Jonathan Thomas (00:21)
Welcome to the Anglotopia podcast the podcast where we explore British travel history and culture and I'm your host Jonathan Thomas if you've ever found yourself fascinated by a Tudor portrait a ruined abbey or a Hollywood drama set in the 16th century then today's episode is for you we're doing something a little different a proper crash course in Tudor Britain start to finish with one of the most passionate and knowledgeable Tudor guides out there

My guest today is Sarah Morris, the creator of the Tudor Travel Guide, a membership community website, podcast and content platform dedicated to helping history lovers immerse themselves fully in the Tudor world. Sarah has also written several books, including fiction and nonfiction work centered on Anne Boleyn and the six wives of Henry VIII, and alongside fellow Tudor expert Adam Pennington, who was on the podcast a few weeks ago.

She runs Simply Tutor Tours, an immersive guided tour company that takes small groups to some of the most breathtaking Tudor sites in Britain. And full disclosure, Simply Tutor Tours is a sponsor of Anglotopia, but this episode is not sponsored. So I just wanted to have her on as a guest. So today we're calling this episode Tutor 101 because we want to give our listeners and many of whom love Britain, but may not know the full Tudor story, a real grounding in who the Tudors were.

what made their era so dramatic and consequential and why five centuries later, we simply cannot stop talking about them. So, Sarah, welcome to the Anglotopia podcast.

Sarah Morris (01:50)
Thank you so much, Jonathan. It's a pleasure to be here.

Jonathan Thomas (01:53)
Thank you for being here. So let's start at the beginning before we dive into the Tudors themselves. Tell us a little bit about you and how did a passion for Tudor history become your career and life's work?

Sarah Morris (02:05)
Oh gosh, that's quite a story. A little bit by accident, I have to tell you. It wasn't entirely planned. So I've spent most of my professional life, well, I was a doctor originally, then I've spent most of my professional life as an executive coach. That's 20 plus years or so. And I think I got to the point where I was thinking, you know what? I think I need a little bit of a reset, a rejuvenation, a little bit of a refocus. It's that time in life, I was in my mid forties. I was thinking, what do I really want to be doing with the second half?

my life and I knew I had a number of passions. One was writing, as you pointed out, I've sort of already written some Tudor books. ⁓ And ⁓ another one was ⁓ just the Tudors and history in particular, but the Tudors most definitely. ⁓ I'd been brought up by my parents, visiting all sorts of heritage properties across the north of England and I loved Tudor history, fell in love with it when I was 11 years old.

I thought, how can I bring those together? And I decided to create. ⁓ actually, did. Books were the first thing that happened to me and the Tudor Travel Guide happened a little bit later on. And that's how it got going. I often say it was a hobby that kind of got a little bit out of control and it snowballed into one thing after another. And yes, now we have this wonderful Tudor Travel Guide community. And more recently...

about two years ago, Adam and I co-founded Simply Tudor Tour, so we get the pleasure of actually greeting people in person.

Jonathan Thomas (03:36)
I can totally understand a hobby that got out of control and turned into a job. I that's for anybody familiar with the Inca topia story. That's how this happens. That's how I'm on a podcast talking about Twitter things. So you described a pivotal moment in 2010 when you were writing your first book about Anne Boleyn and that the whole new world opened up in your imagination, specifically around to your palaces and how the rooms were used. Can you take us back to that moment and what changed for you?

Sarah Morris (04:03)
The moment was visiting Hever Castle on a very hot sunny August day. I'd been around the castle and I was having a picnic on the lawns afterwards. And my imagination, which is very fertile, by the way, suddenly thought, I think like most lovers of history, what would it be like just to go back for a moment in time and just be there and see those people, see Amberley, who's my historical heroine that may well come out.

And suddenly this idea for Le Tonviendre, novel of Amberlynn, which is my non-fiction book, came to me and I just started writing. And it was really the research for that book because I tried to do as much research as possible during the writing of Le Tonviendre, which really opened up different vistas of Tudor history that I hadn't really explored before. So I'd read lots of books about the people and the events.

but not so much about what life was like, how the court was structured, how houses were built and spaces were used. And so as I went deeper down those rabbit holes, of course, my understanding of Tudor history became more 3D, it became more colorful. so rather than in the past when I would explore ⁓ a historic place and I'd wander around and I'd be enchanted and charmed, but not really know that

about what I was looking at, I started to be able to read the properties and the spaces and how they were used. So pivotally for me, my co-author of In the Footsteps of Amblin and I always say that it is time and not space that separates us from the past. And I find that when I walk into a space and I can recreate in my mind's eye what it was like in the 16th century or how it was used.

I can actually bring the events that I know about and the people that I know about much more to life. And I feel like I'm much closer to history. So it's like pulling back the veil of time. And I find that really thrilling.

Jonathan Thomas (06:09)
way to go answering the next like three questions so well done so the the your your to do travel guide has grown into a full-fledged community a website a podcast you have a membership video social media what is your mission with all of it and who are you trying to reach

Sarah Morris (06:12)
I run ahead of myself.

my mission. Well, ⁓ I love English history. If you haven't gathered that already, I'm very proud of our history here. I think it's one of the most beautiful things about living in these aisles. And I love storytelling. And it gives me enormous pleasure to be able to take people to places and to help them connect more deeply with their love of history in the same way that I do. So my mission.

And the Tudor Travel Guide is all about telling the stories of Tudor history through the lens of the places in which those events happened. So I'm trying to encourage people, particularly, to go and see these places, to go and stand in these spaces, and with all the blogs and the videos and the podcasts and the books that I've written, hopefully...

They have an in-depth guide that will help them see things in much more detail, which allows, as I said, just as I did, to be able to see these events and feel much closer to the people that they read about. There's one thing reading a book, and there is quite another thing going and standing in the place that something happened, because there's often an energy in the place. I think

I think lovers of history, whether it's Tudor history or different type of history, want that feeling. It's a felt sense of connection we get. And I hope that the Tudor travel guide enables that. Doesn't mean to people can't enjoy it from the comfort of their own armchair. And I have a big audience who do just that. But I've also got a lot of people who often email me and say, you know, I've been reading your blog and I went here and I took your book and it was really helpful. Thank you so much. And that gives me a massive thrill.

Jonathan Thomas (08:15)
so let's set the stage for listeners who may be new to Tudor history. Who were the Tudors? Where did the dynasty come from? Can you give us a quick sort of origin story?

