Episode 170 of the Renaissance English History Podcast was a Year in the Life where we take a look at one year – 1561 – and break it down from January to December.
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Previous show notes to episodes that were mentioned:
Throwback Episode #22: The Northeast Passage
Episode 143: The Great Debasement
Episode 134 Tudor London: St Paul’s Show Notes
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Rough Transcript for Episode 170: A Year in the Life – 1561
Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast, a part of the Agora Podcast Network. I’m your host, Heather Teysko, and I’m a storyteller who makes history accessible because I believe it’s a pathway to understanding who we are, our place in the universe, and being more deeply in touch with our own humanity. This is Episode 170 – and it’s another Year in the Life episodes where we go through one year, and talk about the various events in that year. For this episode I chose 1561. Why? Well, it was three years into Elizabeth’s reign, the Religious Settlement was still being hashed out, and Elizabeth was still establishing herself as a Queen. A bunch of really interesting things happened that year, too. It was a year when a major London landmark was badly damaged by lightning, Calivinists settled in England, merchants headed to Moscow, Mary Queen of Scots was denied safe passage in England on her way home from France, and the very first novel ever published in English – according to some academics – came out. It was a big year.
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So let’s get started looking at 1561, shall we?
It’s important to remember as we look at 1561 that 1560 was actually a pretty stellar year for Elizabeth in terms of foreign policy with Scotland and France. Queen Mary had been at war with France on behalf of her husband, Philip of Spain, which was how they lost Calais. Elizabeth had made peace with France and Scotland, but was alarmed when the French seemed to be taking more control in Scotland on behalf of Marie of Guise, who was trying to run the country (and was very unpopular) while her young daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, was in France. French troops were in Scotland supporting her regency, and Elizabeth supported the Protestant rebels led by John Knox. In 1560 there were two treaties expelling the French, and reaffirming Elizabeth as the recognized Queen in England, and ratifying an alliance between England and Scotland. So that was an early test of Elizabeth’s foreign policy, and she seems to have passed.
In December, Mary had become a widow, and there was much to-ing and fro-ing of ambassadors between Scotland and France negotiating Mary’s return to Scotland and her future decided, after the appropriate mourning period had been observed.
During the holiday festivities of 1560-61 there was a lot of talk about Elizabeth’s relationship with Robert Dudley, and the Queen’s love life. Amy Robsart, Robert Dudley’s wife, had just died in 1560, and Robert was back at court – albeit, he wore mourning for 6 months. The official commission looking into her death wouldn’t pronounce their verdict until August, and there were rumours following Robert around, questioning his role in the death of his wife. John Dymock was a merchant about to leave for Sweden with jewels. He wrote, “On the morrow after New Year’s Day I dined with John Ashley, Master of the Jewel-house, and told him I would depart by the morrow after Twelfth Day. He asked to see me again, and said that whereas it was thought that the Queen was verily minded to have the Lord Robert, it was not so, for he had given her a notable New Year’s gift, and it was thought that she would have given him at least £4000 in lands, and have made him a Duke, whereas she has given him but £400, and not of the very best land.“
The Queen was busy giving out New Year’s gifts. On Jan 6 John Tamworth (Keeper of the Privy Purse), paid ‘in way of the Queen’s highness’s reward to Mrs Penne, widow, sometime King Edward’s nurse’, 60 French crowns at 6s the piece, £18.
The next day Sir Anthony Cooke sent the Queen Theophania, by Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (c.329-389 A.D.), translated into Latin, with English dedication: ‘I send your Highness this remembrance of the New Year, not of gold or silver, whereof ye have plenty…and I little in comparison…but such as I think more fit for you to receive and for me to give, having respect to the treasure of knowledge that doth more excel, wherewith God hath plentifully endowed you’. Cooke suggests that the Queen should herself translate Nazianzus ‘either in better Latin or good English, which if you have leisure none can do better than yourself’.
The next day, January 8, John Bodley, the father of Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library, was given a license for 7 years to print the English Bible ‘with annotations faithfully translated and finished’ in the present year AD 1560 (remember the new year wasn’t until May 25 then, so by Elizabethan standards it was still 1560!) and dedicated to the Queen; no other to print it on pain of the Queen’s displeasure and forfeiture to the Crown of 40 shillings for every Bible printed.’
