So I want to share with you something that kind of blew my mind a little bit when I first started digging into it.

When we think about the Tudor Royal Nursery, most of us picture, I don't know, a cozy room with a cradle and maybe some women in caps and aprons and a baby gurgling contentedly in the corner.

Quiet, domestic, and small. The reality?

The Tudor Royal Nursery was a Department of State.

It had its own hierarchy, its own politics, and its own power struggles.

Access to the royal baby was access to power, and everybody at court knew it.

So get comfy, grab a beverage, settle in, because today we are going to spend a day inside that world and it is wild in there.

Hey friend, welcome back to the Renaissance English History podcast. I am your host, Heather,

and as you know, I've been podcasting on Tudor England since 2009 with my show,

which makes me the original Tudor history podcaster.

I am, as always, delighted that you are here with me today to chat about the Tudor Nursery.

If you are new here, and this is the kind of thing that makes you go,

wait, tell me more, then hit subscribe because this is what we do most days of the week.

All right, let's start at the top, because there absolutely was a top. Presiding over everything was

the lady mistress, sometimes called the lady governess. She was essentially the CEO of the

nursery, a senior noblewoman appointed directly by the crown, and she had real authority.

We actually know her name in several cases. Lady Margaret Bryan had this role for Edward

the 6th, and she had previously cared for both Princess Mary and Princess Elizabeth.

That tells you something about how seriously this position was taken. You didn't just hand

the heir to England to just anybody. You gave the job to someone who had already proven

she could keep a royal child alive, which in the 16th century was genuinely not a given.

Margaret Bryan is one of my favorite minor figures in all of Tudor history, and she is

...