The Tudor's Dynasty podcast.

Welcome to this very first episode of Tudor's Dynasty series on Mary the First,

England's first crowned Queen Recknant, hosted by me, Johanna Strong.

I have just submitted my PhD at the University

of Winchester about Mary's legacy, and this week I'm joined on the podcast by Melita Thomas.

Melita is the co-founder and editor of Tudor Times, an online repository for all things Tudor

and Stuart, and author of a number of books and

diaries, including The King's Pearl, Henry VIII, and his daughter, Mary.

She's currently a PhD student, undertaking research about Mary the First's networks

before she became Queen.

Today, she'll be sharing her latest research with us, so let's get started.

First of all, it's wonderful to have you on, Belita. It's always such a pleasure to chat with you. Thank you so much and thank you very

much for asking me. It's great to see so much interest in Mary now. So what first got you

started in Mary? I think probably like lots of people. It was

where my first interest in Tudor history generally started was, I don't know if you remember back to,

you probably weren't, you're too young, the 1970s, the six wives of Henry the 8th with Keith

Michelle and Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth R.

And that encouraged so many people to be interested.

So like lots of people I became interested in Elizabeth first.

But then I sort of branched out and I read the wonderful trilogy by Hilda Lewis about Mary,

novels, but I think they're out of print now.

And I just became more interested in Mary.

...