Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the Tudors

Heather Teysko
  • 4.7 (551)
  • History
  • Updated Biweekly

Renaissance England was a bustling and exciting place...new religion! break with rome! wars with Scotland! And France! And Spain! The birth of the modern world! In this weekly podcast I'll explore one aspect of life in 16th century England that will give you a deeper understanding of this most exciting time.

  1. 9h ago

    How a Total Nobody Convinced England He Was Meant to Be King | Nathen Amin at TudorCon

    It’s the Wednesday after TudorCon and I’m finally coming up for air! I’m so excited to share Nathen Amin’s keynote with you. This was Nathen’s first ever talk in America, and it only took us six years to get him here. Nathen walks us through how Henry VII, the great-great-great-grandson of a king (through a female line with a whiff of illegitimacy, no less), convinced an entire country he was supposed to be on the throne. And the man put his message on EVERYTHING. Red dragons and Welsh prophecy, the Tudor rose, a fertility-themed bed of state (yes, really), naming his son Arthur, gold coins as propaganda you carry around in your pocket. He even had an astrology book made where the constellation Draco gets redrawn as a Welsh dragon in Tudor green and white. I cannot get enough of this guy. Stick around for the Q&A, where Nathen takes on the whole “Henry dated his reign to the day before Bosworth” debate, talks about Elizabeth of York as a full partner in the Tudor project, makes the case that Henry VII was actually a Yorkist king in a lot of ways, and explains why Henry definitely had the rizz. Also, I picked Nathen up at Dulles, and on the drive down to Richmond we both decided at the exact same moment that we needed to stop at Waffle House. That story is right at the start. This is the raw livestream footage, so it’s not polished, but the talk is so, so good. Regular uploads are coming back now that I’ve caught my breath. I’ve missed you all! 📚 Nathen’s books, including Son of Prophecy, The House of Beaufort, and Henry VII and the Tudor Pretenders: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Nathen-Amin/author/B00JSVRKQE 🎧 Renaissance English History Podcast: https://www.englandcast.com 📬 Newsletter: https://www.englandcast.com/newsletter-sign-up/ #HenryVII #Tudors #TudorHistory #TudorCon #NathenAmin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  2. Oct 20

    How Women Lost Their Magic (Medieval Charms to the Pendle Witches)

    Long before anyone in England was hanged as a witch, ordinary women had a magic of their own. They wrapped parchment girdles covered in prayers around their bellies in labor. They borrowed holy relics from the parish like library books. They baked cakes in total silence on St Agnes’ Eve, hoping to dream of the man they’d marry. Nobody called them witches. It was just how you got through life. In this audio episode, I follow what happened to that magic from the 1400s to the Pendle trials of 1612. You’ll meet Eleanor Cobham, who went to the Witch of Eye for help having a baby. There’s Ursula Kemp, the Essex cunning woman whose healing skills became the evidence against her. And there’s Old Demdike, who spent fifty years as the woman her neighbors went to for help. It’s the story of how the Reformation took away women’s protective magic, until the same skills that made a woman useful could get her hanged. 🎟 TudorCon From Home, October 23 to 25. We livestream the main room all weekend, and every talk is recorded with audio and slides so you can listen afterward. Every ticket comes with a digital swag bag worth over $100: https://tudorcon.englandcast.com/tudorcon-from-home/ 📬 Get the newsletter: https://www.englandcast.com/newsletter-sign-up/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  3. Oct 6

    I Stayed in a 700-Year-Old Coaching Inn Where Dickens (Maybe) Wrote Pickwick

    This summer I travelled around the south of England staying in historic inns, and stop number three was the White Horse in Dorking, Surrey. There's been a building on this spot since at least 1278, when it belonged to the Knights Hospitaller, and it later became one of the big coaching inns on the road from London to Horsham. We got there way too early to check in, so we played board games at Game N Play (a board game café AND a ukulele shop). Then I fell in love with St Martin's Church, spent far too long in Waterstones, and went for an evening walk toward Box Hill (Jane Austen's Emma picnic, Keats, and a major who was buried upside down on purpose). Along the way I found out about Dorking's five-toed chickens, its sandstone caves, and the Mayflower passenger who came from this very town. I also did a little Dickens myth-busting and had a very meta Lucy Worsley moment. Next up: the Royal Forest in Epping Forest, right next to Elizabeth I's hunting lodge, and the best room of the whole trip. Book your rooms with the White Horse here: https://whitehorsedorking.com/ 🎟 TudorCon 2026, October 23 to 25, Richmond VA (plus TudorCon From Home): https://tudorcon.englandcast.com 📬 Newsletter: https://www.englandcast.com/newsletter-sign-up/ 🏨 The White Horse: https://whitehorsedorking.com/ 🎲 Game N Play: https://game-n-play.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  4. Oct 5

