Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast, a part of the Agora Podcast Network.

I'm your host, Heather Tesco, and I'm a storyteller who makes history accessible because I believe

it's a pathway to understanding who we are, our place in the universe, and being more deeply in touch

with our own humanity. This is episode 170 and it's another year in the life episodes where we

go through one year and talk about the various events that happened that year.

So for this episode, I chose 1561.

I've done this with a couple of other episodes before 1601 I did.

1537, maybe.

I think I've done it with three or four.

So I'll link to all of them in the show notes for this episode, which will be at

Englandcast.com slash 1561. Englandcast.com slash 1561. So why did I choose this year?

Well, it was about three years into Elizabeth's reign. The religious settlement was still being

hashed out, and Elizabeth was still establishing herself

as queen. And a bunch of really interesting things happened that year. It was a year when a major

London landmark was badly damaged by lightning. Calvinist settled in England. Merchants headed to Moscow.

Mary Queen of Scots was headed back to Scotland from France and denied safe

passage in England. And the very first novel ever published in English, according to some

academics, came out. It was a big year. But first, I want to do patron thank yous because

it's been a while. It's been a minute. And some new patrons have hopped on to do patron thank yous because it's been a while.

It's been a minute.

And some new patrons have hopped on board.

So thank you to all of the patrons of this show.

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