Sarah Morris (08:26)
I'll try. How far back do you want to go? No, will give you a very quick history. They were a very unlikely dynasty really that was born out of chaos really. So the Wars of the Roses, which had been raging through the mid 15th, late 15th century, saw two noble houses

did against one another the House of York and the House of Lancaster. Now on the Lancastrian side, which is where Henry Tudor, later Henry VII and founder of the dynasty came from, his lineage could be traced back through Catherine Valois. Catherine Valois was the wife of Henry V. When he died, she ended up having an affair.

with a gentilom of her household, ⁓ a certain Owyn Tudor, and they had two sons. One of those was Edmund Tudor, who became the father of Henry VII. Now on the Tudor side, they come from the Ap Tudors. ⁓ I'm not a specialist on this. If you want to know about the Welsh ancestry, Nathan Emin is the person to go to. He's Welsh and he's written all about this. But basically,

The Abtuders, the Tudors came from North Wales ⁓ and not really very auspicious royal ⁓ lineage, but the fusion and the ⁓ connection with Catherine of Valois ⁓ gave this, the descendant that became Henry Tudor, little Henry Tudor, who then became Henry VII. Now, it is really unlikely that he should have become king because

I think it's wonderful if you've ever watched The White Queen, there's a line in there where somebody says, Henry Tudor's gonna have to step over several dead bodies to become King of England because Edward IV had sons, the princes in the tower as we know them now. The future ⁓ Richard Duke of Gloucester who became Richard III also had a son. He was then killed at the Battle of Tewkesbury. They should have been in line to be the next in line for the throne.

But actually in the end we have little Henry Tudor who was forced into exile by the House of York who were reigning at the time, reigning monarchs the time, Edward IV. And he fled into Brittany for about, I think it was about 12 years, coming back only to steal the crown at the Battle of Bosworth where of course he fought Richard III. Richard was slain in battle and so Henry won the crown

on the battlefield. It very unlikely outcome really if you think of all the twists and turns of fate that had to happen in order for him to get there.

Jonathan Thomas (11:23)
Interesting. So the Tudor dynasty only lasted for 118 years, from 1485 to 1603, and there were just five monarchs. Yet it feels like it dominated centuries of history. Why do you think the Tudors loomed so large in our imagination?

Sarah Morris (11:42)
I don't think there's a couple of things here, Jonathan. I think there's a very pragmatic point in which they were a turning point in English history that connected the earlier medieval period with what we would now recognize as the modern period. There are still elements, and I suspect we'll come on to talk about some of those, that were founded in the Tudor dynasty in the 16th century.

that we would still recognise today. And so I think from a political, religious and cultural standpoint, there was some real significant shifts that occurred just over that hundred years that set a number of things in place for the centuries to come. Then overlaying that, we've got the emotional aspect. I mean, goodness me.

The Tudors are just full of drama, aren't they? ⁓ I mean, they have everything. We have power. We have betrayal. We have brutality. We have glamour. We have, of course, the six wives of Henry VIII. We have these incredible stories which seem more like they should belong literally in a Netflix movie rather than as a... ⁓

as a story from history. And I think also, I think the other interesting thing is that they've left behind a lot of portraiture, which we don't have from earlier on in the medieval period. So we can actually see these people and there are a lot of artifacts that we can see and sometimes touch. And so I think the...

physical connection of what they left behind as well means that they become a little bit more relatable and more intriguing perhaps than the earlier medieval period.

Jonathan Thomas (13:47)
I think I would agree that it's that early modern period is so critical and British and eventually American history that you know this is a it's it's post-renaissance this is period where Europe seems to be kind of waking up from its kind of medieval darkness and yeah it's it's almost like even though

I hate to use the word that it's almost like it's in living memory. It's close enough to living memory that it feels like it was just yesterday.

Sarah Morris (14:17)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Thomas (14:19)
So let's walk through the monarchs. Let's talk about Henry VII, the founder of the dynasty. He tends to get overshadowed by his son. ⁓ What should we know about him and why does he matter in the Tudor story?

Sarah Morris (14:32)
Yeah, you're right, he does. And it's such a shame. I've actually kind of fallen a little bit for Henry VII in recent years because I've been writing in detail about three of his progresses and I've come to appreciate his kingship much more. without Henry VII, there is no Tudor dynasty. So you could imagine this sort of nine-year-old lad fleeing to Brittany, as I said before,

the likelihood of him inheriting the crown is really slim, but these whole series of circumstances just line up such that when he lands back in England, he is able to face Richard III on the battlefield and amazingly wins the day. And I think what I appreciate about Henry now is that he brings stability to the country after this horrendous period, which I...

referred to earlier on, the Wars of the Roses, this battle between the House of York and Lancaster. He creates stability for the first time in many years, largely through his skill of kingship, even though he's never been, he only went to Westminster, which was the heart of royal power once in his life for an audience with Henry VI.

He really hadn't had any direct experience and yet he had managed and those around him had managed to instill in him what was required for effective kingship and he was able to take that on very quickly and he projected the image of royalty. He took up all the traditions and the habits and the glamour of what was expected of a king and he managed to establish himself very effectively.

as the founder of the dynasty. And of course that was cemented when he married Elizabeth of York, who was the eldest daughter of Edward IV, thereby uniting the two houses. So yeah, the founder without Henry VII, no Tudor dynasty, very overlooked and underappreciated king.

Jonathan Thomas (16:43)
Well then, let's move on to Henry VIII, probably the most famous English monarch in history, at least outside of maybe Elizabeth I. For someone who knows him from only the Six Wives story, what are we missing? Who was Henry VIII really?

Sarah Morris (17:00)
Well, it's such a big question, my Lord. And even when I'm about, I'm going to hone in on one aspect, and even that in some ways is related to his marital history, because he really shaped the nation, ⁓ bending the nation to serve his personal will, brought about through his struggles with Rome. And it was really the result of his struggles with Rome and his determination to have an heir.

and to ultimately, of course, the break with Rome and the advent of the Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries in England that absolutely changed the shape, the physical landscape, the societal structure, and many aspects of the cultural side of life in England. And I think that's really

⁓ his legacy. when I say legacy, that always has a positive connotation. You decide whether it's a positive thing in terms of how he shaped ⁓ religious life here. I'm not sure it came from a highly impositive... The intent, of course, as I said, was to get himself a son and heir and he needed to break from Rome so that he could marry Anne Boleyn and hopefully have a legitimate heir. That's what all of that was about.

But the output of that, ⁓ working, of course, in close collaboration with his first minister, Thomas Cromwell, really did just shape ⁓ the entire landscape of the nation and caused an enormous earthquake, religious earthquake, which then carried on throughout the rest of the Tudor period, really, and beyond.

Jonathan Thomas (18:50)
I would say and beyond to the civil wars and even I guess you could say to the glorious revolution too. That's probably when it ended. then Protestantist tendency was cemented. Yeah, go ahead.

Sarah Morris (18:53)
to these days.

You...

You probably know more about that than I do. have this, I've got a confession to make to you, Jonathan. I have a terrible lack of interest in English history after 1603.

Jonathan Thomas (19:16)
Yeah, I I'll be the I have British history blind spots myself. ⁓ You know. Like growing up, the Middle Ages were always the most interesting nights and castles and fair maidens and King Arthur and all that. But that's actually the period of time I'm least interested in. Now I find Tudors and forward early modern era way more interesting because there's just

There's so much more to know ⁓ from those periods because there's just more records and people will know I'm a huge World War II ⁓ Winston Churchill ⁓ nut. it's, yeah. We all have our historical blind spots.

