HistoryExtra https://www.historyextra.com/people/elizabeth-i Wed, 30 Sep 2026 08:11:11 GMT en hourly 1 Was Elizabeth I's reign really a 'golden age'? https://www.historyextra.com/membership/elizazbeth-i-reign-golden-age-podcast/ Wed, 30 Sep 2026 08:11:11 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/elizazbeth-i-reign-golden-age-podcast/ Nicola Tallis explores the final chapter of Elizabeth I's reign, when questions of ageing, succession, and legacy loomed large As Elizabeth I entered the final chapter of her reign, questions of ageing, succession, and legacy loomed large.
In this final episode of our four-part Sunday Series on the Tudor monarch, Rachel Dinning is joined by historian Nicola Tallis to explore the queen’s later years, her reluctance to name an heir, and the political uncertainty that followed her death. They also examine how Elizabeth’s image was carefully crafted in her lifetime and beyond, helping to transform her into the enduring symbol of the ‘Golden Age’ that still captivates popular imagination today.
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Want to know more about Elizabeth I and her remarkable reign? Rachel Dinning rounds up essential reading from the HistoryExtra archive that explores Elizabeth's early life, rise to power, court intrigues, and the legacy that made her one of history's most iconic monarchs. Go beyond the podcast.
]]> Elizabeth’s enemies: plots, rivals and the Spanish Armada https://www.historyextra.com/membership/elizabeth-i-enemies-podcast/ Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:11:06 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/elizabeth-i-enemies-podcast/ Nicola Tallis explores how Elizabeth I's reign was defined by constant threat, both at home and abroad Elizabeth I’s reign was defined by constant threat, both at home and abroad.
In this third episode of our four-part Sunday Series on the Tudor monarch, Rachel Dinning is joined by historian Nicola Tallis to examine the rivals and conspiracies that endangered the queen's security on the throne.
From the long and fraught conflict with her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots to the intricate spy networks that uncovered treasonous plots, they chart the mounting tensions that culminated in one of the most famous maritime perils England ever faced: the Spanish Armada of 1588.
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Want to know more about Elizabeth I and her remarkable reign? Rachel Dinning rounds up essential reading from the HistoryExtra archive that explores Elizabeth's early life, rise to power, court intrigues, and the legacy that made her one of history's most iconic monarchs. Go beyond the podcast.
]]> Elizabeth I: a woman in a man’s world https://www.historyextra.com/membership/elizabeth-i-episode-two/ Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:00:12 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/elizabeth-i-episode-two/ Nicola Tallis explores Elizabeth’s early reign, from her coronation and the urgent task of stabilising a divided kingdom to the pressures of ruling as a female monarch in a deeply patriarchal society By 1559, Elizabeth I had secured the crown – but holding on to power would prove far more challenging. In this second episode of our four-part Sunday Series on the Tudor monarch, Rachel Dinning is joined by historian Nicola Tallis to explore Elizabeth’s early reign, from her coronation and the urgent task of stabilising a divided kingdom to the pressures of ruling as a female monarch in a deeply patriarchal society.
They also examine the influential figures who shaped her court and the high-stakes marriage negotiations that helped forge the enduring image of the ‘Virgin Queen’.
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Want to know more about Elizabeth I and her remarkable reign? Rachel Dinning rounds up essential reading from the HistoryExtra archive that explores Elizabeth's early life, rise to power, court intrigues, and the legacy that made her one of history's most iconic monarchs. Go beyond the podcast.
]]> Young Elizabeth I: the making of a queen https://www.historyextra.com/membership/elizabeth-i-episode-one/ Wed, 09 Sep 2026 08:00:13 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/elizabeth-i-episode-one/ Nicola Tallis explores Elizabeth I’s early years to reveal how her formative experiences influenced the monarch she later became Elizabeth I is one of history's most iconic monarchs, but her path to the throne was anything but secure.
In this first episode of our four-part Sunday Series on the 16th-century royal, Rachel Dinning is joined by historian Nicola Tallis to explore Elizabeth’s turbulent early years – from the execution of her mother, Anne Boleyn, to the political and personal dangers she faced as she navigated childhood, illegitimacy, and the treacherous Tudor succession. Together, they uncover how these formative experiences helped shape the woman who would become a formidable queen.
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Want to know more about Elizabeth I and her remarkable reign? Rachel Dinning rounds up essential reading from the HistoryExtra archive that explores Elizabeth's early life, rise to power, and the legacy that made her one of England’s most iconic monarchs. Go beyond the podcast.
]]> Royal rivalry: 10 monarchs whose fate was determined by their siblings https://www.historyextra.com/membership/royal-sibling-rivalries/ Thu, 20 Aug 2026 12:01:54 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/royal-sibling-rivalries/ Through history, the role of the second or third royal sibling has not always been easy. Here, historian Sarah Gristwood explores 10 of the most famous – and dysfunctional – royal sibling relationships... In the bad old days of high infant mortality, any royal family needed an heir and several ‘spares’ – north of the border, James V and his daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots, are just two of the many British monarchs with elder brothers who died in infancy. William the Conqueror left England to his second son, another William, while the eldest son, Robert, inherited Normandy.
Since then, the history of these islands has been littered with famous second – or third, or fourth – royal siblings (or, more specifically, royal sons, since gender continued to trump age right into the 21st century), who for better or for worse have done much to shape the monarchy that we know today. Here are 10 of the most famous...
Richard I (1157–99)
It wasn’t Richard the Lionheart, but his elder brother, Henry, who was crowned ‘the Young King’ of England, unusually during their father’s lifetime. In the event Henry predeceased his father, but perhaps the fact Richard hadn’t been raised for the job explains why the crusader showed so little real enthusiasm for hands-on rule of England, spending only a few months in the country during his 10-year reign.
Richard was himself succeeded by his younger brother, John. Fairly or unfairly, King John has gone down in popular history as a disastrous monarch whose reign was epitomised by his losing the crown jewels in the Wash – but he did inadvertently help to give us Magna Carta.
- Read more | When and how did Richard the Lionheart die?
John of Gaunt (1340–99)
By contrast to John I, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster – fourth son of the prolific Edward III – has traditionally been accorded a good measure of respect for the steering hand he kept on the country during the minority of his nephew, Richard II.
His harsh fiscal policies, however, made him a particular target of the Peasants’ Revolt – while almost as soon as John himself died, Richard II was deposed by John’s exiled son, the Bolingbroke of Shakespeare’s plays, who took the throne as Henry IV. These were the family divisions that, half a century later, would produce the Wars of the Roses.
Richard III (1452–85)
The best-known casualty of those wars was of course Richard III, whose death at Bosworth ushered in the Tudor dynasty. Richard was only the fourth son of the York family, but by the time he seized the throne the first, second and third sons were all dead – Edmund killed by the Lancastrians, and George, Duke of Clarence (after plotting against Edward) drowned in the famous butt of malmsey.
