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By Nancy Bilyeau In the spring of 1881, families across England deserted their homes, too distraught to sleep in their beds. They slept in fields or prayed in churches and chapels for God to spare their lives in the apocalypse that was foretold: "The world to an end shall come; in eighteen hundred and eighty one." The author of their terror was Mother Shipton, also known as Ursula Shipton, a woman whose prophecies had been circulating through England and beyond for centuries. The first famous man whose life she prophesied was Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the minister to Henry VIII until 1530. In often cryptic verse, the crone-like seer predicted wars, rebellions and all matter of natural disasters. After London burned in 1666, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary: "Mother Shipton's word is out." Her prophecies were published in one form or another over 20 times between 1641 and 1700. In the 1800s, her predictions grew even more terrifying: The end-of-the-world was foretol...

Judith Arnopp   Most people would agree that England’s most memorable monarch is Henry VIII. The bloody years of his reign, the executions, the break with Rome, his complex sex life have all left their mark on our imagination. He is so synonymous with England that you might even assume that a magnificent memorial stands prominently in Westminster such as the one his parents share, or the superb edifice that enshrines the resting place of his daughter Elizabeth. But you’d be quite wrong to think so.   Indeed, although buried at Windsor alongside his third wife, Jane Seymour, there is no glorious shrine, no guilded angels, just a slab set in the floor. Where once people trembled before King Henry, now many of us do not even notice when we walk over him. Death is a great leveller. In the sixteenth century monuments were intended to mark wealth, status and power, and the building of them was usually undertaken during the lifetime of the person for whom the tomb was intended. ...

By Rosanne E. Lortz We thought that the clergy of our realm had been our subjects wholly, but now we have well perceived that they be but half our subjects, yea, and scarce our subjects: for all the prelates at their consecration make an oath to the Pope, clean contrary to the oath that they make to us, so that they seem to be his subjects, and not ours. On May 11, 1532, King Henry VIII uttered this complaint to Parliament, that the clergy of the realm cared more for the Pope’s commands than they did for his own. Any Tudor-phile can tell you what happened next. Two years later Henry issued the Act of Supremacy, severing the connection with Rome and making himself “the only supreme head on earth of the Church in England.” But how did the Church of England become so reliant on the Church of Rome in the first place? How did the Pope, the bishop of the far-away city of Rome, gain authority over what happened in the British Isles? Augustine of Canterbury The story of the Pope’s involvement ...

Judith Arnopp Before the Reformation the focal point of all churches, even small ones, was the Holy Rood; a great crucifix that stood high above the congregation upon the Rood beam above the chancel. The cross was often accompanied by figures of Mary and John where candles were kept burning, paid for by the many bequests for 'the light to burn before the Rood.’  Access to the beam was by way of the Rood Loft, usually an ornately carved and painted structure set just above the Rood Screen beneath the chancel arch.  On occasion the priest would preach from the loft, lit by the candles about the Rood, the added height and position providing extra impact to his sermons. During the Reformation of the Church the changes did not at first, affect the Roods although it was ordered that the accompanying images be removed.  There were those at this time who saw the Rood as a prime object of idolatry and instances of vandalism are recorded, but the Rood was allowed to remain and ther...

By Nancy Bilyeau Memorial detail, Greyfriars cemetery in Edinburgh The discovery in a Leicester carpark of the remains of an adult male with a "cleaved skull" and "spinal abnormalities" prompted all sorts of impassioned debate until it was agreed that this indeed was the body of Richard III, the last Yorkist monarch, slain in the Battle of Bosworth on August 22, 1485, his corpse exposed to the public for all to see by orders of the victor, an obscure, exiled Lancastrian earl named Henry Tudor. As argument rages anew over Richard III's role in the disappearance of the princes, or whether Sir Thomas More and William Shakespeare defamed Richard with their descriptions of deformity of body and spirit, the location of his burial—the church of a Franciscan friary—and the actions of those who bravely took custody of a battered and naked royal corpse have gone largely unremarked. Richard III Why has Richard rested there? Clearly the last Plantagenet ruler did not design...

Judith Arnopp The Hever Portrait The subject to Anne Boleyn’s true physical appearance has been discussed time and time again in books, blogs and journals, yet it is a subject that remains endlessly fascinating, the varied opinions and theories almost as intriguing as the woman herself.  Almost instantly recognisable, Anne Boleyn’s portrait graces thousands of book covers, mugs, tea towels, key rings…her face is everywhere. But is it really her face that we are seeing? Do the portraits show us what was Anne really like? I don’t intend to hold a full debate on the portraits here but none we have are contemporary and the closest  are copies made of likenesses painted in her life time.  National Portrait Gallery portrait After her execution it wasn’t wise to have representations of a fallen queen gracing one’s walls so during the remainder of Henry’s reign and the years of Edward and Mary’s rule, her face and many artefacts belonging to her, slipped away. It wasn’t until he...