Sarah Morris (20:01)
You know they're

taking Winston Churchill off our money now.

Jonathan Thomas (20:05)
Yeah, I heard. ⁓ To be fair, they just put him on it. So I don't think it's that big of a slight. And, know, as someone who loves the countryside and Britain's wildlife, I think it's ⁓ a noble idea to to put that on the money. But honestly, I think they could have gone about it in a better way because it just ended up becoming a culture war thing. And it's like, guys, it's not it's really not what it is. mean.

Sarah Morris (20:07)
Good night.

you

Jonathan Thomas (20:32)
They've only recently started putting people on the money anyway, so anybody they put on is going to be controversial. yeah, don't even get me started. we're digressing here. let's focus. Henry VIII is most famous because he had six wives and people learn about those wives through the famous song, Divorce Beheaded, Die, you know, and more from the

Sarah Morris (20:41)
No. Me neither.

Jonathan Thomas (21:00)
hit musical six, you know, and the wives are in the discourse constantly. So, but for you as a Tudor expert, which wife do you think is the most misunderstood and why?

Sarah Morris (21:13)
I really honed in on your word misunderstood because there are, depending on the exact word you use, would have definitely changed my answer to this. ⁓ Underappreciated, I might have said Anne of Cleves, but misunderstood, I do think it's Anne Boleyn historically, although things have changed quite considerably. So I think it wasn't that long ago when there was a predominant narrative around Anne.

being this romantic figure or even a home wrecker, ⁓ adulterer whore, which of course is part of the propaganda that the Catholics started talking about not long after her death. And it's sort of carried on. But I think, you know, if you do get to know Amberlynn more, you'll see she was a woman of profound religious principle, ⁓ which she...

Jonathan Thomas (21:52)
Right.

Sarah Morris (22:07)
was what she enforced very strongly within her own household. I personally having walked in her footsteps writing the novel felt that she had a very strong sense of personal conviction and purpose in her union with Henry and how she could support the flourishing of the reformed faith because she was of the reformed faith. And

I think she was a woman of principle and I think her role in the rape from Rome was not inconsiderable beginning, for example, with passing the book, The Obedience of the Christian Man to Henry, which really sharpened and honed some of his ideas about the relationship between his kingship and the Bishop of Rome, as he disparagingly came to call him.

And I think she was a catalyst, a really important catalyst in the whole Reformation process, which goes back to what we were talking about, which then had massive ramifications ultimately for the social and cultural and religious landscape of the country.

Jonathan Thomas (23:21)
mean, it just scratched the surface of the social upheaval that took place during the Reformation. And the Reformation in D'art was already happening in Europe, but the English Reformation was its own sort of homegrown Reformation and took on its own very English dimension after it kind of took off. And like I said, like you were just saying, it took 200 years for it to even get settled, you know.

Again, we're digressing. Henry VIII's children each had their own dramatic reigns. Edward VI, Mary I, and then Elizabeth I. The sequence is extraordinary. Can you sort of walk us through each of them and what defined their time on the throne? Because I know Edward wasn't even on the throne for very long, and that's what led to even more bloodshed and darkness.

Sarah Morris (24:11)
Yeah, absolutely. So he inherited the throne on his father's death in 1547. He was a minor, I think he was nine or 10 at the time. So he had a council, his uncle was placed as regent head of that council who effectively wielded power. Edward, as you say, wasn't on the throne for very long. So he died 1553.

Jonathan Thomas (24:19)
man.

Sarah Morris (24:37)
I was just doing my dates then. So what, six years, something like that. He died around the age of 16. He hadn't really had a chance to establish his full authority. We don't really know what kind of king he would have been, although some people believe that he would be more psychopathic than Henry, which is interesting thought, if that's possible. But he was, of course, tutored by Protestants. He was an ardent Protestant, and he, during his reign, really...

England move from, you know, the sort of the reformed faith that we saw introduced during the reign of Henry VIII to the extremes of Protestantism and he really pushed those to the limit and I think that's what we see as the probably one of the most predominant themes during his reign. And then of course we have the shift to his half-sister Mary who was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.

much older than Edward. I think she was born in 1516 or 18. I can't quite remember which date it is. And it wasn't an easy transition because of course many people will have heard of Jane Grey, the nine days queen. There was this month of three monarchs, July 1553, where Edward died. The Protestant council put Jane Grey forward as the new queen of England, but the people were not behind her.

and Mary, the Catholic Queen Mary, actually took a long story short one day. And so her kind of the theme, suppose, again, we've got this religious theme going on. We've got this continuous religious upheaval. We've got this it's really not settled in England because Mary comes to the throne and she tries to reverse all the damage that she sees it that her half brother had done and reintroduces and restores Catholicism.

She even tries to revive some of the monasteries and get them back on their legs again. And perhaps because of her zealousness in trying to do this, she gets this title which many people now feel is unfair of Bloody Mary because she burned heretics, she pursued her Catholicism with zeal, but we should point out, and I can't remember the exact figures, but I'm.

fairly sure that Henry VIII was responsible for executing far more people than Mary ever did. So it's a little bit of an unfair ⁓ tag that she gets attached to her name, but nevertheless, people may have heard that bloody Mary. She only survives five years on the throne, actually. Quite sadly, she marries Philip II of Spain. He's not really that interested in her. She thinks she's pregnant. She isn't.

She probably had a tumor and that's probably what eventually took her off. And her half sister, Elizabeth, comes to the throne. And I suppose Elizabeth had, most people will know Elizabeth I probably, with alongside Henry VIII, the most well-known of English monarchs and certainly one of the most popular. She approached her rule with ⁓ intelligence,

prudence, ⁓ and she was able to navigate this middle way, ⁓ largely bringing together Catholics and Protestants largely. cutting the story down a little bit here and simplifying it quite considerably, but ⁓ she managed to carve a middle way and bring stability to England. maybe we go on and talk a little bit more about her legacy because of the three

half siblings, there's no doubt about it. Elizabeth reigned for what between 1558 and 1603. She was 60 years old when she died. She had a chance to imprint her authority and define her reign in a way that her other half siblings didn't.

Jonathan Thomas (28:45)
Before we talk about her in detail, have a question, sorry, it's not on the list, but I just thought of it as we were talking. Now, until a few years ago, I didn't know that Bloody Mary and Mary Queen of Scots were separate people. So can you explain just who Bloody Mary is compared to who Mary Queen of Scots are? all the Marys get very confusing.

Sarah Morris (29:10)
I was just going to say, Mary's are everywhere in Tudor history. You try sorting out a family tree, ⁓ know, Henry's, Thomas's, Mary's, they're all, there's about six names that just go around the whole time. So in England, have Henry VIII, Mary's, his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and they have just one surviving daughter. She's Mary Tudor, and she's the queen that I have just been talking about.

Jonathan Thomas (29:14)
.

you

Sarah Morris (29:40)
inherits the throne in 1553, ⁓ Catholic Queen. And so that's her lineage. Henry VIII had an older sister called Margaret Tudor. So these are the children of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. The surviving children we have are Margaret Tudor, Henry Tudor, later Henry VIII, and Mary Tudor, who goes on to be Queen of France.

