In the summer of 1588, as the armada loomed across the channel, a young Charles Blunt served aboard the rainbow as a volunteer under Lord Henry Seymour.

The eighth baron Mountjoy would come to that title later after his brother's death in 1594, but already he was tall, handsome, and steady, a man whose family had served

the tutors for four generations. He would become Lord Deputy of Ireland, presiding over the last

and bloodiest years of Elizabeth's reign, and die just three years into the rule of James I.

His story was not simply war and politics.

The Blunts had always been close to power, sometimes uncomfortably so.

His kinsman had been tutor to the prince who became Henry VIII.

A more distant relative, Bessie Blunt, had born that King's only acknowledged illegitimate son, and Charles' own

doomed love affair with Penelope Rich would scandalize the Elizabethan court.

To understand how Charles Blunt found himself serving against the Armada, representing a lineage

that was part of every chapter of Tudor history.

We have to first go back to the roots of the Mount Joy family,

to the castles and manners of medieval Staffordshire and Derbyshire,

where ambition and service first intertwined in the name of Blunt.

Let's get into it.

Music in the name of Blunt. Let's get into it. Hello, friend, welcome back to the Renaissance English History podcast, the original

Tudor History podcast telling stories of 16th century England since 2009. I am your host,

Heather, and I am delighted, as always, that you are here with me today. I'm really enjoying

this thing that we started this year of kind of tracing noble families, figuring out where they

came from, how they rose under the tutors, and then what

happened to them later. And I thought I would continue that. You know, it's funny because you

hear about these families and you hear them mentioned in different contexts and at different times,

...