Portrait of King Henry VIII, Jane Seymour and Prince Edward. (Photo by Getty Images)

Tudor

Oil on canvas of the Princes in the Tower

An enigma at the heart of British history: who killed the Princes in the Tower, Edward V and Richard Duke of York?

10 famous people in history and their bizarre pets

The downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots

A British military post in a street in Dublin during the Easter Uprising, 1916. (Photo by ullstein picture via Getty Images)

The history of Ireland: 11 milestone moments

A 19th-century portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

Elizabeth I’s love life: was she really a ‘Virgin Queen’?

Danny Dyer’s Right Royal Family. (Image Credit: BBC/Wall to Wall Media/Jack Coathupe)

Danny Dyer is “making people think again” about history, say historians

A maid polishes a silver dish. Female domestic servants were highly vulnerable to sexual exploitation, but in Reformation France they found some ways to fight back. (Photo by: Christophel Fine Art/UIG via Getty Images)

The women who wouldn’t be silenced in Reformation France

c60 AD, Queen Boudica of the Iceni holding a spear. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

8 things you may not know about British history

Tudor advent calendar

24 facts about Christmas in the Tudor period

Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, c. 1521 - 1608, known as Bess of Hardwick (Photo by Alamy)

Bess of Hardwick: a Tudor success story. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Queen Elizabeth II (centre) makes her 2016 Christmas speech (Photo by YUI MOK/AFP/Getty Images). What would queens before her have said in their festive speeches, if they'd had the chance? Clockwork from top right: Elizabeth I (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images); Queen Anne (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images); Mary Tudor (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) and Queen Matilda (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

Alternative Queen's Christmas speeches: what would Elizabeth I and Matilda have said?

How did Henry VIII and Elizabeth I celebrate Yuletide? (Illustration by Becca Thorne for BBC History Magazine)

Tales from a Tudor Christmas

Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots

Deadly rivals: Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots

Queen Victoria, c1860s. Victoria attended her son's wedding in March 1863 wearing full mourning dress – her husband, Prince Albert, had died some 15 months earlier. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Troublesome royal in-laws through history

Droeshout Portrait. This engraving appeared as the First Folio frontispiece. (© Getty Images)

8 places that shaped the life of William Shakespeare

Rags and riches: Enslaved people wash diamonds in Brazil, guarded by armed overseers, in a German engraving of 1828. Diamonds were discovered in Minas Gerais state in the late 17th century. (Picture by Alamy)

Brazil: a society shaped by slavery

Circus performer Otto Witte, who in 1912 successfully pretended to be the new king of Albania. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

14 weird things that have happened in November through history

Thomas Cromwell (Illustrated by Sarah Young)

Thomas Cromwell reconsidered. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A portrait of Henry VIII with Prince Edward, his son by his third wife, Jane Seymour. If the future Henry IX had survived, there may have been no cause for Henry to annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn in 1533, says Amy Licence. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

6 royal births that changed the world (or could have)

Diana, Princess Of Wales, Prince William And Prince Harry visit Thorpe Park amusement park. (Photo by Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)

How to raise a royal... with Tracy Borman

In c1500, the young Thomas Cromwell travelled from his humble Putney home to the great cities of Italy, as shown in our illustration. The connections he established on the Italian peninsula would prove key to his meteoric rise to power back in England. (Illustration by Sarah Young for BBC History Magazine)

Thomas Cromwell: the best Italian in all England

Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall. (BBC Pictures)

Does historical accuracy really matter in period dramas like Wolf Hall?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A half-hour history of Europe. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An illustration showing the last moments of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the explorer, soldier and half-brother of Sir Walter Ralegh. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

The Tudor guide to colonising the world

A battle of Flodden memorial statue of one of the Hawick Callants on horseback, raising the captured banner aloft in triumph. Hawick, Roxburghshire, Scotland. (Getty Images)

History explorer: the battle of Flodden. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

General prehistory

12 historical places to visit on the August bank holiday weekend

The first baby is born to English settlers in the Americas. (Illustration by Lynn Hatzius)

A big day in history: the first baby is born to English settlers in the Americas

Sunset over the causeway to St Michael's Mount, Marazion, Cornwall, England (Getty Images)

9 places associated with the Prayer Book Rebellion. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Elizabeth I podcast

Inside the mind of Elizabeth I. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Portrait of Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII, 1536. (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)

Henry VIII's six wives in a different light