Margaret Tudor, the elder daughter, gets sent north to Scotland to marry the Scots King. think it's James IV at the time. One of their descendants, she is the grandmother of Mary, Queen of Scots. So we have a common ancestor of Henry VII, but we have almost like the English branch of the family and the Scottish branch of the family.

Jonathan Thomas (30:34)
Okay.

And then how, how, and I know we're maybe getting to spoiler territory, but how was she a rival for Elizabeth the first and when she was on the throne?

Sarah Morris (30:45)
So it's all about religion really, but ultimately the reason she could challenge the English crown or say I am a legitimate heir to the English crown was because she was the granddaughter of Margaret Tudor, the founder of the Tudor dinners, ⁓ the daughter of the founder of the Tudor dinners.

Edward hadn't had any children. So Edward VI hadn't had any children. Mary I, bloody Mary, hadn't had any children. So Elizabeth comes to the throne. She, as we know, eventually, she doesn't have any children either, although obviously when she comes to the throne, everybody hopes she will marry and have children, but she doesn't. And so there's no direct descendants from her. There are other obvious

⁓ English claimants to the throne, cousins and the like, children of Mary Tudor, the younger daughter of Henry VII. But in fact, Mary, Queen of Scots has a very good claim on the throne. she eventually, she's not only crowned Queen of Scots, she becomes Queen of Scots aged six days old. She's sent to France when she's five years old and becomes Queen of France because she...

marries the Dauphin Francis, who eventually inherits the throne of France. So she's crown queen in two countries, but she's got this very strong claim to the English throne. And that's where the problem lies. The problem lies is that she has that strength of claim, but she is Catholic. And that's a big problem because by the time Elizabeth is on the throne, her chief minister is William Cecil, who becomes Lord Burleigh.

who is an ardent Protestant, probably more Protestant than Elizabeth. And he was absolutely petrified that Mary, Queen of Scots would get her hands on the English crown. And in fact, I'm just, I'm actually, because we're about to do a tour in Scotland. I'm refreshing my knowledge of all of this. And it's quite clear that from day one of Elizabeth's reign, William Cecil is working hard to undermine Mary. Mary's trying to...

connect with her sister queen, her cousin, that she's trying to kind of find a way through and be named ultimately as Elizabeth's successor. But Cecil basically does all he can to thwart that and prevent a meeting ever happening.

Jonathan Thomas (33:22)
Interesting. So now let's talk about Elizabeth. She's often called the greatest of the Tudors. What made her reign so significant and how did she manage to hold on to power in a world that deeply distrusted female rulers and you had all these men plotting against her?

Sarah Morris (33:38)
Yeah, yeah. So, ⁓ so we've kind of started to introduce some of the themes around this. First of all, the length of time on the throne. She had the opportunity to establish herself and to bring stability to the country, which she absolutely did. She did find a degree of religious settlement. It wasn't perfect. There were still tensions.

but she was to a degree able to tolerate both. She brought, she had a counsel, a very wise learned advisor. She herself was incredibly intelligent. She had the smarts. ⁓ She brought, as I said before, a great deal of intelligence and ⁓ sort of prudence to her rule. And I think that allowed her to navigate.

very sometimes very difficult and choppy waters very successfully. But one of her greatest powers was her ability to turn her vulnerability as a woman into a kind of virtue and a strength. So I think one of the best quotes that captures Elizabeth is when she's at Tilbury, she's

marshaling the troops against the invasion of the Spanish Armada. And she's on horseback. And you've probably seen it. If you've seen Elizabeth, I think it's filmed too. They actually do do this quite well. ⁓ She's there in armor. And she gives this amazing speech. And at one point she says, I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king and a king of England too. And I think that encapsulates.

the kind of miracle of Elizabeth. She was able to use her feminine guiles when required. But at the same time, she had an enormous amount of strength and courage. And if you think about what she navigated as a child. So her mother was executed when she was three years old. She herself was thrown into the tower during the reign of her half sister, Mary, for

allegedly plotting against Mary and she managed somehow against the interrogation to hold out and to be acquitted of those charges and released. She passed through a baptism of fire in terms of politics and power and danger. And I think that forged an incredible, not only strength and resilience, but courage, wisdom in her.

And then finally, slightly later on in her reign, she really took this to ⁓ the extreme, but it works so well. She created this version of the Virgin Queen. And in doing that, in creating the Virgin Queen, which was a physical image of almost deity, she elevated herself kind of beyond the everyday normal to almost be like this.

goddess-like quality that people could kind of look up to and worship. And I think that was an utter stroke of PR genius. And I think that's really part of why she is so remembered, why she was so successful. And of course, about her, the stability in England allowed this flourishing of the Renaissance. So you have this current...

this cultural flourishing. have people like Shakespeare who expanded the English language. We've got the age of voyage and discovery when England stopped seeing itself perhaps as just this little nation and starts to have global aspirations and heads out in your direction. ⁓ And so, yeah, we've got this just amazing flourishing of ⁓ a nation with

you know, kind of global aspirations. And that all happens under Elizabeth. And I think that's why we remember her. So.

Jonathan Thomas (37:50)
So we've danced around the Reformation taking place during this time period, the break with Rome and the creation of the Church of England. For Americans, this can feel very abstract. Even though we're the children of the Reformation, we don't really think about how the Reformation affected Britain. So can you explain its real-world impact, especially on the physical landscape of Britain? Because it was the biggest transfer of wealth in British history, and a lot of people don't even know that.

Sarah Morris (38:20)
Absolutely, yeah. I cannot kind of under-emphasize or kind of overemphasize the massive impact that this had across every layer of English society, but particularly out there in the communities. And you can still see the scars today. And one of the most wonderful things to do is come and visit North Yorkshire in particular, which has some of the most amazing.

ruined monasteries. And you can see, I did a podcast with an expert on monastic history and the history of the dissolution of the monasteries. And he took me and showed me, you can see the physical scars on the building where things have literally been hacked at. it's quite easy, I think, Jonathan, when you hear people say the dissolution of the monasteries, it sounds like somebody turned up with the we are now closed sign and everybody went politely away. This was not what happened.

People turned up and ransacked these incredible medieval buildings. They pulled them apart. They hacked at them. They burned books and precious artifacts. They melted the roofs down and sold off all of the goods and left these...

piles of smoldering ruins. Now that's the buildings and these, when you see these buildings and you see the size of them and how beautiful they must have been. I don't know what your equivalent would be in the US if somebody just decided to turn up and just ransack and pull down and burn down and destroy a set of buildings. you know, the country holds dear, that almost holds the sort of the soul.

of the country.

Jonathan Thomas (40:09)
It could argue that's kind of what took place in Mexico with the Aztec civilization. The Spanish pulling down the temples and the pyramids. it's hard to find that in the US itself simply because the traces of the civilization that was here before have just been wiped from history. ⁓ But yeah, I can, it's, that's.