    Henry VIII's Playbook for Taking Over the Church

    Henry VIII didn't dismantle the Church in England. He took it over, one step at a time, and the plan looks an awful lot like a hostile corporate takeover. Squeeze the leadership, take the board, cut off Rome, audit everything, find some dirt, close the small houses first, and then come for the big ones. In this episode I walk through the whole playbook, from the 1531 fine on the clergy to the abbot of Glastonbury being dragged up the Tor in 1539. And I make the case for the people it was run on, the monks, nuns and friars who lost their homes, and the towns that lost their hospital, almshouse and biggest employer. (Full disclosure, I'm an Episcopalian, so this is me looking hard at the other side.) TudorCon is October 23 to 25, and you can join from anywhere with TudorCon From Home. The main room is livestreamed and every talk is recorded: https://tudorcon.englandcast.com/tudorcon-from-home/ Get my weekly newsletter, with Tudor news, a vocab word and the stuff that doesn't fit in videos: https://www.englandcast.com/newsletter-sign-up/ What happened to the monks and nuns afterwards: https://www.englandcast.com/2025/04/dissolution-of-the-monasteries-2/ #HenryVIII #Tudors #DissolutionOfTheMonasteries #TudorHistory #ThomasCromwell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  5. Oct 1

    Melancholy, Mutton Candles and Banned Bells: How the Tudors Faced the Dark

    By All Saints' Day in Tudor London, the sun was down by quarter past four. In the final episode of our autumn series, we find out how the Tudors got ready for the long dark, in their bodies, in their homes, and in their hearts. We start with the health books. Sir Thomas Elyot warned that autumn was "dangerous to all ages, all natures, and all countries," and Andrew Boorde had a whole diet for melancholy people (no red wine, sorry!). Then we light the mutton-fat candles with Thomas Tusser, find out why one doctor thought the smell of apples was dangerous, and hang out the lanterns with London's mayor. And then we come to Hallowtide, when church bells rang all night for the souls of the dead. Henry VIII nearly banned it, Elizabeth's bishops tried for years to stop it, and ordinary people in places like Sandbach and Weaverham kept climbing the tower to ring for the people they'd lost. This is episode 4 of 4 in our series on how the Tudors got ready for autumn. Thank you so much for watching! 🎟 TudorCon From Home, October 23 to 25. We livestream the main room all weekend, and every talk is recorded with audio and slides so you can listen afterward. Every ticket comes with a digital swag bag worth over $100: https://tudorcon.englandcast.com/tudorcon-from-home/ 📬 Get the newsletter: https://www.englandcast.com/newsletter-sign-up/ IMAGE CREDITS Most images are public domain, via Wikimedia Commons and the Internet Archive. The following are used under Creative Commons licenses: Wellcome Collection (CC BY 4.0): Castel of Helth title page; physician with urine flask; Andrew Boorde portraits; Breviary of Helthe title page and woodcut St Mary's, Weaverham: Sue Adair (CC BY-SA 2.0) Church tower at night: Ben Harris (CC BY-SA 2.0) Bellringers' board, Fowey: Rob Farrow (CC BY-SA 2.0) Sunset over fields: Susanne Nilsson (CC BY-SA 2.0) Tallow Chandlers' crest: D M Wilmot (CC BY-SA 2.0) Tallow Chandlers' Hall: Dun.can (CC BY 2.0) Medieval candlestick: Museum of Antiquities, Newcastle (CC BY-SA 4.0) John Stow's monument: Michael Coppins (CC BY-SA 4.0) Office of the Dead: Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (CC BY-SA 4.0) Sanctus bell, Berkswell: Michael Garlick (CC BY-SA 2.0) Bassingbourn church: John Salmon (CC BY-SA 2.0) Sandbach Crosses: Mike Faherty (CC BY-SA 2.0) Bell tower, Pembridge: Sandy Gerrard (CC BY-SA 2.0) Licenses: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 | /by/4.0 | /by-sa/2.0 | /by-sa/4.0 #Tudor #TudorHistory #Halloween #AllSaints #ElizabethI #HenryVIII #EnglishHistory #History Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  6. Sep 30