The grounds upon which Richard took the throne in 1483 – chiefly the supposed invalidity of Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville – are still debated today. So too, of course, is the fate of Edward IV’s sons, the princes in the Tower, and Richard’s role in their possible murder. Either way, Richard – his brother Edward’s most loyal supporter during his lifetime – provides the most dramatic prism through which to examine both the royal sibling bond, and the question of sibling rivalry.
Henry VIII (1491–1547)
It wasn’t Henry but his elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, who was expected to lead the Tudor dynasty through the 16th century. But Arthur died in 1502 – and if anyone ever forgot that in the glorious early days of Henry VIII’s reign, they had ample cause to remember two decades later, when Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon was endlessly debated, and ultimately declared invalid, on the grounds that she had been his brother Arthur’s widow.
Indeed, there has been speculation that Henry’s position as a mere second son – reared with his mother and sisters, while Arthur was sent away to Ludlow – affected his later attitudes, and his infamous marital history.
Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
Elizabeth was Henry’s second surviving legitimate child; her sister, ‘Bloody’ Mary, Henry’s eldest. But both women accepted that first place in the succession went to their younger brother, Edward VI.
After Edward’s premature death in 1553, however, differences between the sisters led to Elizabeth being imprisoned in the Tower, in danger of her life. This was no simple case of sibling rivalry, of course, since religious differences led to real dispute as to whether the Catholic Mary or the Protestant Elizabeth had best claim to the throne. All the same, no one looking for the model of a happy family is ever going to pick the Tudors!
Read more | 7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Elizabeth I
Charles I (1600–49)
When James VI and I’s eldest son, Prince Henry, died in 1612 of what was probably typhoid, shock waves went through the country. At 18, the vibrant Henry was already the great hope of the Stuart dynasty. His brother Charles, by contrast, was a sickly 11-year-old considered unlikely to survive. Perhaps early insecurities left the adult Charles, as a monarch, particularly susceptible both to the influence of his favourite Buckingham [George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham] and his Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria, and to an inflated conception of the monarchy.
Elizabeth of Bohemia (1596–1662)
It may seem like cheating to list two siblings as separately important, but it’s the descendants of Elizabeth of Bohemia, not of her brother, Charles I, who sit on the British throne today. When Charles I’s eldest surviving son, Charles II, was succeeded by his own younger brother James, the latter’s unpopularity and Catholicism led to his deposition in 1688.
The ‘Glorious Revolution’ of that year brought in, instead, James’s Protestant daughter Mary and her husband, William of Orange, while the Catholic descendants of James’s second marriage dwindled to the status of pretenders.
Anne (1665–1714)
When William and Mary died without children, the crown passed to another younger sibling. Mary’s sister, Anne, came to the throne under the Act of Settlement of 1701, which effectively secured the throne to the Protestant Hanoverian dynasty, since it was already apparent that Anne too was unlikely to bear a surviving child, despite 18 pregnancies.
Upon Queen Anne’s death the throne was offered to the Elector of Hanover, a grandson of Elizabeth of Bohemia, who became Britain’s George I. He and his Hanoverian descendants would reign, however, on very different terms from those earlier rulers had enjoyed. The stage was set for a modern, ‘constitutional’, monarchy (a position confirmed more than a century later when George’s great-great grandson William IV – succeeding his elder brother George IV – ceded yet further royal powers).
George V (1865–1936)
You might think that in the modern age the importance of the royal second sibling is outdated – we are, after all, past the days of high infant mortality.
King George V was born the second son of the future Edward VII, but his elder brother, Albert Victor, known as Prince Eddy, died of pneumonia in his twenties, while his grandmother, Queen Victoria, was still on the throne. By that time Eddy had been linked to the Cleveland Street scandal, which involved a homosexual brothel, amid wider concerns over his character and abilities. (He has, however unconvincingly, even been identified as Jack the Ripper). His brother George, by contrast, was a formidable figure who, besides taking on Eddy’s engagement to Princess Mary of Teck in 1917, changed the name of the royal family from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.
George VI (1895–1952)
The first half of the 20th century saw two second sons accede to the throne – both important in shaping the form of the present monarchy. George V was of course succeeded by his eldest son, Edward VIII, the future Duke of Windsor, but Edward’s reign lasted less than a year, and he was never crowned. When he abdicated in order to marry the divorced Wallis Simpson, his younger brother was forced to step up to the plate.
Diffident and reluctant – we’d come a long way from the power-hungry days of the medieval monarchy – George VI nonetheless saw the country through the dark days of Second World War. That example of dutiful service would model an ideal for his daughter, Elizabeth II.
A version of this article was first published by HistoryExtra in April 2018
]]> Elizabeth I: The power of delaying decisions https://www.historyextra.com/membership/elizabeth-i-historys-greatest-leaders-podcast/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 09:09:47 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/elizabeth-i-historys-greatest-leaders-podcast/ In episode 1 of History's Greatest Leaders, Tracy Borman and Mike Soutar discuss the tips that Elizabeth I's reign has to offer leaders today We often think of successful leadership in terms of steely resolve and decisive action. And one of history’s most famous rulers, Tudor queen Elizabeth I, was certainly capable of this strength and dynamism. But there’s another side to her story, too: a recurring tendency towards procrastination and indecision.
In this episode, Tracy Borman – chief historian at Historic Royal Palaces and the author of books including Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Revelatory True Story of the Mother and Daughter who Changed History – tells Mike Soutar why this apparent dithering may in fact have been a strategic masterstroke, and highlights the tips that the queen’s reign has to offer leaders today.
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]]> The 'Nine Days Queen' is one of England's most controversial monarchs - here's why https://www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/nine-days-queen-england-controversial-monarch/ Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:40:39 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/nine-days-queen-england-controversial-monarch/ Has history captured Lady Jane Grey’s story accurately? As her childhood home re-opens to the public, we investigate the misunderstood queen In April 2026, Bradgate House – the childhood home of Lady Jane Grey – was reopened to the public after extensive conservation work, bringing with it a new wave of interest in the so-called ‘Nine Days Queen’.
But what do we actually know about this enigmatic Tudor noble, who is often cast as a tragic victim?
Who was Lady Jane Grey?
In 1537, Jane was born into the noble Grey family. Her parents were the Duke of Suffolk, Henry Grey, and Lady Frances Brandon.
As the great-granddaughter of Henry VII and great-niece of Henry VIII, Jane was orbiting the English throne from birth. However, as historian Nicola Tallis explains on an upcoming episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, “she wasn’t ever raised as an heir to the throne. She was just this great-niece of Henry VIII who had been living in the countryside."
In 1553, that all changed.
King Edward VI was in increasingly ill-health but, being the first English monarch raised as a Protestant, he was desperate for his Protestant legacy to live on. So, he issued his Devise for the Succession. This legislation barred both of Edward’s half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, from succeeding to the throne.
“[Edward] didn’t want his Catholic half-sister [Mary] to be given the opportunity to reverse all of his good work in the cause of religion”, explains Nicola. “However, Edward realised that he couldn’t exclude one half-sister without also excluding the other. And so, he bars both Mary and his younger half-sister Elizabeth from the succession by reason of their illegitimacy."
This catapulted Jane to first in line for the throne – a place she didn’t want to be.
