Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History podcast.

I'm your host, Heather Tesco.

A quick personal note before we get started.

Many of you have been wondering why I haven't been around since, oh, sometime around mid-July.

And the reason for that is that your intrepid Renaissance podcaster,

that's me, went and got herself pregnant with my husband. And then, in a truly medieval

turn of events, I lost that pregnancy and I delivered my stillborn son at 21 weeks pregnant.

It's been a rough couple of months,

and I've kind of been hibernating from the world. So if you're the praying kind, feel free to

send some of those prayers my way. And if you're more of the sending good vibe sort, I take some of

those too. And if you're just done with hearing my personal stuff, fortunately for you, I'm done sharing.

So when last we met, we were talking about Catherine Parr, Henry's sixth and final wife,

who had managed to outmaneuver all of the men who were trying to take her down and navigate her way

through the sea of religious politics. This was no small feat,

and she deserves a huge amount of admiration for her quick thinking skills. We also saw the death

of our grand monarch, Henry VIII, and Lord Hartford, paying homage to his young son, Prince Edward,

as king. Prince Edward was born at Hampton Court in 1537, the son of Jane Seymour,

who died 12 days after his birth. This is Henry's only legitimate son, a son that Henry had

longed for, and prayed for, and gone to war for, and divorced his wife for, was excommunicated for and on and on. Basically,

Edward was a wanted and needed child, but he bore the entire responsibility of the future of the

Tudor dynasty on his small shoulders. He was much loved by his father, and there are many reports of Henry doting on Edward,

playing with him and showing him much more affection than was normal for fathers to show children

...