On Jan 10: Sir William Cecil was rising – he was made Master of the Court of Wards. He wasn’t a fan of Robert Dudley, and felt threatened by the idea of him becoming King Consort, and became one of the sources of rumours about Dudley potentially murdering his wife.
Speaking of rumors, they were flying in January. The Spanish ambassador wrote home: “ Court news. Jan 22, London, De Quadra to King Philip II: Today I was visited by Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Robert Dudley’s brother-in-law, who spoke of ‘how much inclined’ the Queen was to marry Dudley; Sidney wondered that I had not suggested to your Majesty that you write in Dudley’s favour. As to Lady Dudley’s death (Amy Robsart), Sidney ‘was certain that it was accidental, and he had never been able to learn otherwise, although he had enquired with great care, and knew that public opinion held to the contrary… Even preachers in the pulpits discoursed on the matter in a way that was prejudicial to the honour and interests of the Queen’… ‘I well know the state of this affair and the feelings of the people, and I am certain that if she do not obtain your Majesty’s consent she will not dare to publish the match, and if she finds herself unable to obtain your Majesty’s favour she may throw herself to the bad and satisfy her desires, by which she is governed to an extent that would be a grievous fault in a person of any condition, much more in a woman of her rank’. ‘Things have reached such a pitch that her Chamberlain has left her. Cecil is he who most opposed the business, but he has given way in exchange for the offices held by Treasurer Parry, who died recently of sheer grief’. ‘I must not omit to say also that the common opinion, confirmed by certain physicians, is that this woman is unhealthy, and it is believed certain that she will not have children, although there is no lack of people who say she has already had some, but of this I have seen no trace and do not believe it’”
Early February saw some correspondence about Mary Queen of Scots: “Feb 4, Queen of Scots to Queen Elizabeth, requesting safe-conduct for Lord James Stewart (her half-brother) and 60 persons, who are about to repair to her in France. Feb 6, Edinburgh, William Maitland to Sir William Cecil: Ambassadors are going to the Queen of Scots. ‘Lord James shall be the principal…He is zealous in religion.. known to be true and constant, honest, and not able to be corrupted…The sum of the legation is to know her mind… It is wished that she would come without force, and take her journey through England, where her own subjects will be content to receive her at Dover or elsewhere, and accompany her honourably to her own country, thinking that the meeting of the two Queens shall breed quietness for their times’. “
Valentine’s Day saw more plotting and romance: On Saturday the 15th, the Spanish Ambassador was at Whitehall for an audience. De Quadra wrote to Philip on February 23: On February 13 I met Lord Robert Dudley. ‘He besought me, in your Majesty’s name, to recommend the Queen to marry him’. I said that I would ‘request the Queen to make up her mind to marry and settle the succession, and if during the conversation any particular person should be discussed I would speak of him as favourably as he could wish…He begged me to speak to the Queen at once. I did so two days afterwards’… ‘After much circumlocution she said she wished to confess to me and tell me her secret in confession, which was that she was no angel, and did not deny that she had some affection for Lord Robert for the many good qualities he possessed, but she certainly had never decided to marry him or anyone else, although she daily saw more clearly the necessity for her marriage, and…that it was desirable that she should marry an Englishman, and she asked me to tell her what your Majesty would think if she married one of her servitors as the Duchess of Suffolk and the Duchess of Somerset had done’. I told her you ‘would be pleased to hear of her marriage with whomever it might be’, and had great affection for Lord Robert. ‘Robert came the next day to thank me and repeated to me all the details of what I had said to the Queen, who he told me was much pleased’.
Feb 16-18 saw Shrovetide masques, and plays, including Huff, Snuff and Ruff. Christopher Playter wrote to Thomas Kitson on Feb 22: ‘There was also at the court new plays which lasted almost all night (the name of the play was Huff, Snuff and Ruff) with other masques both of ladies and gentlemen’. The masquers were predominantly in purple and green. Feb 17 was Shrove Monday, and there were Wrestlers, and Masters of Defence, at Whitehall in the morning ‘Wrestling at the court in the Preaching Place afore the Queen’. And then in the afternoon a: Challenge at court by Masters of Defence, first day. ‘At afternoon was a great challenge played afore the Queen’s grace with all the Masters of Fence; and certain challengers did challenge all men, whatsomever they be, with morris-pike, long sword…and bastard sword, and sword and buckler, and sword and dagger, and cross staff, and staves, and other weapons.
