Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the Tudors

The Christmas Character quiz is here: https://www.englandcast.com/christmas-character-quiz/ - I'd love to see what you got!And the ecard site is here: https://www.englandcast.com/tudor-tidings/How did the Tudors understand the human body, and why does their approach feel so strange to us today? In this episode, I explore how people in Tudor England thought about health, illness, emotion, and balance, and how the body was believed to be shaped by air, weather, and even feelings themselves. We’ll also look at where Tudor medicine overlaps with our own, and why their way of living in the body wasn’t as unscientific as it’s often assumed.

For more than three centuries, a restrained Tudor portrait was confidently labeled as Lady Jane Grey. But the woman in the painting is almost certainly not Jane at all.In this episode, we explore the evidence that the famous Wrest Park portrait actually depicts Mary Neville, Lady Dacre, a young widow navigating disgrace, poverty, and political survival after her husband’s execution. Through costume, symbolism, provenance, and later portraits, a very different story emerges.Grab your 2026 Tudor Planner here: https://tudorfair.com/products/2026-tudor-planner

Poison was the rumor that never died in Tudor England. In this episode, we look at the deaths that Tudor contemporaries believed were “too convenient” to be natural: the Scottish commissioners who fell ill during Mary, Queen of Scots’ marriage negotiations in France, the sudden collapse of Ferdinando Stanley, and the suspicions surrounding Darnley and Amy Robsart. Whether these cases were illness, accident, or something darker, the fear of poison shaped Tudor politics in surprising ways.Get your 2026 Tudor Planner here: https://tudorfair.com/products/2026-tudor-planner?_pos=1&_sid=f3a155f11&_ss=r

Margaret Douglas, niece of Henry VIII, spent her entire life at the center of Tudor politics. In this episode I look at her childhood in the royal nursery, the scandal that sent her to the Tower, her influential marriage into the Lennox family, and the choices that helped place her grandson James VI on the English throne. A detailed look at the woman who linked the Tudor and Stuart dynasties.Related episodes:Margaret Douglas' secret marriage: https://youtu.be/wIFZYwqhc90Arbella Stuart: https://youtu.be/YJKkrYLRgy8Tracy Borman on the other contenders: https://youtu.be/Uod4VosDhno

Tudor England loved true crime just as much as we do today. In this episode, we look at a few cases that gripped 16th-century audiences: the 1551 murder of Thomas Arden of Faversham, and the 1592 killing of John Brewen, preserved in a sensational printed pamphlet. These stories reveal how early printers, ballad sellers, and public executions shaped a uniquely Tudor form of crime storytelling.

Intermittent fasting might feel like a modern idea, but Tudor England practiced a full winter fast during Advent. People cut out meat and dairy, relied on fish and simple grains, and often waited until evening prayers for their main meal. In this episode we look at what the Advent fast involved, how it shaped daily life in December, and why it ends up sounding a lot like the fasting routines people follow today.

Today we’re looking at the Privy Council and the work it handled behind the scenes in Tudor England. This small group managed intelligence, arrests, foreign diplomacy, religious enforcement, and the constant flow of problems from every corner of the kingdom. It’s a closer look at how the Tudors actually governed.

In this episode, we trace the Vaux family from their Lancastrian beginnings in the fifteenth century to their role in the Catholic underground during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I.We follow the line from Katherine Peniston and her loyalty to Margaret of Anjou, through Nicholas Vaux’s rise under Henry VII and Henry VIII, and into the recusant world shaped by William Vaux. The story leads to Anne Vaux; her safe houses, her connection to Father Henry Garnet, and her brush with the Gunpowder Plot.

In 1591, Mabel Bagenal defied her powerful English family and secretly married Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone. Their relationship became one of the most controversial matches in Tudor Ireland, fueling tensions that were already pushing the country toward war. In this minicast, we explore who Mabel was, why she chose O’Neill, and how her decision shaped the politics around her.