    From Farm Servant to Queen: How Every Tudor Got Ready for Autumn

    Every September, all of Tudor England was on the move. In episode 3 of our autumn series, we climb the social ladder one rung at a time, from a seventeen-year-old farm servant looking for next year's job all the way up to Queen Elizabeth watching sea gods row across a lake that was dug just for her. On the way, we find out why quitting your job without a written testimonial could land you in prison in 1563, wander through Stourbridge Fair (one of the biggest fairs in Europe, right outside Cambridge), peek into Sir William Petre's household accounts at Ingatestone, and follow the court to Elvetham in 1591, where the Earl of Hertford built a crescent-shaped lake with a ship-shaped island for a four-day visit. Plus the staggering cost of hosting Elizabeth on progress, and the nobles who tried very hard to get out of it, including one earl who simply wasn't home when she knocked. This is episode 3 of 4 in our series on how the Tudors got ready for autumn. 🎟 TudorCon From Home, October 23 to 25. We livestream the main room all weekend, and every talk is recorded with audio and slides so you can listen afterward. Every ticket comes with a digital swag bag worth over $100: https://tudorcon.englandcast.com/tudorcon-from-home/ 📬 Get the newsletter: https://www.englandcast.com/newsletter-sign-up/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  7. Sep 29

    Thomas Tusser's Tudor To-Do List for Autumn (Written Entirely in Rhyme)

    The harvest is in. Now what? In episode 2 of our autumn series, we head out into the Tudor village with the best guide I could possibly have found: Thomas Tusser, a former choirboy and court musician who walked away from court, became a Suffolk farmer, and wrote an entire farming manual in rhyme. We crash a harvest home celebration spotted near Windsor by a German traveller in 1598, follow the gleaners into the stubble and the pigs into the woods, and find out why "mast fats up swine, mast kills up kine." Then we spend time with the Tudor farmer's wife, who was winnowing corn, making malt, driving the plough, selling geese at market, and keeping the accounts. And there's a 1523 farming manual that tells husbands and wives to show each other their receipts! This is episode 2 of 4 in our series on how the Tudors got ready for autumn. If you missed Michaelmas, start there. There's a goose in it. 🎟 TudorCon From Home, October 23 to 25. We livestream the main room all weekend, and every talk is recorded with audio and slides so you can listen afterward. Every ticket comes with a digital swag bag worth over $100. Sign up by September 30th to join the Privy Council and get the bonuses, including the Spooky Halloween Walk through London: https://tudorcon.englandcast.com/tudorcon-from-home/ 📬 Get the newsletter: https://www.englandcast.com/newsletter-sign-up/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  8. Sep 28

    Why Tudor Tenants Brought Their Landlord a Goose (Michaelmas Explained)

    September 29th was one of the biggest days of the Tudor year, and most of us have never heard of it. Michaelmas, the feast of St Michael and All Angels, was when rent came due, farm servants' contracts ran out, London chose its Lord Mayor, and the lawyers and students all headed back to town. It was also goose day, and the reason tenants turned up at the landlord's door with a goose under their arm is funnier (and a little sadder) than you'd think. This is episode 1 of a four-part series on how the Tudors got ready for autumn. In this one: 🪽 Who St Michael was, and why he's weighing souls in English church doom paintings🌧 The Wenhaston Doom, hidden under whitewash for 300 years until a rainstorm in 1892 🪿 George Gascoigne's poem about tenants buttering up their landlords "for fear their lease fly loose" 🏴‍☠️ Busting the myth that Elizabeth I started the Michaelmas goose after the Armada 📜 Why the British tax year still starts on April 6th, thanks to an old quarter day 🎟 TudorCon From Home, October 23 to 25. We livestream the main room all weekend, and every talk is recorded with audio and slides so you can catch up afterward. Every ticket comes with a digital swag bag worth over $100. Sign up by September 30th to join the Privy Council and get the bonuses, including the Spooky Halloween Walk through London: https://tudorcon.englandcast.com/tudorcon-from-home Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Renaissance England was a bustling and exciting place...new religion! break with rome! wars with Scotland! And France! And Spain! The birth of the modern world! In this weekly podcast I'll explore one aspect of life in 16th century England that will give you a deeper understanding of this most exciting time.

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