February 19 was Ash Wednesday, and Alexander Nowell, Dean of St Paul’s, ‘made a godly sermon’ to begin the Lenten season.
We did an episode a few years ago on Henry VIII’s debasing of the coinage, and how both Edward and Mary tried to buy back the debased coins, and replace them with better money – you can check out that episode at englandcast.com/1561 in the show notes for this episode – I’ll have a link. Anyway, in 1560 and 1561 Elizabeth was going full steam ahead on the new coinage project, and in March of 1561 William Blunt (an official at the Mint) was given an allowance for the charges of Eloy, including for ‘colours bought for Eloy at his sending for to Richmond to have drawn the Queen’s picture’; also for a house for the Frenchman ‘and setting up of his engines as also for that he should grave and work nigh the court’.
On March 24 Lord James Stewart was on his way to France to join Mary Queen of Scots and discuss her return to Scotland, but found himself stopping at Whitehall to visit the Queen. An anonymous chronicler writes, ‘The Lord James passeth through England into France to the Queen of Scots in March 1561. He was lodged at his going over at the Secretary’s house in Cannon Row, well used of the Queen, and in the end of May returneth out of France’
April 22: christening. Queen was godmother to ‘Sir William Cecil, knight, Principal Secretary to her Highness’s child’. Parents: Sir William Cecil; 2nd wife: Mildred (Cooke). Queen’s gift, April 21: gilt cup with a cover.
Apr 23,Wed St George’s Day Garter ceremonies, Whitehall. Queen’s Lieutenant: William Parr, Marquis of Northampton. The Knights went to morning prayer. The Queen was in the processions, at service, and at dinner with the Knights. Machyn: The choir of 30 in copes, singing O God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy, led the procession through the outer court strewed with rushes to the gate. ‘After came Mr Garter, and Mr Norris, and Mr Dean of the Chapel, in copes of crimson satin with a cross of St George red, and eleven Knights of the Garter in their robes, and after the Queen’s Grace in her robes, and all the Guard in their rich coats, and so back to the chapel. After service done, back through the hall to her Grace’s chamber, and that done her Grace and the lords went to dinner, and her Grace were goodly served, and after the lords, sitting on one side, and served in gold and silver’.
Later in April the Elizabethan break with Rome would pick up speed: May 1,Thur Consultation at Greenwich. At the Queen’s command the full Privy Council held a consultation on the request for the Papal Nuncio to come to England with letters from the Pope. ‘It was fully accorded by all and every of the said Councillors, without any manner of contradiction or doubt moved by any of them, that the Nuncio should not come into any part of the Queen’s dominions’. [SPF.iv.93-5]. May 5,Mon Spanish Ambassador at Greenwich with Council and Queen. May 5, De Quadra to Philip II: ‘The Queen sent yesterday to ask me to go to the palace today, as her Council had orders to reply to me about the Nuncio… I found they had the answer in writing…I told them they might read what they liked. The paper contained two principal points, namely, that the Queen did not consider it well to admit the Nuncio, inasmuch as it was against the law and good policy of the country, and that…as the Queen understood that the object of the Nuncio’s coming was to intimate to her the holding of the Concilio, she informed me that she had decided not to give her acquiescence to such Concilio, nor to consent to the continuance of that which had commenced at Trent’… ‘They broke up and went home except the Earl of Derby (who will accompany the Queen this summer)’, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and Lord Hunsdon. ‘I afterwards went into the Queen’s room, and found her so confused and upset that it was plain she was embarrassed at the way they were treating me’.
May 14: Anthony Jenkinson’s Journey to Persia, undertaken for the Merchant Adventurers, for discovery of lands. Presented to the Queen. 44p. His intent was to travel to Russia and continue through to Persia. He arrived in Moscow in August 1561, with the intent to talk trade terms with Ivan the Terrible. However, he was not capable of having an audience with him until March 1562. From there, Jenkinson traveled across Russia, down the Caspian and into Persia, where he reached the court of Shah Tahmasp, then at Qazvin, and managed to obtain preferential trading deals on behalf of the Muscovy Company. However, he found that the wider objective of breaking into the Indian Ocean trade was blocked by the Portuguese outpost at Ormuz on the Persian Gulf, and the sale of English goods was limited by competition from the Venetians operating via the much shorter route from the Mediterranean through Syria
Also in May, the first Calvinist church was founded by a group who fled Flanders.