One of things I love about traveling to Britain is that these ruins are everywhere and they're almost like monuments to this tortured history.

Sarah Morris (40:45)
And, you know, I've talked about the physical buildings, but we must say that it was not just the physical buildings that were destroyed. Whole monastic communities were thrown out. If you were lucky, you were just thrown out onto the street. Your way of life, your brethren, your community would rent apart. ⁓ You might be homeless. You wouldn't have any occupation. were, where were you in Tudor society? you...

Jonathan Thomas (40:51)
Yeah.

Sarah Morris (41:11)
So you have that from the people living in these monasteries. Some of them, of course, were executed brutally, particularly the abbots who resisted the changes. have several, you know, many instances of awful, awful things happening to those monks who refused to capitulate. ⁓ So we have that going on inside the monasteries. And then we have the role of the monasteries in community life. You they provided hospitality for travelers. They looked after the sick.

And suddenly, and they provided employment because they own vast tracts of land, as you pointed out, vast tracts of land that would have employed people. Now, I guess, you know, wealth was transferred over to the nobility by and large. The spoils of war went to courtiers who could inveigle their way into the good graces, probably largely of

Master Cromwell and those people on the Court of Augmentations who were responsible for divvying out the spoils. ⁓ But yeah, whole communities would just rent apart their whole religious life, all that they'd known and their religion. I know obviously we are in a more secular society here where I think sometimes we don't, can't fully appreciate.

what it was like for those people to have everything that they believed in just literally taken away from them and forced to believe in something that was completely alien to them. So it had a profound impact.

Jonathan Thomas (42:49)
That's kind of a good segue into talking about daily life in Tudor England. So what was that like for people? We tend to focus on the court and these politics and these great aristocrats, but what was life like for these ordinary people?

Sarah Morris (43:05)
Yeah, and actually could I, I thought it might be quite interesting, because you kindly gave me a little bit of a heads up on what we might be talking about today, just to ask people about what the structure of Tudor society was. Because one of the things about the 16th century is everybody knew their place. And you definitely were in a particular social strata and treated your life.

played out according to that by and large. So at the bottom of the heap, we have our outcasts. These are our criminals, our rogues, our vagabonds, people who thieves, beggars, et cetera. They were considered outside of society and they were absolutely the lowest of the low. And then you have the poor, which were divided into the deserving poor and the undeserving poor. So the deserving poor were people who were like ⁓ elderly or sick or widowed and they would be

prepared for by the community, maybe given monetary assistance by the parish, as opposed to the undeserving poor who were able-bodied but simply unemployed, i.e. maybe layabouts. ⁓ And, you know, they were often punished for that. So ⁓ they would be living very close on the edge of survival most of the time and reliant on other people for support. We then moving up a bit more and we get to husbandmen.

and yeoman farmers. So these are still commoners, but they often defined by having modest land holdings or doing some kind of skilled work. So farmers owning plots, they may be skilled tradespeople, for example, and they were quite respected. And if you like, they were like the backbone of middle England. So I believe like the, you know, the, archers that would be called upon.

during ⁓ warfare would come from the yeoman farmer classes. They were the longbowmen, for example. ⁓ So that's that. Then we move to the kind of the middle classes, which is a really interesting class in the Tudor period. These are your merchants, your successful artisans, your shopkeepers, maybe professionals like lawyers and physicians. And they're certainly not noble, but they were able to make a living. They had money.

And in some ways they were quite a mobile class in Tudor England as well. And they could reach incredible levels of wealth just being ⁓ merchants. So they often played a part in society being like kind of the big wigs of society. And then we move on to the gentry. This is a big jump from ⁓ the middling sort to the gentry. And the gentry are...

They owned land and they often have these nice houses, really quite nice swanky houses, what we would call stately homes today. ⁓ And yeah, they owned land, they employed people, they made money from the land. They were often part of society like justices of the peace, dispensing justice on behalf of the crown locally, again, definitely local bigwigs and people of some influence, but on a local level.

And then moving up from that, we're getting into our sort of aristocratic, the nobility, the barons, the vicounts, earls, marquesses and dukes. And of course, we know all about those guys. These people had influence. They were a court. They had national influence. They were very wealthy. They had big houses, often several of them. And then right the way up to the monarch.

So it really, what your life was like was obviously very dependent upon where you were in that society. But for most people, the ordinary life, it was a matter of survival, of working with the seasons, of working with the land. For most people, they were under the direction of somebody else higher in their society. So not altogether in control of

how their life panned out and to a degree dependent upon others. Is that so much different to today? Sometimes I think about, I wonder, I'm describing this in the 16th century and I'm thinking, I'm not sure much has changed.

Jonathan Thomas (47:33)
It's almost like humans like to sort themselves into these various hierarchies where nothing ever changes. So when the Tudor dynasty ended with Elizabeth the first in 1603, when she died with no heir, what did England look like and what had the Tudors built or destroyed?

Sarah Morris (47:45)
Thank you.

Yeah, that's a really good question. ⁓ So I've touched on some of these. I think we had a much more stable nation, although there were tensions, religious and political tensions still simmered. And you pointed out, Jonathan, that that would actually erupt like 40 years later in the English Civil War. So not all was rosy. But on the whole, had, we'd moved away from medieval feudalism.

to a much more unified, centralized source of power and government directed under the crown. ⁓ I think there was probably a growing, with the break from Rome, we have this sort of sense of English nationalism. And I think the English have always been known for being a bit stubbornly English. And so this is what it means to be English. ⁓

And I think there was a growing sense of national identity, what that meant, and a growing sense of confidence. As I mentioned before, England started looking outwards beyond her boundaries and thinking about the rest of the world. And it was growing in wealth. However, we pointed out that there was a price to pay around that. And that had been largely all the religious upheaval and the people that had suffered and died. ⁓

to get to that point. It wasn't a straightforward process.

Jonathan Thomas (49:15)
So let's move on to places. I think we've got a good overview now of the Tudors. ⁓ We won't go on to the Stuarts Forget them.

Sarah Morris (49:17)
my favorite ⁓ thing.

Please don't because I don't know anything about them.

Jonathan Thomas (49:29)
⁓ Just know that a Scot came down and united the crowns. So your whole mission is connecting people to Tudor places. So for an American Anglophile visiting Britain for the first time who wants to experience the Tudor world, what are your absolute essential stops?

Sarah Morris (49:33)
Yes, exactly.

Well, I'm just two or three. It's got to be obviously London. Most people, when they first come here, they come to London. They want to explore the big sites in London. So I think that's where we should be. And that's okay. That's absolutely okay. Start with the big places. Yeah, absolutely. That's what I say. And then, and then what tends to happen, and this is what I've noticed, people then gradually sort of spread out and go into the provinces. So if you're interested in the Tudors in London, Hampton Court Palace is the place to go. It's our only...

Jonathan Thomas (49:57)
Yeah. And that's okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, cool.

