Tudor Women: A Series by Tracy Borman

This opening session will provide an introduction to the position of women in Tudor society, focusing primarily on the Tudor court. Tracy Borman will tell the story of the first Tudor queen consort, Elizabeth of York, whose marriage to Henry VII united the warring Houses of York and Lancaster. She will also chart the tumultuous history of the most famous consorts of the Tudor era: the six wives of Henry VIII. In so doing, you'll consider these women in their own right, not just in the context of their relationship with the much-married monarch.

Henry VIII’s desire for a son drove him to have his first marriage annulled, execute his second wife and overturn the entire religious life of England. Yet his ‘precious jewel’, Edward VI, only reigned for six years, so the future of the Tudor dynasty hung on its female members. In this session, Tracy will compare and contrast the queenship of the three women who succeeded Edward: the ‘Nine Days’ Queen’, Lady Jane Grey, his notorious elder half-sister, ‘Bloody Mary’, and Elizabeth I, who defied the contemporary prejudice against female rulers to become the most successful of all the Tudor monarchs.

You will now consider what life was like for the women who attended and served at the Tudor court. Explore the various roles that women fulfilled and how they were able to exploit these for political, as well as financial gain. Tracy will introduce a dazzling cast of characters: from Anne Boleyn’s infamous sister-in-law, Lady Rochford to Mary I’s cherished attendant, Jane Fool, and from loyal servants such Elizabeth I’s childhood nurse, Blanche Parry, to the so-called ‘flouting wenches’ such as Lettice Knollys and Bess Throckmorton who seduced her closest favourites.

Ironically, given the prejudices against female rule, some of the most deadly rivals to the Tudor throne were women. Henry VIII was so paranoid about the so-called ‘White Rose’ faction, led by Edward IV’s niece, Margaret Pole, that his brutality towards them sent shockwaves across Europe. All of his daughter Elizabeth’s deadliest rivals were women. Her long reign was dominated by her turbulent relationship with Mary, Queen of Scots, as well as by the lesser-known but no less potent rivals such as Lady Margaret Douglas and the ill-fated sisters of Lady Jane Grey.

The final session of the series will take you behind closed doors to explore the private life, loves and scandals of the Tudor era’s most celebrated monarch. Elizabeth I once declared: ‘A thousand eyes see all I do’. Interweaving eye-witness accounts with the Elizabeth’s own testimony, Tracy will cast new light on the vexed question of whether she really was the Virgin Queen and will explore her scandalous, fifty-year relationship with ‘Sweet Robin’, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester’. She will also reveal other aspects of the queen’s private life: how she was dressed and washed, her eating and sleeping habits, hobbies and friends.