May 20, London, Lord James Stewart to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton: ‘After my arrival to London I passed to the court where it pleased the Queen’s Majesty and the Council to show me more favour nor ever I could deserve’. Lord James left to return to Scotland.
Perhaps the biggest event of the year was in June when on Wednesday June 4, St Paul’s Cathedral struck by lightning and set on fire. ‘The great spire of the steeple of St Paul’s church was fired by lightning, which…burnt downward the spire to the battlements, stone-work and bells, so furiously that within the space of four hours the same steeple, with all the roofs of the church, were consumed, to the great sorrow and perpetual remembrance of the beholders’. A ‘True Report’ on the Fire relates that: ‘In the evening came the Lord Clinton, Lord Admiral, from the court at Greenwich, whom the Queen’s Majesty as soon as the rage of the fire was espied by her Majesty and others in the court…sent to assist my Lord Mayor for the suppressing of the fire’.
In 1753, David Henry, a writer for The Gentleman’s Magazine, revived a rumour in his Historical description of St. Paul’s Cathedral, writing that a plumber had “confessed on his death bed” that he had “left a pan of coals and other fuel in the tower when he went to dinner.”[48] However, the number of contemporary eyewitnesses to the storm and a subsequent investigation appears to contradict this.[47]
Whatever the cause, the subsequent conflagration was hot enough to melt the cathedral’s bells and the lead covering the wooden spire “poured down like lava upon the roof”, destroying it.[11][49] This event was taken by both Protestants and Catholics as a sign of God’s displeasure at the other faction’s actions.[49] Queen Elizabeth contributed towards the cost of repairs and the Bishop of London Edmund Grindal gave £1200, although the spire was never rebuilt.[49] The repair work on the nave roof was sub-standard, and only fifty years after the rebuilding was in a dangerous condition
June 12,Thur Proclamation (480): Calling in base coins. ‘Her Majesty having now as it were achieved to the victory and conquest of this hideous monster of the base money’.
June 16,Mon ‘My Lord Mayor and the Aldermen were sent for unto the court at Greenwich’.MA Stow’s Survey: ‘After this mischance [the fire at St Paul’s], the Queen’s Majesty directed her letters to the Mayor, willing him to take order for speedy repairing of the same. And she of her gracious disposition…did presently give and deliver in gold 1000 marks, with a warrant for a thousand loads of timber, to be taken out of her woods, or elsewhere’… ‘Within one month…the church was covered with boards and lead, in manner of a false roof against the weather…Concerning the steeple, divers models were devised and made but little else was done, through whose default God knoweth’.
Midsummer Day: Afternoon, at Greenwich: river ‘triumph’ watched by the Queen from a boat. Machyn: ‘Midsummer Day at Greenwich was great triumph of the river, against the court; there was a goodly castle made upon Thames, and men of arms within it with guns and spears, for to defend the same, and about it were certain small pinnaces…and great shooting of guns and hurling of balls of wild-fire, and there was a bark…for the Queen’s Grace to be in for to see the pastime, the which was very late ere it was done’. Hugh Underhill of the Wardrobe ‘making ready of The Bark of Boulogne, and for fetching of virginals from London to Greenwich’, 13s4d.T De Quadra to Philip II, June 30: ‘On the day of St John the Queen ordered me to be invited to a feast given by Lord Robert…In the afternoon we went on board a vessel from which we were to see the rejoicings, and she, Robert and I being alone…they began joking, which she likes to do much better than talking about business. They went so far with their jokes that Lord Robert told her that if she liked I could be the minister to perform the act of marriage, and she, nothing loth to hear it, said she was not sure whether I knew enough English’.
On June 28: The Queen declined to create Lord Robert Dudley an earl.
July 9,Wed Queen of Scots’ envoy at Whitehall for audience. With De Seurre, resident French Ambassador. D’Oysel asked for a passport and safe-conduct for Mary; the Queen deferred her answer until July 13. July 13,Sun Queen of Scots’ envoy at Charterhouse for his answer. With De Seurre, resident French Ambassador. The Queen declined to grant D’Oysel a passport and safe-conduct for Mary unless she first ratified the Treaty of Edinburgh, of 1560.