A reluctant queen
On 6 July 1553, just a few weeks after the Devise for the Succession, Edward VI died at age 15. This officially made Lady Jane Grey the Queen of England.
“She had no wish or desire to be queen whatsoever, but this was an impossible situation for Jane because she was pressured into accepting the throne," says Nicola.
So, Jane reluctantly took to the throne and was publicly proclaimed Queen on 10 July 1553.
Though, it would not last long; Jane would hold the title for a mere nine days. She was soon toppled by Mary I.
Was she really queen?
There has been some debate about whether Lady Jane Grey should be considered one of Britain’s monarchs, given the fact that the Devise for the Succession was never passed through parliament.
But as Diarmaid MacCulloch, speaking to HistoryExtra, points out, “the monarchy has never descended by strict primogeniture, and Queen Jane had a perfectly good claim to the throne: the sort of claim that brought James VI of Scotland to be James I of England in 1603."
Tudor historian Tracy Borman agrees.
“Edward’s Devise for the Succession was legally binding, so Jane’s claim was entirely valid – and arguably more so than other monarchs who claimed the throne without being legally named."
So, why is Jane often left off the list of British monarchs?
“Mary I [Edward VI’s half-sister who took the throne from Lady Jane Grey] had to ensure that her subjects saw her – not the woman she had supplanted – as the only true queen," explains Tracy. The dismissal of Lady Jane Grey was, therefore, a form of propaganda.
- Read more | Mary I: your guide to the life and rule of Henry VIII's daughter – plus a timeline and 7 little-known facts
In the battle over religious belief, Catholic Mary I had many supporters following the intense Protestantism of Edward VI’s reign, and that meant Lady Jane Grey – as a devout Protestant herself – made many enemies. As soon as Mary came to the throne on 19 July 1553, Jane was imprisoned in the Tower of London.
Why was Bradgate House so important?
Within the tumultuous story of Lady Jane Grey’s life, Bradgate House was the place that defined her childhood and provided the environment that shaped her.
“Jane would have grown up in an elite Protestant setting at Bradgate and, during the reign of Edward, some star Protestant preachers such as Bishop Hugh Latimer were welcome guests there," says Diarmaid. This moulded Jane’s Protestant beliefs, which made her such a good candidate to follow in Edward’s footsteps.
Living at Bradgate also gave Jane the opportunity to be educated, in a world where women were still often limited in this regard. Speaking to HistoryExtra, biographer James D Taylor explains that Jane’s scholarly abilities and intellect were nurtured in an environment where education was encouraged: “at a time when schools that we know of now did not exist, [growing up at Bradgate] allowed Jane to read and study with the guidance of tutors."
What can we learn from the story of Lady Jane Grey?
Whether or not Jane is considered a true queen, she was a certainly a definitive figure of the Tudor period, and representative of the era’s religious tensions.
“She’s a great symbol of historical might-have-beens,” says MacCulloch.
Of her short reign, Taylor adds, “though ill-prepared to rule, she did the best she could in the short amount of time she sat on the throne."
Jane refused to have her husband, Lord Guildford, proclaimed king without an Act of Parliament and, as Tallis explains, “the odds did seem to be very much stacked in Jane's favour to begin with. Even Mary's supporters were urging her to flee abroad for her safety because they were convinced that Jane's reign was going to be secure.”
- Read more | The curse of the nine-day queen
But despite her best efforts, Jane couldn’t compete with a vengeful Mary I, who, after being denied her birth right once before, was not willing to let it happen again. When Jane’s father was revealed as a key conspirator in Wyatt's rebellion – a 1554 uprising that aimed to prevent Mary I’s marriage to Philip II of Spain – Jane’s fate was sealed.
On 12 February 1554, Jane was executed at the Tower of London.
But perhaps she shouldn’t be remembered solely as a victim.
“Jane's story vividly illustrates how powerless women could be in the face of ambitious male relatives," says Borman. “Yet it also provides an inspiring example of a young woman with unshakeable religious convictions and principles – one who might, if history had turned out differently, have proved an excellent queen.”
Nicola Tallis was speaking to Isabel King on an upcoming episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, available soon.
]]> Think you know everything about the Tudors? Here are 15 facts that will prove you wrong https://www.historyextra.com/membership/think-you-know-everything-about-the-tudors-here-are-15-facts-that-will-prove-you-wrong/ Sun, 12 Apr 2026 15:00:00 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/think-you-know-everything-about-the-tudors-here-are-15-facts-that-will-prove-you-wrong/ Tracy Borman shares a selection of surprising insights into England’s most famous royal dynasty – from Mary I’s love of gambling to the truth about Henry VIII’s extramarital affairs 1. The Tudors weren’t known as the Tudors
Although we use ‘Tudor’ as a nifty shorthand for both the era and the dynasty, it wasn’t used at the time either by the monarchs or their people. Neither did they see it as a distinct period: in fact, Henry VII went to great lengths to emphasise the continuity with his royal predecessors, even down to using the same tailor whom Edward IV had employed.
He also emphasised his Lancastrian roots and tried to downplay his Welsh origins, aware that his grandfather Owen Tudor had married well above him when he bagged Henry V’s widow Catherine of Valois as a bride. Throughout the period 1485–1603, the people identified as subjects of each successive king or queen, as well as taking pride in their local affiliations, rather than seeing themselves as ‘Tudor people’.
2. They had a pretty dodgy claim to the throne
When Henry Tudor won the crown from Richard III at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, he was quick to stress his legitimacy. But there was more than a hint of protesting too much. In fact, the Tudors were descended from Edward III’s fourth son, John of Gaunt, and his long-standing mistress, Katherine Swynford.
Moreover, Henry VII’s father Edmund was the child of Henry V’s widow, Catherine of Valois, by her Welsh attendant. With such a dubious bloodline, it’s little wonder that England’s first Tudor king wasted no time in marrying Elizabeth of York, the eldest child of Edward IV. Their marriage united the warring houses of York and Lancaster and, crucially, gave the Tudors some much-needed legitimacy.
3. Henry VII was no miser
The first Tudor king has a reputation for penny-pinching. But while he kept a close eye on his expenditure, he knew how to splash the cash when it was to his advantage.
In the early years of his reign, when he was under constant threat from rivals and pretenders and many of his subjects questioned his right to be king, he spent lavish sums on dressing the part. Just over a week after defeating Richard III at Bosworth, he ordered a set of new gowns fashioned from cloth of gold, satin and royal purple velvet at a cost of £336, which roughly equates to £225,000 in today’s money.
During the two years that followed, he spent an eye-watering £5,386 (£3.6 million) on his wardrobe. But his generosity had its limits. His wife, Elizabeth of York, struggled to make ends meet throughout their marriage.
4. You would smell Henry VIII before you saw him
For the last 20 years of his life, Henry was tormented by pain from a chronic leg ulcer, which was aggravated by a serious fall from his horse while jousting in 1536. The ulcer often became inflamed and – unsurprisingly – Henry was a difficult patient, refusing to rest for long enough for it to heal. At its worst, the suppurating wound could be smelt from three rooms away.