Sarah Morris (50:21)
surviving Tudor palace that's accessible. And the reason I'm hesitating, we do have St James's palace, which was built during the Tudor period, but that's not for public consumption. ⁓

Jonathan Thomas (50:33)
⁓

they did open it a little bit. ⁓ But you get you it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Sarah Morris (50:36)
Yeah, you can get into the chat occasionally on the right date. But generally speaking,

I would say Hampton Court Palace, it's a bit of a schizophrenic palace because those awful Georgians got their hands on it and tried to dismantle it. They run out of funds and the Queen died of smallpox, thank God. So we still have half a Tudor palace, but there's enough of it there to give you a sense of the sheer grandeur.

And then alongside that, have, the Tower of London, which is not Tudor, but it is the place of so many important Tudor events. All the Tudor monarchs ⁓ went to the Tower of London prior to the coronation. So there was festivities at the Tower of London. And then, of course, we have a number of people who were unfortunately dispatched at the tower. Yeah, indeed. So, you know, there's some...

the events there, I think, draw people. Westminster Abbey, of course, we have the amazing Lady Chapel, which was actually built by Henry VII. He founded that chapel. It was meant to be a mausoleum to the Tudors, and most of them are there, except Henry VIII ⁓ and James Seymour, who were at Windsor. But we have...

gorgeous tombs of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, Elizabeth I, ⁓ Mary Queen of Scots is there now, wasn't originally, but she's there now, and Margaret Beaufort, we've got a few others, but it's a beautiful building and not to be missed. And I'd ⁓ just also say nip along to the National Portrait Gallery because they do have a Tudor section and you can see some of the most amazing Tudor portraits there.

Jonathan Thomas (52:26)
And I probably know the answer to this, but if you were going to leave London, leave the M25 and go to any Tudor attraction, where should you go?

Sarah Morris (52:34)
Hever Castle, of course you should. Thank you for giving me a little prompt there. Yeah, of course. mean, so many people are big fans of Anne Boleyn. And if you are, Hever Castle is very easily reached within a day's journey. You can get there on the train, although there's a bit of a walk when you get from the train station to Hever or drive there. It's very doable. It's the mecca.

Jonathan Thomas (52:35)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Morris (52:57)
for any Anne Boleyn lover and it is absolutely beautiful, enchanting place. So I would highly recommend it. You also have Hatfield lying to the north of London, which was the childhood home of Elizabeth I. Part of the original old palace still stands. They use it for events today. ⁓ The main house, Hatfield House, was a later Jacobean replacement, but it has some interesting artifacts in there.

Jonathan Thomas (53:23)
Yeah, I have been to Hever Castle as well. I spent the day there 2016, 2017. Highly recommend it. And you can spend the whole day there. Many people don't know that an American actually restored the castle. One of the William Astor, was it William Astor? I think, yeah. Yeah, he restored it. He actually made the gardens. So the gardens are not Tudor, but the gardens are gorgeous.

Sarah Morris (53:38)
in the heat.

that's a little faster, yeah. ⁓

Jonathan Thomas (53:50)
He even made a little village because he felt like there should be a village next to his castle. So there's a pretend Tudor village next to the castle that you can actually stay in. And so there's, yeah, I highly recommend going to Hever Castle. It's what you imagine a Tudor castle should be like. ⁓

Sarah Morris (54:06)
It's absolutely

dinky though. mean, as castles go, it's an absolutely dinky castle, but it's small but perfectly formed with your moat and your drawbridge. And in fact, the castle itself, not the interiors necessarily, but the castle itself is the castle that Anne Boleyn would have known. It's on the footprint. You're quite right. The surroundings completely different. ⁓ Some built so the gate house has been lost. The huge great barn has been lost.

Jonathan Thomas (54:09)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Morris (54:34)
But the actual castle itself is, you know, the footprint is exactly as Anne would have known it.

Jonathan Thomas (54:41)
There's a place I recommend in the Midlands. Hold on, I can't remember the name of it. So I'm gonna have to edit this out. ⁓ It was Elizabeth of Shrewsbury's house. ⁓ Hardwick Hall, yes. I would also recommend people visit Hardwick Hall. ⁓ Hardwick Hall is a very Tudor place ⁓ with the glass windows. Elizabeth of Shrewsbury is a very fascinating woman. ⁓

Sarah Morris (54:49)
control.

how do I call?

Jonathan Thomas (55:10)
considered herself a rival to ⁓ Elizabeth first and tried to make it in her architecture.

Sarah Morris (55:16)
She's amazing. Yeah, she's amazing. I mean, that's a good example. She was an aristocrat. You know, that's a good another. There are so many aristocratic houses to visit. I mean, maybe I could just say while we're talking about places, if you want to see what a yeoman farmer or husband's man, so an ordinary person's house, wielding down the museum in Sussex, absolutely must. If you want to go upper level and go and see a good

Jonathan Thomas (55:25)
Yeah.

⁓ yes.

Sarah Morris (55:46)
gentry house, the northwest with Little Moreton Hall and Speak Hall are fabulous examples of the gentry class. To go on to your point, the aristocratic class, I mean, there are just so many. Hever, Penshurst Place, which is very close to Hever. So if you do Hever, do Penshurst is all I can say. They're only about three miles away and

Jonathan Thomas (56:06)
Yeah.

Yeah,

I could I couldn't resist. I did the both of those in the same day. I'm like, I you're spoiled for choice for castles and houses in Kent. I mean, you can't even see them all in one trip. Yeah.

Sarah Morris (56:13)
You're right.

you're falling over them. And I would also

say ⁓ Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, which is not far from Hardwick Hall, that's an excellent example of a medieval Tudor ⁓ house with the best lawn gallery in the country, without a shadow of a doubt. ⁓

Jonathan Thomas (56:37)
⁓

And on that note, would you, which ruin would you most recommend somebody go see? ⁓ Yeah, I love a good ruin. I mean, I can't do wrong with Fountains Abbey. Like you said, Fountains Abbey is incredible. But anyway, I mean, you answered the question, not me.

Sarah Morris (56:47)
Hahaha.

I'm gonna.

No,

no, no, I mean, I would have to say, you know, Fountains Abbey, Rievaulx Abbey Jovo Abbey, all in North Yorkshire, all very close together. You see those, you'll get a snapshot of ⁓ what the effects of the dissolution, for sure. Other ruins I like. I love so many ruins. There are so many. ⁓

Jonathan Thomas (57:23)
I love all.

Sarah Morris (57:27)
It's remembering them as well. ⁓ Cowdrey House is quite interesting down in Sussex. That was an aristocrat's house. ⁓ The Earl of Southampton, if I recall, Anthony Brown and then his half brother, the Earl of Southampton, they were partly responsible for the downfall of Anne Boleyn, got very well rewarded for it. And they built a beautiful house, which unfortunately caught fire in the 1700s. ⁓ Really sad story and the whole thing.

