudor king for the rest of his life? I've been digging into the contemporary accounts of Henry VIII's health, and some of the things I've discovered have made me question stories I've read, and even repeated myself, over the years! In this video, I'm looking at when Henry's leg problems actually began, what Tudor ambassadors reported about his painful sores and leg ulcers, and just...

Can you steal someone else's historical research? And does publishing something first mean you own the idea?

I've been researching Anne Boleyn for nearly twenty years, but that doesn't mean I own her story, the historical sources I've used or the questions I've asked!

I've seen quite a few accusations recently about people stealing historical ideas, theories and research, and it's got me thinking about where we actually draw the line. I've had my own work plagiarised over the years, so I know how horrible that is, but I also think we need to be...

A viewer recently emailed me with some well-meaning professional advice: she found my bare arms, flushed skin and tattoos distracting from my history content, and suggested that I might consider wearing a blouse or even a turtleneck when filming.

There was just one rather wonderful irony...The two visible tattoos she suggested I cover up are both connected to Anne Boleyn - and one of them seemed to provide the perfect response from nearly 500 years ago:"Ainsi sera, groigne qui groigne."

Or, as I like to translate it: "Let them grumble. That's the way it's...

Did Catherine Howard really confess that she intended to have sex with Thomas Culpeper? I've seen this claim repeated in books and online, and something about it has been bothering me. So, while researching Catherine Howard for my recent event, I decided to go down this particular Tudor rabbit hole and look at the records from 1541 and 1542, and the case made against Catherine, and ask a very simple question: Who actually said what? Because there's an important difference between what Catherine admitted, what was said about her, and what was later presented as fact.

Listen to the...

You've probably heard the famous rhyme about Henry VIII's six wives:"Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived."But mention it online, and you tend to get someone saying, "Actually, Henry didn't divorce Catherine of Aragon or Anne of Cleves. Their marriages were annulled.

"But is that correction actually right?

In this video, I'm looking at what "divorce" meant in the sixteenth century, why Tudor terminology doesn't fit neatly with our modern distinction between divorce and annulment, and what contemporary sources actually say.

We'll look at medieval canon law, Henry VIII's sister Margaret Tudor...

We spend so much time talking about Anne Boleyn's extraordinary rise and her dramatic fall that we often skip over the bit in between, but what was Anne actually like as Queen of England?

Anne was Henry VIII's queen for just three years, but during that short time she acted as an intercessor, supported scholars and universities, promoted religious reform, gave to the poor, patronised artists and used her access to Henry VIII to help people who appealed to her.

In this instalment of my Anne Boleyn documentary series, I'm looking at Anne "the queen...

Who would agree to become Henry VIII's fourth wife?

By late 1537, Henry VIII was back on the marriage market. Catherine of Aragon had been banished, Anne Boleyn had been executed, and Jane Seymour had died shortly after giving Henry the legitimate son he had longed for.

Now the 46-year-old king needed another queen.

And so began an extraordinary search across Europe.

In this video, I'm giving Henry VIII's search for wife number four the Tudor Blind Date treatment as we meet some of the women considered by Henry and his government.<...

One of the most famous quotations attributed to Mary of Guise is her alleged reply to Henry VIII's proposal of marriage:

"I may be a big woman, but I have a very little neck."

It's a wonderful story, cleverly alluding to Anne Boleyn's execution and Henry VIII's reputation. But did Mary of Guise really say those words?

In this video, I investigate the evidence by examining contemporary diplomatic correspondence, including the dispatches of the French ambassador Castillon, along with the works of John Knox, John Lesley, George Buchanan, Agnes Strickland, Antonia Fraser, John...

It's one of the most famous stories surrounding Henry VIII's fourth marriage. Hans Holbein the Younger was supposedly sent to Cleves to paint Anne's portrait, produced an image that made her look far more attractive than she really was, and Henry agreed to the marriage - only to be bitterly disappointed when he finally met Anne in person.

But is that actually what happened?