- Read more | Was this the moment Henry VIII became a tyrant?
5. Henry VIII’s love of hawking was almost the death of him
Henry’s love of sport was well known throughout the court. As a young king, he would spend hours hunting, jousting, shooting arrows and playing tennis. Hawking was another of his favourite sports and his private apartments contained an impressive array of falconry equipment.
But in 1525, Henry was almost killed while pursuing his hawk. Attempting to pole vault over a ditch, instead he fell headfirst into it and almost drowned. Thankfully, his quick-thinking footman, Edmund Moody, managed to pull him out in the nick of time.
6. Henry VIII was a bit of a prude
Contrary to popular belief, Tudor England’s most-married monarch wasn’t much of a lothario. In fact, he had twice as many wives as mistresses. There is only evidence of three extramarital affairs.
The women involved were Bessie Blount (the mother of Henry’s not-so-subtly-named illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy), Mary Boleyn (sister of his second wife Anne) and ‘Mistress Shelton’, who was either Margaret or Mary Shelton, both cousins of Anne Boleyn.
Although there was a rumour that he once had an affair with Anne’s mother Elizabeth, he stoutly denied it: “Never with the mother!”
7. Anne Boleyn did not have a sixth finger on one hand
This oft-repeated tale is based on scurrilous gossip written almost 50 years after Anne’s death. A host of hostile Catholic tracts about Anne appeared in the 1580s as part of a smear campaign against her ‘heretic’ daughter, Elizabeth I.
Nicholas Sander was one of the most influential and claimed that Anne had been Henry VIII’s daughter as well as his wife, the result of his clandestine affair with her mother. Feeding on the rumours of witchcraft that had circulated at the time of Anne’s demise, he asserted that she had a sixth finger on her right hand and a large ‘wen’ (a boil or mole) under her chin.
Such blemishes were commonly thought to be the ‘Devil’s Mark’ – a symbol of having made a pact with Satan. In fact, Anne was proud of her long, slender fingers and always took care to show them off to best effect… all 10 of them.
8. Anne of Cleves was not ugly
You may have heard the story: Henry VIII fell in love with Anne of Cleves’ portrait and immediately signed on the dotted line of the marriage contract. But when he met his bride in person, he was appalled that she was nothing like her profile picture. So, he had the marriage annulled before you could say ‘off with her head’.
In fact, Holbein’s portrait was faithful to Anne, and many contemporary accounts praise her beauty. If anyone had cause for complaint about their betrothed’s physical assets, it was Anne. Henry was no oil painting by the time she married him in January 1540. Pushing 50, he was bloated, ulcer-ridden and almost certainly impotent. It was with understandable haste that Anne agreed to an annulment just six months later.
9. Edward VI kept a diary
The boy king was the only Tudor monarch to leave behind a private journal. But if you’re expecting a tell-all exposé full of secretly expressed desires, grudges and hopes, you might be disappointed. In fact, it’s a rather dry summary of the events of his reign.
Even the execution of his once-cherished uncle is afforded only the following curt line: “The Duke of Somerset had his head cut off today.” Overall, the diary reveals a boy who was precociously intelligent, as might be expected for Henry VIII’s “precious jewel”, who had the best of everything growing up.
But he also appears cold, unfeeling and uncompromising – a dangerous blend of traits that might have made him an even greater tyrant than his father if he lived to maturity.
10. Lady Jane Grey was queen for 14 days, not nine
Jane has gone down in history as the ‘Nine Days’ Queen’. But while it’s true that she was proclaimed queen on 10 July 1553 and deposed by Mary Tudor on 19 July, her reign technically began as soon as Edward VI had breathed his last on 6 July.
On his deathbed, Edward changed the succession in favour of his Protestant cousin Jane to prevent his Catholic half-sister Mary claiming her right. He was heavily influenced by John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who had married his son Guildford to Jane.
Even so, Edward’s ‘Device’ for the succession was legally-binding, so Jane was the rightful queen as soon as the young king died. Yet she is always referred to as ‘Lady’ rather than ‘Queen’ and is often omitted from the roll call of English monarchs altogether. That owes much to Mary Tudor’s propaganda: to seize the throne, she had to present Jane as a usurper.
11. ‘Bloody Mary’ wasn’t all that bloody
Mary I’s obsession with returning England to the Roman Catholic faith spurred her to have around 300 Protestant heretics burned at the stake. But while there is no doubting the horrific nature of their deaths, Mary acted out of conscience rather than brutality.
Blinded by her own faith, she genuinely believed that she was saving her subjects from eternal damnation by bringing them into the Roman Catholic fold. Furthermore, the number of people who died on Mary’s orders was just a fraction of those who suffered at the hands of her far bloodier father, Henry VIII.
He sent more men and women to their deaths than any other Tudor monarch. Anyone who refused to fall in with his will was sent to the block – commoners, statesmen and wives alike. It even became a crime to think differently from the king. Contemporary records are patchy and inconsistent, so it’s impossible to quantify exactly how many deaths Henry was responsible for. Estimates vary from a few thousand to as many as 72,000.
12. Mary Tudor was a bit of a party girl
Despite her reputation for sober-mindedness and piety, Mary loved to have fun. One of her favourite companions was Jane Fool, a female jester. The queen was also an avid gambler and loved to play cards and board games. She also entertained lavishly and spent huge sums on feasting and drinking.
A scandalised Spanish ambassador reported: “There is plenty of beer here, and they drink more than would fill the Valladolid river [known as the Pisuerga river today]… The ladies and gentlemen put sugar in their wine, with the result that there are great goings on in the palace.”
13. Elizabeth I employed the original James Bond
The queen’s personal astrologer Dr John Dee was one of her closest advisers. She would regularly consult him about the most apposite moment to undertake key events, such as her coronation.
An astrologer, astronomer, mathematician and philosopher, Dee was one of the most learned men of the age. But he also carried out more covert assignments for his royal mistress. She employed Dee as a spy, and he would report on intrigues abroad using complex codes. He signed his letters with the numerals ‘007’.
14. Elizabeth I was (apparently) a man
The ‘Bisley Boy’ legend states that in 1542, the future Elizabeth I (then aged around nine) was sent to Overcourt House in the Cotswold village of Bisley to escape the plague in London. Whilst there, she sickened with a fever and died. Knowing that Henry VIII was on his way to visit his daughter, her panic-stricken governess searched the village in vain for a girl who resembled Elizabeth closely enough to fool the king.
The only child of the right age and colouring was a boy, so in desperation she dressed him in the princess’s clothes and the deception was complete. This unlikely tale dates from the 1800s and was made popular by Dracula author Bram Stoker in his book Famous Impostors.
There is no contemporary evidence to support it and more than a whiff of misogyny about the whole thing. How else could Elizabeth have ruled so successfully for so many years? She must have been a man.
15. Elizabeth I didn’t leave her throne to James VI
But as she lay dying at Richmond Palace in March 1603, she finally settled the matter, gasping that she would have none but “my nearest kinsman the King of Scots”.
