Hey, it's Heather, and I want to remind you about our very special tours to the UK.

In 2017, we'll be doing tours focusing on the Even Song experience.

The Even Song service comes from Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer from the mid-16th century.

It's been dubbed the Atheist's Favorite Service because it requires so little and it gives so much. It's simply

divine choral music sung in some of the most historic chapels, abbeys and cathedrals in England.

We'll be spending 10 days visiting places like Cambridge, Oxford, Bath, the Cotswolds,

Winchester and Windsor with walking tours, free time to explore,

and then gathering back each afternoon for the Evensong Service if you choose to attend.

It will be 10 days of beautiful countryside, historic cities and villages, and so, so much music. I invite you to go to Englandcast.com

slash tours for full itinerary and pricing information. Again, Englandcast, E-N-G-L-A-N-D, C-A-S-D, Englandcast.com

slash tours. Big World, travel your passions.

Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History podcast. I'm your host, Heather Tesco.

And this week we're going to talk about a woman whom I've become completely enamored with.

Her name is Bess of Hardwick and she was this amazing woman who used her own luck, created her own luck, used the opportunity

she was given in Rose from being born into a family of landed gentry, kind of yeoman

farmers, to really becoming a woman in the highest tiers of the nobility and the second

wealthiest woman in all of England

second only to the queen herself.

So she's a really amazing story and I'm excited to be able to tell it to you this week.

Also, I have to tell you that I'm podcasting to you this week from a hotel by the Frankfurt Airport. I'm here for the Frankfurt Book Fair.

And so you're going to hear planes every couple of minutes taking off. And I'm really sorry about

that. It's kind of just the situation that we've got right now. And I'm really not going to be

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