Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England episode 273.

Hope to the Return.

Did I mention before I start that I am going to be presenting at a conference?

Did I tell you that?

It is in New York which apparently is good enough to be named twice and it's on Saturday

the 28th of June.

There are loads of great people there including legendary Mike and awesome Kevin, that's

Duncan and Stroud, Rome and English by the way.

If you are excited by this idea, book away sweet lips that never told a lie, book away.

You can find details on the history of England.co.uk.

It's called the Intelligent Speech Conference and while the name sucks, it'll be a high

old time with a bit of luck.

Right, now at the English and Spanish have met at court, the Spanish being visibly proud,

disdainful and uncomfortable and the English doing what they do best, being white, pink

and porous and the logical thing to do in this podcast will be to get on with the main

themes of Mary's reign.

Those really important serious things like religion, the counter-reformation, the

chewed identity in its latest format.

But rather than that, I thought it would be nice to get a bit more personal about Mary

and her court setup.

After all, she's going to get a bit of stick through the centuries so it might as well

get to know her a little bit more.

...