This deathbed scene was recorded by the contemporary historian William Camden, who had been commissioned to write a biography of the celebrated queen during her lifetime. But dramatic new research by the British Library has proved that Camden was forced to rewrite it on the orders of the new king to make his accession look more predetermined than it had been.
Using transmitted light, the researchers found that in his original manuscript, written at the time of Elizabeth’s death, Camden had recorded that she died without naming a successor. But a few years later, his words were covered over with the lie that ushered the Stuarts to the Tudor throne.
]]> What did Anne Boleyn REALLY look like? Our new research could change everything https://www.historyextra.com/membership/what-did-anne-boleyn-really-look-like-our-new-research-could-change-everything/ Fri, 13 Mar 2026 17:30:55 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/what-did-anne-boleyn-really-look-like-our-new-research-could-change-everything/ Dark or brunette? Fair or swarthy? A paragon of beauty or a refined charmer? Our picture of Henry VIII’s ill-fated second queen has become distorted over five centuries – but new research by Owen Emmerson and others comes closer to revealing her true appearance Close your eyes and picture Anne Boleyn. Chances are you can conjure up a pretty clear and detailed image in your imagination – because few figures in English history seem as visually familiar as Henry VIII’s second queen.
Representations of her face appear everywhere: in films, television dramas and novels, in museum gift shops and digital reconstructions. She is often depicted in popular culture as an elegant brunette whose sophistication distinguishes her from others at court. Over time, this image has hardened into something close to fact. Anne Boleyn, we are told, was devastatingly beautiful.
Yet this certainty is built on fragile foundations, and surviving evidence provides a less concrete understanding of Anne’s appearance. No formal painted portraits from life survive today, though images in a number of smaller, more intimate formats – particularly miniatures – are candidates for having captured her true likeness based on contemporary encounters. The more-familiar portraits featuring the now-iconic ‘B’ pendant necklace, meanwhile, were likely created decades later, influenced by politics, artistic convention and hindsight.
For generations, historians assumed that any accurate representations created during Anne’s life had been lost altogether, erased after her execution in 1536 on the orders of Henry VIII. That story is compelling, but it is wrong. My research – which underpins Capturing a Queen: The Image of Anne Boleyn, a new exhibition at Anne’s childhood home, Hever Castle – suggests that her true likeness remained visible long after her dramatic death.
Her image circulated widely in several different forms: in print, on medals and in drawings that outlived her. Alongside written descriptions left by those who saw her, these sources allow us to come close to understanding how Anne Boleyn looked. They also prompt a more revealing question: during her lifetime, was Anne admired for beauty – at least, as the 16th century understood it? And how much did beauty really matter in a court where power, conviction and function carried far greater weight?
Ideals of beauty
Today, audiences are encouraged to believe that Anne Boleyn must have been very beautiful indeed to have displaced Queen Catherine of Aragon in Henry VIII’s affections, and to have inspired him to reshape England’s religious and political landscape in order to marry her. This assumption reflects modern ideas about attraction and agency far more than it does the reality of Tudor mores. Different priorities shaped ideals of female beauty then: light colouring and complexion were widely admired. In 16th-century England, though, beauty alone rarely secured influence. At court, education, connections and presence mattered far more than looks. Intelligence, conversation and the ability to command attention in a highly performative environment were prized qualities. Anne excelled in these attributes.
- Read more | Anne Boleyn’s fatal French connection
Anne stood out, but not because she perfectly embodied an ideal of beauty. Her continental education, her penchant for French fashions and her finely honed courtly manner set her apart in a milieu still shaped by conservative English expectations. Contemporary responses to her appearance consistently suggest moderate attractiveness rather than conventional beauty. To understand that distinction properly, we must turn to the accounts of her appearance and demeanour from people who saw her.
Consistent picture
Contemporary descriptions of Anne are limited but broadly consistent. Simon Grynaeus, a German humanist who visited the English court in 1531, wrote to a compatriot that she was “young, good-looking, of a rather dark complexion”. In October 1532, the Venetian ambassador Carlo Capello, in a report later recorded in Marino Sanuto’s Diarii, described her as “not one of the handsomest women in the world… of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised… and her eyes, which are black and beautiful”.
Lancelot de Carle, secretary to the French ambassador in London, wrote a long poetic account of Anne’s fall and execution in 1536, emphasising her expression and presence rather than physical features. Even sympathetic observers were measured: the reformist cleric John Barlow described her as “reasonably good-looking”, a phrase that in Tudor usage suggested composure and refinement rather than striking beauty.
What emerges is not the image of a woman celebrated for physical perfection but of someone whose appearance was animated by intelligence and presence. Observers repeatedly returned to her eyes and manner. The French diplomat Lancelot de Carle said of her eyes that she “knew well how to use [them] with effect”, capturing a sense of engagement, wit and command that made her captivating in person.
For centuries, the absence of a painted portrait from Anne’s lifetime was explained by a dramatic story: that Henry VIII ordered every likeness of her be destroyed after her execution. The image of a furious king erasing the woman for whom he had broken with Rome is powerful, but has no basis in contemporary sources. The story appeared first in the 19th century, when historians sought an explanation for Anne’s apparent visual disappearance.
What happened after the queen’s fall was administrative rather than vengeful. Anne’s badges and monograms were removed from royal buildings and replaced with those of her successor, Jane Seymour, just as Catherine of Aragon’s emblems had earlier been replaced by Anne’s. The King’s Works accounts for September 1536 list payments for removing Anne’s devices alongside those of Cardinal Wolsey, the king’s former chief minister, by then long dead.
No orders to destroy Anne’s portraits have been found, and even the command to remove her emblems was carried out only partly. Many of her falcon badges remain in the roof of Hampton Court’s Great Hall, blackened with paint but intact. Moreover, inventories taken after Henry’s death show that he continued to own objects that had once belonged to Anne and were decorated with her iconography, albeit packed away in chests. Anne herself had become valueless to him, but the gold and silver fashioned into her goods had not. He did not destroy them, just ensured that they were no longer seen.
The people’s prints
Though no painted panel portrait survives from Anne’s lifetime, images of her certainly do. Some of the most revealing were created not for the elite interiors of palaces but for public circulation. In the summer of 1533, the prolific printer Wynkyn de Worde was employed to publish a pamphlet titled The Noble Tryumphaunt Coronacyon of Quene Anne. Its cover features a small woodcut long dismissed by historians as a generic courtly scene. However, in collaboration with historian Jessica Carey-Bunning, I have identified this as a narrative composition including three contemporary images of Anne Boleyn at distinct stages of her relationship with Henry VIII.
The woodcut provides a visual sequence affirming the validity of the union. To the left, Henry courts Anne; in the centre, the couple are joined in marriage; and in the most prominent image, at the right, Henry and Anne are crowned beneath a cloth of estate, the king’s hand resting on his queen’s stomach. To a contemporary viewer, this was an explicit declaration of pregnancy. When the pamphlet was published, Anne was about six months pregnant with the child who would reign as Elizabeth I.
This woodcut image operated as a tool of legitimacy, fertility and dynastic hope. It was intended not to capture Anne’s features but, rather, to put her face to work. It was circulated deliberately and widely at the most politically sensitive moment of her queenship.
