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

Tudor

The blue-robed Henry VII pictured performing a variety of tasks at the Tower of London following his accession to the throne, in a contemporary illustration. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Bosworth: the dawn of the Tudors

A woodcut print depicting the stocks, a form of Elizabethan punishment. Dated 16th century. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

"Damn your blood": Swearing in early modern English

Henry VIII. Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1540. The painting has the inscription 'Anno Aetatis suae XLIX' (His year of age, 49)’. Palazzo Barberini, Rome, Italy. (Photo by PHAS/UIG via Getty Images)

Henry VIII: 5 places you (probably) didn’t know shaped his life

Portrait of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. (Photo by Ken Welsh/Design Pics/Corbis via Getty Images)

Princely pleasures at Kenilworth: Robert Dudley's three-week marriage proposal to Elizabeth I. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In this painting from c1650, a witch wields a broomstick as demons and 'familiars' (helpers of witches) congregate before her. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

History quiz – witchcraft and superstition. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Keith Thomas. (Photo by Fran Monks)

Books interview with Keith Thomas: “The world was divided into the ‘civil’ and the ‘barbarous’”. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Jane Seymour: Henry VIII’s favourite queen. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

3 of the most famous royal weddings in history

The future Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, at Buckingham Palace following their wedding, 20 November 1947. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Royal wedding traditions through history: etiquette, menus and the dress code

Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV

When royals marry ‘commoners’: a brief history

11 shocking moments in history

500 years of medicine. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Lauren Mackay

8 of Britain’s best historical houses and gardens

A portrait of Elizabeth I, who, says Susan Doran, “confounded her Catholic enemies, imposed her will on the political scene, turned England into a strong Protestant state and presided over a glittering court culture”. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Elizabeth I: the great unifier

A portrait of Edward VI. The young monarch’s support for a trade venture through the North-East Passage laid the foundations for the Elizabethan age of exploration. (Photo by GeorgiosArt/Getty Images)

Edward VI: boy king and religious zealot

Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait of Henry VIII, c1537. Henry’s clash with the church was, says George Bernard, the most significant episode of the Tudor era and transformed England’s relationship with continental Europe. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

The LibraryHenry VIII and the scourge of papal power

A crowned Tudor rose. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Stringer via Getty Images)

Why the Tudors grab us

The ‘Princes in the Tower’

The 5 greatest mysteries behind the Wars of the Roses

Shakespeare’s best (or worst) villains

8 of Britain’s best battlefields

Henry VIII “regarded his wars as the worthy successors of the great martial victories of England’s past”, says Steven Gunn. (Photo by PHAS/UIG via Getty Images)

The LibraryTotal war in Tudor England

An engraving from Ulrich Molitor’s ‘On witches and female soothsayers’, depicting witches bringing down the rain. Germany, 15th century. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

A spell-binding history of witches

The execution of Charles I. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Murder, conspiracy and execution: six centuries of scandalous royal deaths

Elizabethan England’s relationship with the Islamic world

Elizabeth’s love rival. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The tragedy of Lady Jane Grey. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A 19th-century depiction of the first meeting of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

History quiz: Christmas with Henry VIII and his wives. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Historian Simon Schama.

Books interview: Simon Schama. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Black faces of Tudor England