I know Dr. Suzannah Lipscombe for
her unmissable television appearances, where she gently challenges preconceived
ideas and really makes you think about how people lived. It was therefore with high expectations that
I started reading her new book, ‘A Visitors Companion to Tudor England’. With an interesting format of fifty carefully
selected locations across the UK, Suzannah highlights their contribution
to our understanding of Tudor times.
The descriptions of the Tudor sites
are sprinkled through with many often gruesome details of the time, several of
which had previously escaped my notice. For example, I am currently reading ‘The
Constant Princess’ (Philippa Gregory’s novel about the early life of
Katherine of Aragon). In the fictional account, the Countess of Salisbury, Margaret
Pole is calm and regal – but Suzannah brings her description of Tower Green to
life with an account of how the unfortunate Margaret was ‘chased by her
executioner, a wretched and blundering youth… who literally hacked her head and
shoulders to pieces in the most pitiful manner.’
An example of how this book
provokes further enquiry is that I was inspired to fulfil a long ambition and recently
visited Hampton Court Palace. I took a photograph of the picture of The Family of Henry VIII in the corridor
outside the Chapel Royal:
In the picture, Henry is flanked by Jane Seymour and his son Edward, but Suzannah points out that Jane died two weeks after Prince Edward’s birth. I was intrigued by the suggestion
that the woman to the far left of the picture is of a female fool called
Jane. This led me to John
Southworth’s book which explains that ‘Jane the Fool’ was ‘the type of fool
known as an “innocent” and wore beautiful gowns but the hose and shoes of a
clown - and had her head shaved
regularly at fourpence a time’.
Some details from Suzannah’s visits are poignant, such as seeing that
someone had laid pomegranates and fresh flowers at the tomb of Katherine of
Aragon at Peterborough Cathedral.
Others, such as the terrible events at Glastonbury Tor and the
desecration of Fountains Abbey make you think again about the wider
implications of the dissolution of the monasteries. One of my favourites is the aside that the Tudor
Queen Elizabeth enjoyed the sport of bear baiting, with dogs. I’ll spare the
details but it does help to underline the importance of appreciating the
cultural values of the period – and how much we can still learn by visiting the
Tudor sites that remain.
See Suzannah Lipsomb's Website at http://suzannahlipscomb.com/
and follow her on twitter
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