Other contemporary images reinforce this visibility. A lead prototype or proof known as the ‘Moost Happi’ medal, likely commissioned in anticipation of a male heir and struck in 1534, depicts Anne in part profile wearing a gable hood, and bears the initials AR (for Anna Regina). Edward Hawkins, keeper of antiquities at the British Museum in the 19th century, suggested that another surviving lead prototype showing Henry was a companion to Anne’s medal. My discovery of a fully cast example of the companion medal of Henry, fashioned as a hat pin in modest tin, indicates that these likenesses were destined for a wide distribution beyond the court – an effort to disseminate images of the king and his new queen.
Another contemporary image of Anne survives in a sketch of her coronation banquet, depicting her crowned beneath a cloth of estate in Westminster Hall, the focal point of an elaborate theatrical display. Even in this crude drawing, Anne is unmistakably the axis around which the ceremony revolves. Together, these show that Anne was among the most visually represented queens of early Tudor England.
Something rarer also survives: a glimpse of Anne Boleyn as she may have been seen by those who knew her personally. A chalk drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger, now in the Royal Collection at Windsor, depicts a woman in a fur-trimmed nightgown with a simple coif, her eyes lowered in contemplation. Though its subject has long been debated, recent scholarship by Dr Kate Heard has fundamentally reshaped understanding of this work, strongly supporting its identification as Anne Boleyn.
The drawing dates securely to Holbein’s second period in England, when he was working at the heart of the Tudor court, producing preparatory studies for both painted portraits and miniatures – and, crucially, working extensively under Anne’s patronage. The apparent informality of the portrait, once used to argue against the identification, now strengthens it. Comparable works by the Horenbout workshop similarly depict elite sitters such as Henry VIII’s son, the Duke of Richmond, in a state of undress, intended for private viewing.
Technical examination by the Royal Collection Trust has revealed that the sitter’s hair was originally far darker than it appears today. Layers of red, brown and black chalk have been largely worn away, with only remnants visible. Most compelling, however, is the later inscription identifying Anne as the sitter, based on an attribution by Sir John Cheke, who had met Anne in 1534, benefited from her patronage, and was closely connected to her circle through his wife, Mary Hill. If identified correctly, which now seems highly likely, this drawing represents the most direct surviving contemporary likeness of Anne. It shows her not as a crowned emblem of dynastic hope, as her public image had been crafted, but as a thinking, contemplative and private individual.
The Windsor drawing also unlocks the meaning of a later engraving by Wenceslaus Hollar titled Faith, or St Barbara, produced in 1647. This print, based on a now-lost Holbein design once in the Earl of Arundel’s collection, depicts a crowned female figure holding a chalice and wafer set against a landscape of cliffs and water.
When compared closely with the Windsor drawing, the resemblance is striking: they share the same profile, jawline, eye shape and cranial structure. The correspondence between the two strongly suggests that Holbein’s use of Anne’s face for Saint Barbara was drawn from his preparatory study. In this reading, the Windsor drawing was not an isolated likeness but part of a broader artistic conception.
The choice of that saint is significant because, like the reformist Anne, Barbara was associated with steadfast Christian faith and resistance to coercion when compelled to revert to traditional beliefs. In Anne’s book of hours, King’s MS 9, the illumination of Saint Barbara shares compositional similarities with the Windsor sketch and Hollar engraving, including a distinctive looped plait, indicating direct visual continuity. Portraying Anne in this guise would have aligned her queenship with conscience and reform.
Seen in this light, the image becomes both devotional and political. It presents Anne not simply as consort but as belief embodied. Saint Barbara was martyred and executed by the sword – a parallel that later viewers of this image could hardly have missed. The tragic irony is inescapable, though clearly it lies beyond the image’s original intent.
The possibility that Anne’s contemporary likeness survives in smaller, more intimate painted formats is strongly supported by this pairing of the Windsor sketch and the image of her as Saint Barbara. Two other near-identical portrait miniatures – one now in the collection of the Duke of Bucchleuch, the other in the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada – long associated with Anne, share a striking physiognomy with these two. When viewed together, the alignment of the facial structures is too close to be dismissed as a coincidence. These works appear to preserve a recognisable likeness circulating within and shortly after Anne’s lifetime, intended for private recognition rather than public proclamation.
Though we can’t be absolutely certain of the person whom they portray, these miniatures stand as the most plausible painted candidates for capturing Anne Boleyn’s likeness from life.
- Read more | The Virgin Queen? Elizabeth I's forbidden love
Changing faces
After her execution, Anne’s image fell out of use. When it re-emerged during the reign of her daughter, Elizabeth I, it was in a radically altered political landscape. One of the most familiar images of Anne today is the portrait painted c1584 and catalogued as NPG 668 in the National Portrait Gallery. Long treated as a posthumously created likeness of Anne herself, it preserves something else: Elizabeth’s face.
Art historian Lawrence Hendra has identified the creator of this famous panel painting as the as-yet-unnamed ‘Pearl Artist’. Comparing this artist’s other works – including portraits of Elizabeth I, her half-sister Mary I and her great-grandfather, Edward IV – it is clear that the painter used the same facial pattern for each sitter, including Anne Boleyn. The elongated facial structure, refined nose and controlled expression closely mirror Elizabeth’s physiognomy.
This effort to make Elizabeth’s relatives, some of whom likely bore no resemblance to one another, look alike was deliberate. In the 1580s, Elizabeth’s position was vulnerable. She was unmarried, without an heir, and facing both internal Catholic resistance and external threat. So repainting her ancestors with her own facial features anchored her visually as the rightful queen at a time when her legitimacy was again in question. Ensuring that Elizabeth looked like her father’s relatives as well as her mother, who had been accused of adultery, was a covert attempt to transform Anne from a condemned queen into a dynastic foundation stone, visually legitimising her daughter’s rule.
A different but equally deliberate innovation appears in the so-called Hever Rose portrait. Recent multi-modal scientific analysis by the Hamilton Kerr Institute, combined with dendrochronology (the dating of the wooden panel), places its painting in c1583, just one year before the famous picture in the National Portrait Gallery. Infrared reflectography reveals that the artist initially followed a pre-existing design but then interrupted it, inserting fully articulated hands holding a rose.
This moment matters, because it marks the first time Anne’s hands appeared in her posthumous iconography – a choice that was almost certainly polemical. In the early 1580s, defamatory claims by Nicholas Sander alleging that Anne possessed a sixth finger were already circulating widely in manuscript, years before they appeared in print. By depicting elegant, unblemished hands, with each finger made carefully visible, the artist offers a quiet but pointed rebuttal to this claim.
Both portraits respond to the same anxiety. In a period when Elizabeth’s legitimacy was under attack, Anne’s image was re-engineered to defend it: her face reshaped to mirror the queen’s, her body corrected to refute slander. Art became a form of political repair.
Lost likeness
Nearly five centuries after her execution, we may never know precisely what Anne Boleyn looked like. Her face survives only in fragments, refracted through prisms of politics, art and memory. Yet this uncertainty is not a failure of evidence; it is part of her history.