In this podcast, I'm going back to the evidence from 1539 to investigate what Henry VIII really knew about Anne of Cleves before they met.

Did Christina of Denmark really tell Henry VIII, "If I had two heads, one would be at His Majesty's disposal"?

It's one of the most famous quotations associated with Henry VIII's search for a fourth wife. Christina, the young widowed Duchess of Milan, was considered as a possible bride for the Tudor king in 1538, and the story goes that she responded to Henry's interest with this wonderfully cutting remark.

But did she actually say it?

This question came up in the comments on my recent video about Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves...

Did Henry VIII Have Erectile Dysfunction? The Anne of Cleves Bedroom Mystery

Did Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves ever actually "do it"?

Henry claimed that his marriage to Anne was never consummated because he found his new wife so unattractive that he simply couldn't bring himself to have sex with her.

But what if we've spent nearly 500 years looking at the wrong person?In this video, I take a fresh look at the contemporary evidence surrounding Henry VIII's short-lived marriage to Anne of Cleves. From their awkward first meeting at Rochester and...

Why did so many people believe Henry VIII would remarry Anne of Cleves after Catherine Howard's fall?

While researching my forthcoming event, The Rise and Fall of Catherine Howard, I noticed something fascinating. Anne of Cleves kept appearing in the primary sources surrounding Catherine Howard's downfall.

By the end of 1541, Catherine Howard's marriage to Henry VIII was collapsing, and rumours spread rapidly across England and Europe that Henry would take Anne of Cleves back as his wife.Anne's own brother instructed his ambassador to seek a reconciliation. The King's Council investigated extraordinary rumours that Anne...

Was Henry VIII a narcissist? A psychopath? A sociopath?

These labels are increasingly applied to England's most famous king, but after years of researching Henry VIII and reading contemporary sources, I don't think the evidence allows us to make that kind of diagnosis.

In this video, I explain why I believe there's an important difference between judging Henry VIII's actions and trying to retrospectively diagnose his personality using modern psychology. I also explore why I don't believe there were "two Henrys", why context matters, and why reducing complex historical figures to a single label can...

Why did Henry VIII marry so differently from other European monarchs?

Most Renaissance kings married for diplomacy, alliances and dynastic advantage. Personal attraction might have mattered, but politics usually came first.

Henry VIII repeatedly did the opposite.

Instead of choosing the most politically advantageous bride, he often pursued the woman he personally wanted to marry, even when it transformed the course of English history.

In this video, I explore why Henry approached marriage so differently from rulers such as Ferdinand of Aragon, Francis I and Charles V. Was he shaped by...

People often call Anne Boleyn the love of Henry VIII's life, but was she really?

In this video, I'm taking a closer look at one of the most romanticised relationships in Tudor history and asking whether we've mistaken obsession, desire and possession for love. Henry VIII pursued Anne Boleyn for years, wrote her passionate letters, and changed the course of English history in order to marry her, yet in 1536, when Anne was arrested, imprisoned in the Tower and accused of adultery, incest and treason, where was that love?

I'll be exploring Henry's relationships with Anne...

The history of immigration in England is far older than many people realise. Immigration in Tudor England, medieval England and even Roman Britain helped shape the nation we know today.

People often talk about immigration as though it is a modern issue, but England's history tells a very different story.

In this video, we explore over a thousand years of migration to England, from the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans to medieval Jewish communities, Flemish weavers, Italian bankers, Tudor refugees, African residents and Muslim diplomats.

You'll discover how immigrants helped shape England's economy, culture...

#TudorHistory #FootballHistory #WorldCup

England waited anxiously for the birth of Anne Boleyn’s child in 1533.

Henry VIII had broken with Rome, overturned his kingdom, and married Anne believing she would finally give him the son and heir he desperately wanted. Astrologers predicted a prince, celebrations were prepared, a letter announcing the birth of a male heir had even been drafted in advance, but behind the splendour of Greenwich Palace lay the terrifying reality of Tudor childbirth.

