Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History podcast. I'm your host, Heather Tesco. Thanks for joining me in this regular digital journey back to the 15th and 16th centuries.

Because I've been really busy this past week, this episode is going to be short. So apologies

in advance for that. This week we are going to talk about the court life in the 16th century.

The Tudor dynasty began in the late 15th century

and extended for about 120 years, so it's difficult to paint with broad strokes in terms of

what was fashionable during the entire dynasty, but certain parts of life stayed constant, and that's

what we'll touch on today. Usually when we picture Henry the 8th, we picture

the corpulent old king in the famous portraits. But as anyone who's watched the Tudors on Showtime

the past few years will note, when Henry was young, he was hot. One of his contemporaries wrote

that he was, quote, one of the goodliest men that lived in his time,

in manners more than a man, most amiable, courteous, and benign in gesture unto all persons.

He was also a younger son, who had been groomed for life in the church.

When his brother Arthur died, suddenly he was thrown into the

whirlwind of court life, learning all of the skills necessary for a king who would lead his people into

battle. So Henry was well and truly a Renaissance man, who was equally comfortable in a jousting tournament

or studying the new humanist texts.

The court life that his father started evolved and continued to be modernized during Henry's rule. After his father's strict rule, the energetic, youthful, and handsome king avoided governing

too much in person, preferring to be out in the countryside, hunting and enjoying

all of the attention of his subjects. Matters of state were often left in the hands of others,

most notably Thomas Woolsey, Archbishop of York. Cardinal Woolsey virtually ruled England

until his failure to secure the papal annulment that Henry needed to marry

Anne Boleyn in 1533. Woolsey was very capable as Lord Chancellor, but his own interests were served

...