The images and descriptions that survive show that Anne was not invisible, and not admired solely for her beauty. She was compelling because of her presence, intelligence and conviction. She understood the power of being seen, and used imagery, print and ceremony to assert her place in the world.
In the end, the question of her appearance matters not because it satisfies curiosity but because it restores agency. Anne Boleyn was not merely a face shaped by others but an active participant – through her patronage of Holbein and the Horenbout family, not least – in how she was represented, remembered and contested. Approaching 500 years on, we are still learning to see her clearly.
Unpicking locks
What colour was Anne Boleyn's hair?
Modern portrayals often depict Anne with jet-black hair, reinforcing an image of dark, exotic beauty. The historical record, however, is more ambiguous. Contemporary descriptions mention dark eyes and darker complexion, but none explicitly describe hair colour – likely because it may not have seemed remarkable enough to comment upon.
Some later sources describe Anne as “witch-like” with black hair; others suggest chestnut or reddish tones. The poet Thomas Wyatt may have been referring to her when he wrote of a “brunet” woman. In Tudor usage, that could refer to dark hair, darker skin or both, and was often used to signal complexion rather than colouring alone.
Genetics adds more uncertainty. Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth I, was red-haired, as was Henry VIII in his youth. Red hair is linked to variants of the MC1R gene expressed only if inherited from both parents, so Anne must have carried at least one such variant. Though not proof that she herself was red-haired, this significantly increases the likelihood, and makes chestnut or auburn tones entirely plausible.
Later portraits often show Anne with lighter reddish-brown hair. These may reflect attempts to align her appearance more closely with Elizabeth’s, reinforcing dynastic continuity. In a culture where fair hair was associated with virtue, this shift was politically advantageous.
This article was first published in the March 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
]]> What was the most important year in history? We asked 9 experts – and this is what they said https://www.historyextra.com/membership/what-was-the-most-important-year-in-history-we-asked-9-experts-and-this-is-what-they-said/ Mon, 09 Mar 2026 15:30:15 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/what-was-the-most-important-year-in-history-we-asked-9-experts-and-this-is-what-they-said/ Our crack team of historians, broadcasters and authors offer their takes on a conundrum that continues to divide opinions AD 1000
Norse power: when worlds collide
This moment is surely imbued with the most global symbolism. It was when, according to the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas, adventurers sailed across the north Atlantic from settlements on the west coast of Greenland to the edge of the North American continent. There they met inhabitants of coastal regions of what’s now Canada: ancestors of peoples such as the Beothuk and Algonquin. The circle of humanity was closed for the first time in recorded history.
In the 1960s, archaeologists found a Norse overwintering site at L’Anse aux Meadows, at the northern tip of Newfoundland. This backed up what the sagas had already described: a series of voyages west from Greenland, the discovery of new lands and resources, and increasingly violent encounters with the people they called Skrælingar – an unpleasant name meaning ‘wretched ones’. These cross-cultural encounters began promisingly enough, with red cloth and dairy products traded for animal pelts. Eventually, though, relations disintegrated into distrust, violence and murder – an uneasy foreshadowing of what would follow centuries later.
This is, of course, a moment of retrospective significance. Those voyagers didn’t realise that they had reached an entirely new continent. Their expeditions did not make big news around the world. For me, that makes this moment in history even more interesting. Because when we’re being carried along by the churning currents of time, it’s not always possible to tell which events and dates will mean the most to those looking back.
Eleanor Barraclough, historian, broadcaster and author of Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age (Profile, 2024)
1066
Conquest, castles, class shifts and chivalry
For British history, at least, the answer is 1066. This might seem surprising to people who remember only the battle of Hastings, the death of King Harold and the accession of William the Conqueror, but the regime change that followed the Norman takeover went far beyond just a new royal dynasty. As Domesday Book shows, by 1086 the old ruling class of Anglo-Saxon England had been replaced almost entirely, and more than 90 per cent of the land was now held by continental newcomers.
This had an immediate effect on the country’s physical appearance. Castles, which had hardly existed in England at all before 1066, were constructed in their hundreds. Cathedrals and abbeys were ripped down and rebuilt in a new Romanesque style. Notoriously, the north was brutally harried into submission and turned into a desert. Less perceptibly, but even more importantly in the long run, the Conquest also introduced new ideas about how society should be regulated. Slavery, which had been commonplace among the Anglo-Saxons, disappeared over the next half-century. The custom of sparing the life of a defeated opponent became the new norm among the ruling elite.
The rapid adoption of these new attitudes by the English set them apart from their insular neighbours, who continued to slaughter their enemies and practise war as slave-hunt. The novel perception of the Welsh, Scots and Irish as uncivilised barbarians was a direct result of the Norman conquest, and fuelled the aggressive English colonisation of those countries in the centuries that followed.
Marc Morris, medieval historian, writer and broadcaster
1945
World war, international aftermath
At a global scale, the Second World War was the most momentous period in history. So it follows that the year of its conclusion – 1945 – was the most important year.
The list of transformations that took place because of that war is truly astonishing. There were massive advances in computer technology, radio technology, plastics research, jet planes, rocket science and the production of antibiotics. Nuclear power quite literally exploded into our consciousness in 1945. Super Glue was discovered during the war, as was the technology behind microwave ovens. And it was the final victory in 1945 that allowed such innovations to be released from the secrecy of wartime and into the wider world.
Alongside new technologies came huge social and geopolitical changes. It was in 1945 that today’s map of Europe was drawn during the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. At the same time, the communist takeover of eastern Europe began. This was the year when the nations of Asia and Africa, inspired by wartime rhetoric, began their final push towards decolonisation. The international order was reborn with the establishment of the United Nations that summer, and a whole network of affiliated organisations followed. The list goes on.
The Second World War cast a shadow on the world so long that it still affects us to this day. The memory of 1945, and of all that it represents, is preserved in our culture of storytelling, movie-making and novel writing, and we still commemorate it annually. No other single year in history has ever held such power over us – nor is ever likely to do so again.
Keith Lowe, author of The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us (Viking, 2017)
31 BC
Actium: turning the tide of Roman history
At noon on 2 September 31 BC, Marcus Agrippa stood aboard his flagship and gazed towards the Greek promontory of Actium. Some 60 of his enemy’s warships were speeding over the Ionian waves in the direction of the 400 vessels led by him and Octavian, who was watching from an advantageous point on land. Those approaching were part of the fleet of 230 led by Mark Antony, Octavian’s former Roman ally, and Cleopatra, queen of Egypt.
As they reached the melee, Cleopatra’s ships sailed straight into the middle of the battle line – and for a moment it seemed as if the tide might turn. Instead, they surged straight through and into the open sea: Cleopatra was escaping. Panicked, Mark Antony abandoned his flagship and followed her with several smaller vessels, leaving their remaining fleet to face the onslaught alone. Surrender followed.
At the time of the battle, the Roman empire was divided between Octavian in the west and Mark Antony in the east. With the suicides of Cleopatra and Mark Antony in 30 BC following their defeat at Actium, Octavian became sole ruler of Rome and conqueror of Egypt. Three years later, the Roman senate conferred on Octavian the title Augustus, officially marking the end of the Republic and the start of the Roman empire.
