Friday Round Up

Two weeks until Christmas, can you believe it? I hope you’re all more organised than me. Shopping online does make things so much easier, but I really must get on with wrapping it all!

Here is the latest news from The Anne Boleyn Files and the Tudor world:-

• Henry 8.0 New Comedy episode – This one had me nearly spluttering coffee over my laptop! I absolutely love Brian Blessed as a modern day Henry VIII spending all his time on Twitter and Facebook, or threatening Catherine with execution. Bless him! Click here to see this week’s episode, “Pope and Glory”. You can also follow Henry 8.0 on Twitter to enjoy his lovely little tweets like “Tried to join in on Catherine’s yoga DVD but kept farting so have been banned. :-(” or “Just found half a ginger biscuit in my codpiece. Hate hate hate crotch crumbs!!!” – they do cheer up your day. See http://twitter.com/henrytudor8. You can also follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AnneBoleynFiles
• The Tudor Christmas – I have just written a page about Tudor Christmas traditions, with the help of “Pleasures and Pastimes in Tudor England” by Alison Sim. It’s really interesting to find out about how Christmas was celebrated 500 years ago and although we tend to give the Victorians the credit for many of our present day traditions, the Victorians were sometimes only resurrecting medieval and Tudor traditions that the Puritans had banned. Click here to read about the Tudor Christmas traditions.

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  Tudor Christmas Events – Check out Events UK 2009 for Tudor themed events taking place over the next few weeks. Tomorrow and Sunday at the Mary Rose Museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyards you can enoy “Tudor Life Ashore at the Mary Rose Museum” and the British Library “Henry VIII: Man and Monarch” travelling exhibition is also taking place at the Mary Rose Museum between the 12th December and 17th January. Also find out about Hever Castle’s Christmas and Winter Wonderland events.
• Henry VIII Mind of a Tyrant Soundtrack – The soundtrack for this David Starkey series, featuring music composed by Philip Sheppard based on Henry VIII’s own compositions, is now available on iTunes – see http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/henry-viii-mind-tyrant-soundtrack/id344394590. If you get BBC Radio 3, you will be able to listen to excerpts on the Request Show 2-4pm this Sunday (13th). It will be coming out on CD soon.
• George Boleyn Part 1 – Hands up if you think George Boleyn has had a raw deal at the hands of Philippa Gregory, “The Tudors” and Retha Warnicke. Find out about the real George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, in George Boleyn Part 1.
• Interview with Elizabeth Norton – Author and historian Elizabeth Norton is speaking at The Anne Boleyn Experience 2010 in May at Hever, so I thought it would be good to interview her about Anne, Henry VIII and his six wives, seeing as she has written biographies on Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves. Click here to read the interview.
• Book Review – Over on our Tudor Book Review site, I have just reviewed historian Leanda de Lisle’s excellent book, “The Sisters Who Would Be Queen”, on Lady Jane Grey and her sisters, Katherine and Mary. Click here to read the review.
• The Elizabeth Files – This week we have a wonderful guest post on Katherine Grey by historian Leanda de Lisle, “Katherine Grey: Heir to Elizabeth'” – thank you, Leanda!
• New Opulence jewellery – We have extended our range of luxury jewellery, featuring gold, silver, Swarovski crystals and real gemstones, by adding 8 new pairs of earrings. They really are exquisite! Click here to browse the Opulence range.
• “O, Juliet” – I will be reviewing Robin Maxwell’s long awaited novel in January, just before it it released in February, but if you’re finding it hard to wait you can enjoy a sneak peak on Robin’s website. If you don’t know anything about this novel, historical fiction author, Robin Maxwell, has written a novel about Shakespeare’s famous “pair of star-crossed lovers” and, as the blurb says “Their love was the stuff of legend. But the legend is only half the story…A rich tale of passion, revenge and tragedy…The heart and soul of the greatest love story ever told”. Sounds good, eh?
  On Robin’s blog, you can also take part in a series of “Love Games”. This week’s blog asks “What is your romantic setting?”
  See Robin’s blog for details.
• Primary Sources – I’ve added even more links to the Primary Sources page so that you can browse documents used by the historians.
• Friday Quiz – Test your history knowledge with the weekly BBC History Magazine Quiz.
• Christmas opening – For those who want to make orders or who want to email me over Christmas, I will not be working from Christmas Eve lunchtime (that’s GMT – London time) until the morning of Monday 28th and then I will also be having New Year off (31st – the morning of Monday 4th). Orders will be handled as soon as they possibly can be.

Well, I think that’s it for this week. Have a wonderful weekend!