In this video, I explore Anne Boleyn’s confinement, the ritual of “taking her chamber”, Tudor beliefs and superstitions surrounding labour, the dangers...

On 20th May 1536, just one day after Anne Boleyn’s execution, Henry VIII became formally betrothed to Jane Seymour. Even by Tudor standards, many saw the speed of the relationship as shocking and unseemly.

In this off-the-cuff video, I explore the gossip and murmuring at court following Anne’s fall, ask why Henry was in such a desperate hurry, and consider whether fears of pregnancy may have played a role. I also reflect on what the atmosphere at court must have been like after the sudden destruction of the Boleyn faction — Anne gone, George Boleyn dead, courtiers execut...

Two young princes vanished inside the Tower of London, and history has never agreed on what happened next.

In 1483, Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, disappeared from public view after their uncle seized the throne as King Richard III. Were they murdered? If so, who was responsible?

For centuries, suspicion has fallen on Richard III, but was the case really that simple?

In this video, I explore:
• the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower
• Richard III and the evidence against him
• the role of Buckingham, Henry...

Kings were overthrown, noble families destroyed, princes vanished, and England descended into decades of civil war.

In this Beginner’s Guide to the Wars of the Roses, I explore the dynastic conflict between the rival houses of Lancaster and York, a struggle that would bring down the Plantagenets and pave the way for the Tudor dynasty.

From the weak reign of Henry VI and the rise of Richard, Duke of York, to the battles of St Albans, Towton, Barnet, and Tewkesbury, this video untangles the complex family rivalries, political tensions, betrayals, and battles that shaped fi...

In this episode of my Anne Boleyn series, we explore one of the most fascinating and controversial moments in Tudor history, the possibility of a secret marriage in November 1532, followed by a formal wedding in January 1533, all before the king’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon had been officially annulled.

After years of frustration during the Great Matter, Henry stopped waiting for Rome and began acting on what he believed to be the truth: that his first marriage was invalid in the eyes of God.

But why the urgency?
What changed after the Calais me...

What if one of the most powerful men in Tudor England was responsible for helping the king go to the toilet?

It sounds like the lowest of the low, but the Groom of the Stool was anything but a menial servant. In fact, this role placed a man at the very heart of royal power.

In this video, I explore the surprisingly influential position of the Groom of the Stool under Henry VIII. From managing the king’s private chambers and personal belongings to controlling the privy purse and overseeing daily finances, this role was bu...

Did Henry VIII really have a biblical reason to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon… or was he interpreting scripture to suit his own desires?

In this video, we explore the religious argument at the heart of the King’s Great Matter: Henry VIII’s claim that his marriage was against God’s law.

Using Leviticus 20:21, Henry argued that marrying his brother’s widow brought divine punishment. But there’s a problem: his marriage wasn’t childless, and his queen strongly denied ever being truly his brother’s wife.

We’ll also examine the apparent contr...

Anne Boleyn said yes to Henry VIII in 1527, but she didn’t become his queen until 1533.

Why did it take six years?

In this video, I explore the dramatic and complex story of Henry VIII’s “Great Matter” - his attempt to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. What began as a question of conscience soon spiralled into an international crisis involving the Pope, Emperor Charles V, and the balance of power in Europe.

We’ll look at:

Henry VIII’s biblical arguments  Catherine of Aragon’s p...

Easter Sunday marks one of the most important moments in Christian history, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In this video, I explore the events of that first Easter morning through the Gospel of John, including Mary Magdalene’s discovery of the empty tomb and her powerful encounter with the risen Christ. I also share a passage from William Tyndale's Bible, a version of the New Testament that brought these words to English readers in the 16th century.

But how was Easter Sunday celebrated in Tudor England?

From darkened churches being filled with light ag...

Elizabeth I’s reign is often remembered as a Golden Age, a time of stability, cultural flourishing, and triumph over the Spanish Armada.

But was it really golden for everyone?