Had Antony prevailed, Rome’s centre might have shifted eastwards. Alexandria might have become a second capital, Rome’s ambitions would likely have turned towards Mesopotamia and Persia rather than Germania and Britannia, and today Europe might instead have a Greek rather than Latin language base.
Jess Venner, ancient historian, presenter and author
1453
Bye bye Byzantines, all hail the Ottomans
It is, of course, an impossible task to select one specific year. Momentous happenings do occur, but they’re made possible by structural changes – political, economic, cultural – over many decades or even centuries. Having said that, I’d pick 1453. That was the year in which the Hundred Years’ War ended – but also, even more significantly, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks. That marked the end of the Byzantine empire – the last remnant of the Roman realm – which had lasted for more than 1,000 years.
The city became the capital of the growing Ottoman empire, which endured until 1922 as a major global power. The religious make-up of the region changed dramatically, though it remained a melting pot of peoples of different cultures and faiths. The fall of Constantinople led to an influx of Greek scholars to Europe, who brought deep learning and fresh ideas that added extra stimulus to the Renaissance.
It also represented a tectonic shift in global geopolitics, changing the balance of power in the Middle East and radically reconfiguring trade routes between Europe and Asia. Some argue that growing complications involved in trading along overland routes through Eurasia stimulated European Atlantic exploration. It also contributed to a reconfiguration of the medieval slave trade. As it became harder for European traders to traffic people via the Black Sea, they turned increasingly to the coast of west Africa – fuelling the growth of one of the most appalling and tragic phenomena in human history.
Hannah Skoda, associate professor of medieval history at the University of Oxford
1533
The wedding that reshaped England’s religious, social and political life
It’s for good reason that the dawn of the Tudor era has widely been considered to mark the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Early Modern age. The 118 years when this celebrated dynasty occupied the throne witnessed unprecedented change in every aspect of English life. And no single year was more transformative than 1533.
In 1527, Henry VIII had first petitioned the pope for an annulment from wife number one, Catherine of Aragon. He was driven by his all-consuming desire for a son and his obsession with Anne Boleyn, a woman of his wife’s household who had told him that if he wanted her, he’d have to put a ring on it.
Henry eventually took matters into his own hands by breaking with Rome and setting up a new Church of England, with himself as the supreme head. On 25 January 1533, he married Anne Boleyn. In May, his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was formally annulled and Anne was confirmed as his legitimate queen by the archbishop of Canterbury. She was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 1 June, by which time she was visibly pregnant. On 7 September, the new queen gave birth – not to the hoped-for son but to a daughter, the future Elizabeth I.
This proved to be the beginning of the end for Anne. But her marriage to Henry had sparked a seismic shift in England’s religious, political and social life that would reverberate down the centuries. It also produced a monarch who ruled for longer than any of her Tudor predecessors and blazed a trail for future queens regnant.
Tracy Borman, author, historian and broadcaster
1858
Dawn of the Information Age
On 16 August 1858, Queen Victoria sent a message to US president James Buchanan. Ordinarily, it would have taken about 10 days for such a communication to cross the Atlantic by ship – but this one arrived in only 16 hours. It was sent to mark the connection of the first transatlantic telegraph cable – a direct line between the Old World and the New.
Shorter connections had already been completed between Britain and mainland Europe, including a cross-channel line in 1850, but the Atlantic presented a tougher challenge. For years, engineers including Samuel Morse had debated whether it was possible to lay 2,500 miles of cable beneath the ocean. The first attempt in 1857 failed when the line snapped. But now, at last, it was done. Some commentators hailed it as the Eighth Wonder of the World. An excited newspaper in Boston announced simply: “THERE IS NO MORE SEA!”
This first transatlantic cable failed after only three weeks, and it wasn’t until 1866 that a permanent line was established. But a precedent had been set: it would now be possible to connect every corner of world in an ever more extensive network of telegraph cables, eventually allowing huge volumes of information to pulse around the globe at previously unimaginable speeds.
It was many years later before this vision was fully realised, but in 1858 we see the beginning of the new Information Age – a recognisably modern moment that culminated in the arrival of the internet.
Bob Nicholson, writer, broadcaster and historian at Edge Hill University
1917
When revolution reshaped alliances, identities and ambitions
In this pivotal year, Russia stopped fighting in the First World War and the US entered it. Neither country ranked much as a world power at the time, but wartime actions sparked global transformations. President Woodrow Wilson’s championing of international cooperation and American-style democracy (universal in rhetoric but deeply racialised in practice) signalled US ambitions for the world stage.
But the big story was Russia: its economy shattered by the war, its people toppled the tsar in March (February in the Julian calendar then in use), setting the stage for the Bolsheviks to seize power in November (Julian: October). The Russian Revolution – the most important event of the 20th century – was complete by the end of 1917, and the Soviet Union was secured by 1922.
Neither the civil rights movement nor decolonial struggles would have unfolded as they did without the Soviet Union, whether as foil or ally. In the US, for example, communist organising and Soviet propaganda forced segregationists to either justify or modify their system of racial division. In the world subject to European empire, Soviet communism offered intellectual and material resources to anticolonial nationalists.
Cold War historians tend to focus on the ascendant US and its Soviet nemesis duking it out for global hegemony via conflicts in Latin America, Africa and Asia. More salient are the ways in which the revolutionary model and the revolutionary challenge pushed communities, groups and nations to articulate who they were and who they wished to be. The Russian Revolution helped remake the world – and we live out its legacy.
Adriane Lentz-Smith, associate professor of history at Duke University
490 BC
Marathon: a victory for democracy
Six decades after Cyrus the Great had founded the Achaemenid empire, the Persian forces of King Darius I – also ‘the Great’ – were pushing west to conquer all of Greece. Their primary aim was to lay waste to Athens, which had had the temerity to support a revolt against the empire that by then controlled swathes of the region. But they hadn’t banked on the determination and tactical nous of their opponents.
By September 490 BC, the Persian fleet had landed on the coast of Attica about 17 miles north-east of Athens, its troops disembarking onto the plain of Marathon. Around 10,000 Athenian men mustered in the surrounding hills, joined by 1,000 from Plataea – but were still vastly outnumbered.
On learning that the Persian cavalry was absent, Greek warriors led by Athenian general Miltiades swept down on the enemy. Against the odds, the Persian troops were routed – reputedly at the cost of only 192 Athenian dead. This was a critical moment in ancient history: it gave confidence to the Greeks that they could stand up to the mighty Persian empire and, thanks to their part in the victory, the Athenians emerged as the most important polis in Greece. It also provided momentum for Athens’ emerging democracy.
In the mid-19th century, English philosopher John Stuart Mill claimed that “as an event in English history, the battle of Marathon was more important than the battle of Hastings” because Greek (and, particularly, Athenian) victory in that clash was so linked to the development of democracy.
Michael Scott, professor in classics and ancient history at the University of Warwick
This article was first published in the February 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
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