Features

The secret queen removed from history by a conquering king

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19th July 2025
She was the long dead widow who was used by a king to overthrow his own nephew and yet her name is all but forgotten today. Eleanor Butler was the woman who helped change the royal history of England forever and almost brought one of its most famous dynasties to disaster before they had even secured the throne. But was she also Queen of England?Eleanor never claimed a crown for herself but as…
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Features

The great queen written out of history as a much married wife

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6th July 2023
A portrait of Katherine Parr has just set the record for the most expensive Tudor portrait ever sold at auction. It comes at a time of revived interest in the life of Henry VIII’s last queen. And her story is a fascinating one. Written off as a nursemaid to Henry, Katherine was, in fact, one of the most influential people of the king’s reign, as Lydia Starbuck explains.On a hot…
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Features

The farmer who accidentally found a long lost Queen of England amidst a ruined castle

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16th May 2022
Amongst the prettiness of rolling countryside and the gentle sound of sheep grazing sits a castle with its own little chapel. The walls are golden yellow while around it grow sweet scented flowers and glossy, regal trees. But behind this calm serenity lies the tomb of a queen whose life was filled with drama and whose end was soon forgotten in the tumult of Tudor politics. The drama continued…
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FeaturesHistory

Meet Henry VIII's most successful queen

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12th July 2020
On a hot summer day in 1543, a young widow married an ageing and much wed king in a ceremony that took many by surprise. By the time Katherine Parr said ‘I do’ to Henry VIII in the Queen’s Closet at Hampton Court Palace on July 12th 1543, his five previous unions and…
FeaturesHistory

How many of Henry VIII's queens were crowned?

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27th June 2020
‘Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.’ That sad little rhyme, summing up the fates of Henry VIII’s six wives, is familiar to many. But while just about everyone knows that the monarch with a thing for wedding cake said ‘I do’ six times only to turn sour, and then some, on the majority of the women he married, the details of his consorts&#8217…
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