In this video, I go beyond the myth to explore the realities beneath the surface of Elizabeth I’s England, because while this period brought opportunity and power for some, for others it was marked by poverty, conflict, and fear.

We’ll look at:

Good Friday commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, a moment at the heart of the Christian faith, remembered as the ultimate act of sacrifice and redemption.

But how was Good Friday marked in Tudor England?

In this video, I explore both the meaning of Good Friday and the powerful, physical rituals that shaped its observance in medieval and Tudor times.

From the biblical account of Christ’s trial before Pontius Pilate and crucifixion at Calvary, to the dramatic church practices of the period, including the Easter Sepulchre and the deeply symbolic ceremony of “cree...

Maundy Thursday is often overlooked today, but in Tudor England it was marked with powerful and symbolic royal rituals.

In this video, I explore the meaning of Maundy Thursday - from the Last Supper and the washing of the disciples’ feet, to the development of royal Maundy ceremonies in medieval and Tudor England.

By the reign of Henry VIII, the monarch would wash the feet of poor people and give alms, with the number of recipients reflecting the monarch’s age.

We also have a fascinating eyewitness account from the reign of Mary I of...

Elizabeth I is often remembered as England’s greatest monarch, but why?

Her reign lasted over 44 years and saw the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the rise of Shakespeare and the arts, and the emergence of England as a global power. It’s often described as a Golden Age, but how did Elizabeth achieve all of this?

In this beginner’s guide to Elizabeth I’s reign, I explore how a woman who began life as the daughter of an executed “traitor”, declared illegitimate and even imprisoned in the Tower of London, rose to become one of Engla...

I recently watched Louis Theroux' documentary "Inside the Manosphere", in which he interviewed several members of the online Manosphere, a community of influencers promoting controversial views of women.  And I couldn’t stop thinking about Tudor England, because as I listened to these modern influencers, their ideas about women - what they expect, how they judge, and how they define women’s roles - felt strangely familiar. It connected directly with something I’ve been exploring recently: how women like Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth Woodville have been labelled as the seductress and the witch, and how history is full of women br...

For centuries, two queens have carried damaging reputations.

Anne Boleyn has often been portrayed as the ambitious seductress who trapped King Henry VIII, while Elizabeth Woodville has been accused of using witchcraft to ensnare Edward IV.

But how much truth is there in these stories?

In this podcast, I explore how both women have been vilified in remarkably similar ways, and consider how the myths about seductive queens and magical manipulation developed, and why they continue to shape how we see powerful women in history. They're not the only queens to have suffered...

For centuries, Anne Boleyn has been portrayed as the great seductress of Tudor history, the ambitious woman who bewitched Henry VIII and destroyed his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

But when we examine the evidence, the surviving sources tell a very different story.

Henry VIII’s own love letters reveal that he pursued Anne relentlessly, writing to her repeatedly and even worrying that she did not return his affection. Anne refused to become the king’s mistress and, at times, even withdrew from court to avoid him.

In this video, I explore what we a...

Before Elizabeth I became one of England’s greatest monarchs, she faced a scandal that could have destroyed her reputation , and possibly her future.

In 1547, after the death of Henry VIII, the young Princess Elizabeth went to live with her stepmother, the dowager queen Catherine Parr. Catherine had secretly married Thomas Seymour, the ambitious uncle of the new king, Edward VI.

What followed became one of the most troubling and controversial episodes of Elizabeth’s youth.

According to sworn testimony later given to the government, Thomas Seymour repeatedly entered the teenage princess’s chamber early...

Queen Elizabeth I is remembered as Gloriana, England’s Virgin Queen and ruler of a golden age.

But before the crown came danger.

Born the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth went from celebrated princess to declared illegitimate, from royal heir to political suspect. Under her half-sister Mary I, she was imprisoned in the Tower of London, interrogated for treason, and at one point believed she would not survive the night.

This video explores Elizabeth’s extraordinary journey before her accession in 1558 - her upbringing, education, political dangers, imprisonment, and the less...