It was just, but you've got some fantastic ruins. Kenilworth Castle, big romantic story of Elizabeth I. That's Kenilworth is in the Midlands. There's quite a lot to see there, including the tower that Dudley built specifically for Elizabeth. And they've now, few years ago, they put stairs in the center of the tower so you can go right up to, right up to, through Elizabeth's chambers, including to the top floor gallery.

⁓ and just get a sense of the kind of vista that she would have seen from there. I mean, gosh, there's so many.

Jonathan Thomas (58:32)
we could talk for an hour about ruins. So, I hope.

Sarah Morris (58:35)
I must just say,

can I just say one thing? I have to say this. Maybe you're going to ask me this. ⁓ There is one place that I, if you are interested in Tudor England at all, that you absolutely have to go and see. think people know of it, but they don't often get there because they don't realize how important it is. That's the Mary Rose Museum, which is Portsmouth. It's, have you been?

Jonathan Thomas (58:57)
⁓ okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I've been twice. ⁓ The Portsmouth historic dockyard is incredible. ⁓ The Mary Rose Museum, because you have three eras of naval history there. You've got the Mary Rose Museum, which for people who don't know what that is, ⁓ it's a ship they found in Portsmouth Harbor that sank during Henry VIII's time.

Sarah Morris (59:03)
Awesome, isn't it?

Jonathan Thomas (59:22)
and they were able to raise it back up and put it in this museum. it's it wasn't a hermetically sealed room while they took the water out of it. Sorry, where they took the water out of it. But now you can actually walk in the room with the the hulk of the ship. And then they tell you about all the life on the ship during Tudor times. And you can see the artifacts from the sailors. It's a little it's a little it's a little morbid because like it's yeah, because all these people died. But

Sarah Morris (59:46)
Thanks.

Jonathan Thomas (59:51)
Yeah, it's super cool. And then you've got HMS Victory from Georgian Air and Navy. And then you've got the HMS Warrior from Victorian Air and Navy. And then if you're lucky, like I was last time I was there, you'll see HMS Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales, the new aircraft carriers were right behind all of this. So it was a nice day out. How do you recommend it?

Sarah Morris (1:00:13)
Yeah, awesome.

the Mary Rose, I mean, was 19,000 artifacts that they brought up. I mean, the story of the excavation is mind blowing. 19,000 artifacts that show all sorts, yes, you do see some skeletons, including the Chips dog, but the everyday articles of everyday life, if you're interested in ordinary life, from games that they played on board.

Jonathan Thomas (1:00:20)
Yeah.

Sarah Morris (1:00:41)
you know, to the arrow chess, to the cannons that they fired and just standing next to the ship is just awesome. But I wanted just to say that even in the last couple of years, I don't know when you went Jonathan, but they keep adding to it. So now they have ⁓ a section at the beginning where you go into this corridor and they start running as film as you're aboard the ship as it's being as it goes down. And then at the end,

Jonathan Thomas (1:01:02)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little wild.

Sarah Morris (1:01:10)
Then at the end now, they have a 3D immersive, they've got like a screen, a cinema screen, and they've done a 3D immersive sort of film about excavating. You feel like you're going underwater to excavate the ship. So it's just one of the best museums I've ever been to.

Jonathan Thomas (1:01:29)
Yeah, they've really done a great job at ⁓ changing the experience so that you want to come back more than once. ⁓ Like I went 10 years ago and then I went like two years ago and then the experience is completely different than it was 10 years ago. ⁓ So yeah, if you can get there direct by train from London, the train station is literally within walking distance to the attraction. You must go to the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. If anything,

if you for a Tudor experience, but if you are any interest in Britain's history and global as its global sea power, it's worth a visit. And they're in the middle of a 20 year restoration of HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship. And you can actually see them doing the restoration work. They've set it up so that you can watch all the conservation work they're doing. So it's really cool.

I

So you talk about helping people avoid the if only I had known feeling after visiting a historic site. So what's an example of something that people almost always miss at a major Tudor site, something that would completely change how they experience it?

Sarah Morris (1:02:35)
I don't think there's one thing, but what I can do, I can say a couple of things that speak to this point. And that is, first of all, read before you go. That's partly the if I'd only known bit that I experienced. Not doing your reading about the place before you go, not after you've been. Because there's been so many times when I've missed an artifact. It's often an artifact that I miss. And I think, ⁓

or there's maybe a site very close by that I didn't realize was there. So it's more of a tip I will give you and that is do your reading before you go. That's where my books come in handy, Jonathan.

Jonathan Thomas (1:03:16)
Links in the show notes.

Sarah Morris (1:03:18)
Next are the downoats, folks. But the other tip I often give people, not so much for major Tudor sites, but if you're out and about, always go into the local parish church. If you're in a village or a town, you'd be amazed what's lurking in there in terms of, there are very often some fantastic tombs. And I've been in some remote, out of the way parish churches and found the most incredible.

medieval and Tudor tombs and I'd be like, ⁓ gosh, I thank goodness I came in here. So they're very easily just, you you sort of rush by them, but I always say go to the local parish church because that's the building that's had the most continuity often in a place. So over time and as you know, so you get some amazing stories going on in there.

Jonathan Thomas (1:04:09)
Well, and if you get to Hever Castle too early, like I did, and you need to wait for them to open the doors, there's a nice little church next to Hever Castle, within walking distance, that has the parish history there. And it's open earlier than the castle is, so.

Sarah Morris (1:04:25)
⁓

Yeah, go and see Anne Boleyn's father and her brother as well. I can't remember whether it's Henry or Thomas. I think it's Henry that's buried. Little tiny little grave near his father's grave.

Jonathan Thomas (1:04:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, I want to echo your point about doing your reading before you go. I kind of recently experienced that myself. family and I went on a family vacation to Paris and we wanted to go to Versailles and I'm pretty familiar with the broad strokes of French history. I'm nowhere near any kind of expert on it, but I kind of wish I'd read something about Versailles before we went because we went there and the place is so massive.

And then it's completely overwhelming. Like I just walked through the place completely. Like I have no idea what I'm looking at. I have no idea what I'm seeing. I have no context here. I'm just going to walk through and enjoy walking through a palace because I should have done some research before we came. yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I bought the gift. I bought the book though, so I can at least look through it afterwards.

Sarah Morris (1:05:24)
precisely.

And then you'd

be like, well, I've got to go back now.

Jonathan Thomas (1:05:34)
Yeah,

yeah now I gotta go back is I know whatever they is but hey just an excuse to go back, right?

Sarah Morris (1:05:39)
what I always say to people who bemoan to me, ⁓ I missed her, said well you know you just got your excuse to go back then.

Jonathan Thomas (1:05:44)
just gonna have to come back?

Yeah. And that's the and that's that's our philosophy with travel to Britain is is one trip is never going to be enough. You're just gonna have to keep coming. So so let's ⁓ let's talk real quick about simply Tudor tours. ⁓ You founded it with Adam Pennington, who was on the podcast a few weeks ago talking about the polls. Lincoln show notes for that if you haven't heard that episode.

Sarah Morris (1:05:57)
Yeah.

