The Six Tudor Queens – Anne of Cleves with Tracy Borman

Historic Royal Palaces Podcast

Historic Royal Palaces

London, Palace, Tower, Historic, Conservation, Royal, Lecture, Learning, Kensington, Hampton, Kew, Banqueting, History, Court, Of, House, Palaces

4.6 • 635 Ratings

🗓️ 30 November 2023

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tracy Borman talks about her favourite of the Six Tudor Queens, Anne of Cleves. Divorced, so the rhyme goes, for being the ‘ugly’ Queen.

Anne’s looks were the least interesting thing about her, but her story has been dominated by them for centuries. Tracy is joined by fellow Curator Brett Dolman to unpack this fixation on appearance and reveal the woman beneath the myths.

This six-part series aims to do The Six Tudor Queens justice by stripping away unhelpful narratives and myths, to better understand them as women in their own time.

Read about Anne of Cleves here: www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/history-and-stories/anne-of-cleves

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to this new series on the Historic Royal Palaces podcast.
0:08.0	I'm Tracy Borman and I have the huge privilege of being chief curator here at the Palaces.
0:15.0	In this new series, we'll be exploring the lives of the six Tudor queens. Of course they all have one man in common,
0:23.9	but as we know they are so much more than just wives and Queen's Consort. In this series, we hope to do
0:32.7	these extraordinary queens justice, but this series will not be biographies of our Queens.
0:40.5	We'll be exploring and disputing the interpretations that history has offered of them, as well as
0:48.0	talking about what they might have been like as women in their own time. To get a sense of the context in which they lived, we'll be
0:57.0	stepping into parts of our palaces where they would have walked in a court that was both exciting
1:03.7	and toxic in its temperament. So join me as we dive into the world of the six Tudor queens.
1:12.6	Well, we're standing in Chapel Court, which is part of the Tudor part of Hampton Court Palace.
1:31.3	It is beautifully decorated as a Tudor garden, and I'm surrounded by the Royal Beasts,
1:38.3	which are modern replica of the almost 100 Royal Beasts that once decorated Henry the 8th Privy Garden at Hampton Court.
1:46.2	My name is Brett Dolman. I am curator collections for historic rural palaces based here at Hampton Court.
1:52.3	And we are here today for the fourth podcast in our series on Henry the 8th's Queens.
1:57.8	We're going to do things a little bit differently today.
2:00.4	Obviously I am not Tracy Borman, but I am joined by Tracy Borman and it is Tracy We're going to do things a little bit differently today. Obviously, I am not Tracy
2:01.7	Borman, but I am joined by Tracy Borman, and it is Tracy that's going to be talking about
2:05.7	Anne of Cleaves, who is, I believe, your favourite of Henry the 8th Queens. Is that right, Tracy?
2:11.1	She is. And I have to say, Brett, I'm feeling a little bit under pressure now because I'm so used to being the interviewer. It's a bit like poacher turned gamekeeper or something like that.
2:20.3	So I really want to do Anne justice.
2:23.3	She's so often overlooked, dismissed the ugly wife and all these other myths about her.
2:29.3	And I want to set the record straight today.
	...

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