All through this period, the King of Sweden was also negotiating for Elizabeth’s hand in marriage, so she was very much sought after.
Court news. Aug 29, London, De Quadra to the Duchess of Parma, of the expected visit of King Eric XIV of Sweden: ‘A messenger from the King of Sweden arrived here on the 26th, and it is stated that the King will shortly come as he was to embark on St Laurence’s Day [August 10]. Two ships have already arrived with his goods, and it is said that they expect eight more…I am much surprised at this, because I know that the Queen refused him a passport…She told him that she had already given him two which were quite enough, and it was not meet that a woman who, like her, had made up her mind not to marry, should be constantly giving passports to a young bachelor prince. If however, he wished to come the previous passports would suffice’… ‘I am sure the King has not been summoned by the Queen’. He is a ‘young man with plenty of money and ambitious to get away from his swamps’.
Sept 10: First audience of William Maitland with the Queen: Maitland told the Queen of the arrival in Scotland of the Queen of Scots, and her desire to continue the amity ‘betwixt the realms’. Then, on behalf of the nobility of Scotland, he desired her to use Mary ‘gently and favourably’, so that they might enter into a closer bond (‘a more strait knot’); he discoursed on the advantages that might ensue to both realms, and referred to Mary’s claim to succeed to the English Crown. The Queen answered: “I looked for another message from the Queen your Sovereign, and marvel that she remembers not better her promise made to me before her departing from France, after many delays of that thing which she in honour is bound to do – to wit, the ratification of the Treaty [Edinburgh, 1560] wherein she promised to answer me directly at her homecoming”… Maitland: “Her Majesty was not fully fifteen days at home when I was dispatched toward your Highness” and “could not have the consultation… requisite in a matter of such importance”… “What consultation” said she “needs the Queen to fulfil the thing whereunto she is obliged by her seal and handwriting?”. Maitland had no further answer to this. The Queen came to ‘the principal matter’, that on behalf of Mary, Maitland “put me in remembrance that she is of the blood of England, my cousin and next kinswoman, so that nature must bind me to love her..all which I must confess to be true…I never meant evil toward her person nor her realm…When she by bearing my arms and claiming the title of my Crown had given me just cause to be most angry with her, yet could I never find in my heart to hate her, imputing rather the fault to others than to herself. As for the title of my Crown, for my time I think she will not attain it, nor make impediment to my issue if any shall come of my body. For so long as I live there shall be no other Queen in England but I…The succession of the Crown of England is a matter I will not mell [meddle] in…If her right be good she may be sure I will never hurt her, and I…know none better, nor that myself would prefer to her”. The Queen concluded “the matter is weighty, it is meet that I consider of it; and thereafter I will declare unto you more of my mind”
Sept 13, London, De Quadra to Philip II: ‘The coming of the King of Sweden is still considered certain…The Queen does not think of marrying him and is in no pleasure at his coming. On the contrary she has lately tried openly to stop it’, but ‘has determined to dissemble with the Swede and let him come for fear he should marry her of Scotland. She and her friends therefore wish to appear undecided and indifferent, and to give the idea that perhaps she may marry the Swede’. Lord Robert ‘is consequently making a show of being very displeased’ although ‘he is in greater favour than ever…What I suspect and many others think is that he is being brought over by the enemies of Robert’… ‘There is a statement made that an English merchant named John Dymock, who recently went to Sweden to sell some jewels to the King, told him not to fail to come to England on any account, as all the realm desired him’… ‘What is of most importance now, as I am informed, is that the Queen is becoming dropsical…She is falling away, and is extremely thin and the colour of a corpse’. Lady Northampton and Lady Cobham ‘consider the Queen in a dangerous condition’.
Sept 21, Queen to Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Oxford, and Earl of Rutland: ‘The King of Sweden…being on the seas hitherward was put back into the seas by contrary winds; and yet meaneth speedily to return with the next convenient winds. And therefore, not being assured to what coast the wind shall now direct him and his Navy, although his purpose be to make his course into the River of the Thames, we…will you, that if he shall arrive in Yarmouth, or any port of Norfolk or Suffolk, that in that case you shall forthwith both send to him with all speed some gentlemen, and to cause them offer to him such reverence and service as shall for our honour belong to a King; and yourself with that speed that you may, to repair unto him with such train of noblemen and gentlemen and with such furniture of your own as shall seem meet for your honour’.
