The Tudors Abroad
Not Just the Tudors
History Hit
4.8 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 28 May 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What did it mean to be English when merchants, sailors, captives, diplomats, and migrants were constantly crossing borders?
Pirates, a Kentish man becoming a Samurai and a king on the warpath; Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Professor Nandini Das trace tales of reinvention, danger and belonging in this exciting, hugely changing world.
MORE:
England’s First Ambassador to India: Thomas Roe
Giordano Bruno: Mystic, Heretic, Spy
Presented by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb. The researcher is Max Wintle, audio editor is Amy Haddow and the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Want to walk the halls of Anne Boleyn's childhood home or explore the castles that made up Henry |
| 0:06.8 | the 8th's English stronghold? With a subscription to history hit, you can dive into our Tudor |
| 0:12.1 | past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You also unlock hundreds of |
| 0:18.4 | hours of original documentaries with a brand new release |
| 0:21.8 | every single week. Covering everything from the ancient world to World War II, just visit |
| 0:28.1 | historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. |
| 0:34.9 | Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome welcome to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, |
| 0:40.7 | the podcasts in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, |
| 0:45.2 | from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samarise, |
| 0:49.8 | relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. |
| 0:54.0 | Not in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. |
| 1:03.5 | In June 1586, William Harbourn, England's ambassador to the Ottoman court, sat down to |
| 1:09.4 | write a difficult letter. |
| 1:14.0 | A group of Englishmen had been taken prisoner by the Ottomans, |
| 1:17.4 | and all Harbourn's attempts to free them had been in vain. |
| 1:23.2 | He had repeatedly petitioned the Ottoman governor of Alger's Ulluch Alipasha to no avail. |
| 1:26.3 | This time he changed his target. |
| 1:32.3 | His letter was written to Ulluch Alipasha's treasurer, a eunuch called Asan Agha. Harborn reminded Asan Agha of the biblical story of Joseph, the boy abandoned by his brothers in Egypt, later their saviour. |
| 1:39.3 | Harbon was urging the treasurer to treat the imprisoned Englishman as his brothers in the same way. |
| 1:45.8 | And he included these lines, notwithstanding your body be subject to Turkish thraldrum, |
| 1:51.2 | yet your virtuous mind be free from those vices. |
| 1:54.8 | It was an interesting meditation on liberty in the circumstances. |
... |
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