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

Tudor

Visit historic Carlisle

Shibden Hall, Halifax

Executed queen

The replica of 'The Matthew' arriving at Douarnenez, France in 1998. It was on the original 15th-century vessel that John Cabot travelled to North America. (Getty Images)

Where history happened: Tudor smuggling. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Peover Hall, Cheshire

Procession portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

How Elizabeth I used parties as a weapon against the Catholic threat to her throne

Arundel Castle, West Sussex

Richard II, led captive by Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV), renounces the throne in Jean Creton's 'Histoire du Roy d'Angleterre Richard II' (1401-05). (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Richard II: “I find myself a traitor”

Stamford, Lincolnshire

Castle Campbell, Clackmannanshire

A view towards the Carew estuary between a dry stone wall and the ruins of Carew Castle, Pembrokeshire, UK. (Dreamstime)

Where history happened: Tudor courtiers with Suzannah Lipscomb. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Philip of Spain, King of England: The Forgotten Sovereign

Winter defeats scurvy

Dundrennan Abbey, Dumfries and Galloway

In the 16,000 years after the end of the last Ice Age, societies in Eurasia and the Americas followed radically different trajectories. Here, an Aztec priest offers the heart taken from a living person to the god of war, Huitzilopochtli. (Photo12/UIG via Getty Images)

The old world and the new

Line engraving depicting the burning of Rawlins White, c1555. From a late 18th-century edition of John Foxe's 'The Book of Martyrs'. (Alamy)

The Making of Martyrs

Glenluce Abbey, Dumfries and Galloway

Whithorn Priory, Dumfries and Galloway

How to escape the tower. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An illustration from ‘A Short History of the English People’ by John Richard Green. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Drowning in Tudor England: why was water so dangerous?

A monument to Nicolaus Copernicus in Poland.

Q&AWas Copernicus the first to demonstrate that the earth goes around the sun?

Anne of Cleves House, East Sussex

Clare Priory, Suffolk

Wars of the Roses

A portrait of Henry VII in 1505. His claim to the throne was tenuous and he had to see off a posse of pretenders, yet he proved a canny and competent ruler, modernising the justice system and filling the crown’s coffers. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Henry VII: the survivor and stabiliser

The LibraryThe conquest of Wales and Mary I. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The LibrarySummer holidays and Edward VI. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The LibraryThe career of one of England's most well-known kings. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The origins of the Tudors. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In 1830 a keeper at the Tower of London menagerie accidentally removed the barrier between a lion and two tigers. The animals were eventually prised apart, by which point the lion had been fatally wounded. (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Life with the lions: the Tower of London menagerie