Having watched the second Elizabethan era draw to a close in recent weeks, it is fitting that in this episode we are going back to the beginning of the first Elizabethan era – the moment when Mary Tudor died leaving the throne to her younger half-sister.

These two queens, the first women to rule England in their own right, were divided by their faith. The greatest challenge facing Elizabeth on her accession was to unite a country which was polarised by religion, having passed from hard-line Protestantism under Edward VI back to Catholicism with Mary.

Our learned guide on this journey is Dr Lucy Wooding whose masterful new book, Tudor England, gives a rich, detailed vision of the period. Wooding's book is not simply limited to the big political moments but takes the reader right into the lives of ordinary people as well.

Dr Lucy Wooding is Langford Fellow and Tutor in History at Lincoln College, Oxford. She is an expert on Reformation England, its politics, religion and culture, and the author of Henry VIII.

Tudor England by Lucy Wooding is out now.

Show notes

Scene One: 17 November 1558, London. In the early morning, Mary I lies dying at St James's Palace. By evening, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Reginald Pole, has also died – a momentous day for Catholicism in England.

Scene Two: November 1558, a few days earlier. Princess Elizabeth is at a dinner party at Brocket Hall, with the Count of Feria who has been sent by Philip II (Mary’s husband) to sound out the heir to the throne. He concludes that she is, ‘'She is a very vain and clever woman’, who is, ‘determined to be governed by no one'.

Scene Three: Late 1557, The Works of Sir Thomas More, sometime Lord Chauncellor, wrytten by him in the Englysh tonge are published by the printer William Rastell, who was also More’s nephew.

Memento: The reliquary known as the ‘Tablet de Bourbon’, made by one of the great Parisian goldsmiths and acquired as part of a ransom during the Hundred Years War. Worn by Mary I in the portrait by Hans Eworth.

People/Social

Presenter: Violet Moller

Guest: Dr Lucy Wooding

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

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