Jonathan Thomas (1:06:11)
So tell us how it came about and how you guys started the tour company because I think it's really interesting. I love hearing about how people start businesses.

Sarah Morris (1:06:19)
Well, yeah. Well, I had, I'd done one tour with another company and I was thinking about what do I want to do with it? I'd loved doing it. It was fantastic. We all had a ball. And then suddenly that what I wasn't able to continue ⁓ with that ⁓ company. And I was thinking, what do I do next? And then out of the blue, Adam called me and said, ⁓

Because at the time he'd been working in events. was working a big event in camp and he was responsible for organizing like 20,000 people. But he'd also, he's also loves his judo history. And he was in the process of writing his book on the polls. And he said, I really want to just leave my job and I want to fuse my two loves. And I wondered if he wanted to do any tours with me. I just, as it happens, he's great on all the logistics and the operations having worked in events.

That's not my thing. I love the putting together the itineraries because I'm more of the places person. So I've been around and visited more of these places. So I'm kind of like, this would be good, that would be good. ⁓ And had a lot of contacts through the podcast and the getting out and about. Cause all my podcasts are recorded on location. So I did quite a lot of contacts. And so we were just like yin and yang really. It was like, this is a perfect marriage. Let's do it. So.

That's exactly what we decided to do. Our strap line is created ⁓ for Tudor history lovers by Tudor history lovers, which I think is one of the important ingredients. We are not just a history tour company. We know our Tudor history. We've written books about Tudor history. We've lived and breathed it for most of our life here in the UK. ⁓

I've visited probably more cheater places than a lot of people have, just because I've been out and about writing about them all the time and podcasting about them. So I think we've got a wealth of knowledge to bring. We both love our storytelling. And so we created our first tour, which was the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn, which we've done twice now. So this would be our third year this year doing it.

Jonathan Thomas (1:08:33)
So what tours do you have this year and are there still spaces available?

Sarah Morris (1:08:38)
We're a few. we were actually off in May. So if anybody's looking for a last minute trip to Scotland, we are in fact doing Mary Queen of Scots from Crown to Captivity. So we're heading north of the border. That's in May, middle of May. And there are three places left on that currently. We do maximum of 20 people. So there's no more than that. And that gives us enough to create a nice community, but not too many where we can't give people individual attention. So that's that one. ⁓ July.

actually is based on some research and writing I did about Henry VII and the 1502 progress. So it's called 1502, year that shook the Tudor throne. This is the progress that Henry and Elizabeth of York do together from Woodstock Palace in Oxfordshire through the Cotswolds heading south west to Raglan Castle, which for a period of time was Henry's childhood home. And

Yes, that's all on the back of my writing and research. I wrote in detail about the entire progress and the locations. And actually we've had a couple of late last minute cancellations. So we were full for that tour, but we do have two spots available and that's in July. So that's running mid July. And then September is our, I suppose we call it our flagship tour because it's the one that everybody.

loves coming up because it's the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn and Anne Boleyn is the poster girl of the 16th century. So yeah, we're booking on that. We do still have some spaces on that. And that's going first half of September. Can't remember the dates off the top of my head, but I'm sure you'll put links in the description that will go through to our tour page and people will be able to find out more from there if they're interested.

Jonathan Thomas (1:10:21)
will be in the show notes. So I'm gonna end with a fun question. What's your favorite Tudor drama? It's probably asking for your favorite child, but I mean, what's your favorite Tudor drama, maybe from a historically accurate perspective or is the most entertaining? I'm curious to know what you think, because there's so much Tudor media out there and some of it's not very good, some of it's great, you know, so what's your take?

Sarah Morris (1:10:22)
Thank

gosh, this could be controversial. Me and Adam argue about this all the time because we have completely different views on the programme that I'm about to say. I loved it and I'll try and explain why I loved it, but I know some people hate it. That's the Tudors. I loved the Tudors.

Jonathan Thomas (1:11:00)
Yeah,

that is controversial.

Sarah Morris (1:11:03)
It is controversial because there was a lot in there that was not historically accurate. I get it. I really get it. And normally my tolerance for historical accuracy is actually quite, you know, I don't, I like things to be right. But for some reason, I just loved the Tudors. Now that was around the time I started. Actually, I think it infused me with energy to start my writing because it was around 2000 and...

that I started writing my novel about Anne Boleyn. And I think it created a milieu of sort of, I don't know, of just energy and interest ⁓ that sparked my writing career off. So I've probably got a lot to be grateful for. So despite its historical inaccuracies and despite Henry VIII looks nothing like Henry VIII, I love Jonathan Rees-Meyer's spirit of Henry VIII. I loved

the character, if I had to close my eyes and not seen him, I thought the psychology and the fickleness and the brutality and the, I thought he played the light and the dark of Henry VIII so well. So I enjoyed that, but I loved Natalie Dormer as Henry VIII, and this is where me and Adam are completely, he hated her.

absolutely hated her. So we have some really good debates when we're on tour, really fun debates about it. for me, she was everything. Anne Boleyn was, I was actually lucky enough to meet her because she came on my book launch ⁓ in 2012 when I launched Le Temps Viande and we did a boat cruise up and down the Thames. And this was pre Game of Thrones and her kind of massive, massive stellar stardom that came after that. But yeah, she, it was wonderful to meet her and she really

at Anberlin for me. and the other thing I noticed about the Tudors was it got so many people interested in the Tudors. There was a massive wave of interest that came off the back of that. And so even though things are historically accurate, what I do appreciate about any of these historical pieces is that it gets people interested and then they start researching for themselves, hopefully.

and finding out the real stories and that's gotta be a good thing.

Jonathan Thomas (1:13:31)
Yeah, I'd say we have kind of a similar arc with Downton Abbey. mean, Downton Abbey came on right after Angle Topia started and like it became a juggernaut and not just for us, you know, for British stuff adjacent and to show that historic record, it's very soap opera-ish, but we all love it anyway.

Sarah Morris (1:13:50)
Yeah, exactly.

Jonathan Thomas (1:13:54)
What a wonderful conversation this has been. Thank you for joining us on the Angle Topia podcast, Sarah. We'll link to the Tudor travel guide and the show notes. And if you want to explore Tudor Britain with Sarah in person, you can find the details on Simply Tudor tours at the link in our show notes as well. There's still a handful of spots available on their 2026 tours. So don't wait. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, or comment. And if you liked the Angle Topia podcast.

Please consider joining the Friends of Anglotopia Club where you can get early access to new episodes and connect with other Britain enthusiasts. So join us next time as we continue exploring the people, places and stories that make Britain's cultural heritage so endlessly fascinating. Thank you so much, Sarah.

Sarah Morris (1:14:38)
Thank you, it's been joyful.

Jonathan Thomas (1:14:40)
Yes it has. I'll have to have you on again.

Sarah Morris (1:14:43)
thank you so much. I'd love to. You know, I could talk forever bit like you geeking out about ships. I can geek out about the Tudors for as long as you need me to.

Jonathan Thomas (1:14:50)
Yeah, sounds good. All right,

goodbye.