Later in September ‘Lady Catherine Grey was brought abed in the Tower of a boy. Lord Hertford and she agree upon the time, place and company of their marriage, but cannot bring either witness or minister. They must either find out the minister, or determine what the law will say, if it be a marriage or no. The matter lies chiefly… in the Queen’s mercy’.
Court news. Oct 7, Sir William Cecil to the Earl of Sussex, in Ireland: ‘The King of Sweden was on the seas, and about the 8th of September blown homeward. They say he is so earnest that he will come by land. Some of his treasure and horses be come to London…
Beware the Cat (1561) is an English satire written by the printer’s assistant and poet William Baldwin (sometimes called Gulielmus Baldwin), in early 1553. It has been claimed by some academics to be the first novel ever published in English of any kind.The work was written in 1553, during the final months of the reign of King Edward VI, but was not published because the accession of Mary Tudor to the throne prevented it. Joseph Ritson’s Bibliographia Poetica (1802) is the only authority for an edition dated 1561, which is probably an error. An edition from 1570 is now only known via a Victorian era transcript; a second 1570 edition survives only as a four-page fragment. There is also another edition, dated 1584. The work was dedicated to the courtier John Young.
The 1570 quarto edition is entitled: A MARVELOVS hystory intitulede, Beware the Cat. Conteynyng diuerse wounderfull and incredible matters. Very pleasant and mery to read.
The work employs a frame narrative set at the royal court during Christmas celebrations in 1552/53. That year Baldwin was employed as an actor and entertainer under George Ferrers, Master of the King’s Pastimes. Baldwin creates a character, who is also named Baldwin. He joins Ferrers, someone called “master Willot,” and “Master Streamer” (i.e., Gregory Streamer) in a fictionalized debate concerning the question of whether animals possess the capacity to reason. Streamer offers to persuade his interlocutors in the affirmative, and proceeds to deliver a monologue which constitutes the rest of the book. It is divided into three sections, or “orations.”
Streamer’s account describes his activities while lodging at the London printing house of John Day, a prominent Tudor printer. In the first part, he recounts a fictional conversation he witnessed at that lodging between a man from Staffordshire, someone called Thomas, an anonymous third speaker, and “Master Sherry,” probably a fictionalized version of the Oxford academic Richard Sherry.
The first tells the group that four decades earlier he had overheard from another person that that man had heard cats report the death of a cat called Grimalkin. Thomas says that thirty-three years ago he had been in Ireland, and he repeats a peasant’s tale about the same Grimalkin, who had appeared seven years before that to an Irish man and his son, who had taken refuge in a church after going raiding. After devouring a sheep and cow, the cat eats the son, and the peasant kills him and escapes. The discussion turns to a debate on whether Grimalkin was in fact a disguised witch. The third speaker objects to the reasonableness of Thomas’s story, and Master Sherry, the fourth interlocutor, asserts that he believes in the existence of witches, and says that the bishop of Alexandria had found a way to understand birds.
Dec 22, Westminster, Sir William Cecil to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, of a possible meeting between Queen Elizabeth and the Queen of Scots: ‘I find a great desire in both these Queens to have an interview’…
Dec 27,Sat: ‘Came riding through London a Lord of Misrule, in clean complete harness gilt, with a hundred great horses and gentlemen riding gorgeously with chains of gold, and their horses goodly trapped, unto the Temple, for there was great cheer all Christmas…and great revels as ever was for the gentlemen of the Temple every day, for many of the Council was there’.MA [Dec 28/Jan 3]: Lord of Misrule at Whitehall, part of Inner Temple Revels. ‘[Lord] of Misrule…playing and singing unto the court…there was great cheer …gorgeously apparelled with great chains’
So that’s it for this week. I’ll have a link to everything at englandcast.com/1561. Let me know what you thought about this episode -You can get in touch with me through the listener support line at 801 6TEYSKO or join the new Tudor Learning Circle, which is a free social network just for Tudor history nerds.
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