{"id":17130,"date":"2025-02-19T22:19:57","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T22:19:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/?p=17130"},"modified":"2025-02-20T11:30:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T11:30:50","slug":"looking-forward-to-tudors-and-stuarts-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/looking-forward-to-tudors-and-stuarts-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking forward to Tudors and Stuarts 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Next week will be busy with a Kent History Postgraduates<\/strong> presentation by Kieron Hoyle<\/strong>, a meeting concerning Canterbury and pilgrimage with Michael Byrne<\/strong>, another doctoral student working on a Kent history topic, and Canterbury Cathedral\u2019s new Pilgrimage Officer<\/strong> and the unveiling of the Aphra Behn<\/strong> statute. Consequently, for this week I want to concentrate on highlighting some of the exciting presentations that we have coming up at Tudors and Stuarts, as well as a great offer concerning the Franciscan Gardens<\/strong> in Canterbury for those attending any of the Tudors and Stuarts History Weekend<\/strong> sessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Franciscan Gardens in summer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I think the best way is to pick two examples from the four categories to illustrate the links and range of the subjects on offer at the Tudors and Stuarts Weekend<\/strong> that runs from Friday 25 April to Sunday 27th<\/sup> April<\/strong>: https:\/\/ckhh.org.uk\/tudors-stuarts<\/a> and to begin I\u2019ll start with \u2018Royalty and Nobility\u2019<\/em>. We will have a range of Tudor and Stuart monarchs during the Weekend, as well as members of their nobility, but for today I\u2019m going to feature a father and son. Thus, we have the first of the Tudor kings where Steven Gunn<\/strong> will examine the court of Henry VII<\/strong>. As he says \u201cHenry VII\u2019s court is often overshadowed by those of his Tudor successors. His great palaces at Richmond and Greenwich are lost and he had no Holbein or Hilliard to paint his courtiers. Yet this lecture will argue that his court was a vital centre of politics, government and cultural change and that we cannot understand his reign without looking at his court.\u201d And Professor Gunn is extremely well placed to provide this assessment having published extensively on Tudor government and the court.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Professor Gunn speaking on Henry VII’s court<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As a way of complementing this presentation on Henry Tudor, Anthony Musson<\/strong> will be investigating an extremely colourful aspect of Henry VIII\u2019s reign \u2013 the king\u2019s progresses<\/strong> through the realm. As Professor Musson explains \u201cthe role of Henry VIII’s royal progresses was to create networks and connect the royal court with geographically widespread communities.\u201d In his presentation, he will examine the difficulties and drawbacks as well as the positive aspects these royal journeys and how Henry sought to engage with his people. Bringing this forward to the today, Professor Musson will also consider how the present “Henry on Tour” is connecting communities and spreading HRP’s reach in its research remit and public engagement activities \u2013 exciting developments!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Professor Musson speaking on Henry VIII’s progresses<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Keeping with Tudor culture and moving into \u2018Art, Literature and Religion\u2019<\/em>, I thought I would feature Christina Faraday\u2019s<\/strong> intriguing topic of exploring the idea of \u2018Tudor Liveliness\u2019<\/strong> in art and what this meant in a wide range of visual and material cultural contexts. For as Dr Faraday says, \u201cIn Tudor England, artworks were often described as \u2018lively\u2019. Contemporaries used this word about everything from tapestries to paintings, woodcuts to household objects. What did this mean in a culture where naturalism and single point perspective were alien concepts? And in a time of religious upheaval, when the misuse of images might lure the soul to hell, how could liveliness be a good thing?\u201d She will examine this conundrum to offer her discoveries concerning \u201chow artists were able to: make absent things present; render the invisible, visible; and make the dead live.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Dr Faraday speaking on Tudor Liveliness<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Moving to the Stuarts within this category but offering something different, thereby illustrating the Weekend\u2019s diversity, I thought I would focus on the theatre and Astrid Stilma\u2019s<\/strong> exploration of \u2018Tyranny of the Stuart Stage\u2019<\/strong>. Indeed, this can be considered a very \u2018hot\u2019 topic of the time because many within society were asking \u201cWho should be king? What makes a ruler legitimate? How does one identify a tyrant? And, once identified, what action \u2013 if any \u2013 can the people take against tyranny?\u201d In her presentation, Dr Stilma will trace \u201cthe figure of the tyrant and the spectre of tyrannicide on the Stuart stage, from the reign of James VI & I to the Restoration.\u201d This will lead on to \u201can exploration of popular responses to the question of good and bad government, in an age in which once unassailable political institutions could no longer be taken for granted.\u201d Such questions, while directed towards the past might be said to resonant in much more modern times.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Dr Stilma speaking on tyranny on the Stuart stage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The theme of \u2018War and Politics\u2019<\/em> might in some ways offer a stark contrast in that I\u2019m featuring what Glenn Richardson<\/strong> considers was \u201cthe most important European military encounter of the sixteenth century\u201d because the antagonists were the European \u2018heavyweights\u2019 of the kingdom of France under Francis I and the Habsburg Empire of Charles V. In his presentation on the Battle of Pavia<\/strong> he will explain \u201cthe reasons for Francis I’s involvement in the Italian Wars and why he besieged Pavia in the autumn of 1524.\u201d He will review \u201cthe main phases of the battle on 25 February 1525, its immediate aftermath, and its long-lasting strategic and political importance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Professor Richardson speaking on the Battle of Pavia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The second takes a different form in that Jackie Eales<\/strong> will examine the lives of women in the English Civil War<\/strong>. She will highlight matters of female agency and activity and how \u201cthey petitioned both king and Parliament, defended their homes against plundering armies and undertook dangerous spying missions.\u201d For as Professor Eales will highlight, \u201cfrom the queen and the aristocracy to the fishwives of London, women were engaged at every level of society in the politics and fighting of the civil wars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Professor Eales speaking on women in the English Civil War<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

My fourth theme of \u2018Social History\u2019<\/em> similarly offers a contrast. Thus, we have Clare Jackson\u2019s <\/strong>assessment of the period from the Spanish Armada to the \u2018Glorious Revolution\u2019 and one, as she says, \u201cAmong foreign observers, seventeenth-century England was known as ‘Devil-Land’<\/strong>: a diabolical country of fallen angels, torn apart by seditious rebellion, religious extremism and royal collapse.\u201d As Professor Jackson says \u201cDevil-Land<\/em> [her recent book] reveals England as, in many ways, a ‘failed state’: endemically unstable and rocked by devastating events from the Gunpowder Plot to the Great Fire of London. Catastrophe nevertheless bred creativity, and [in this presentation] she makes brilliant use of eyewitness accounts – many penned by stupefied foreigners – to dramatize her great story.\u201d Furthermore, her book will be available both before and after her presentation at the CCCU Bookstall<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Professor Jackson speaking on Devil-Land<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Looking at a similar period but from a very different perspective Chloe Ireton<\/strong>\u2019s presentation on Slavery and Freedom<\/strong> will examine \u201chow West Africans and West-Central Africans and their descendants reckoned with the violent world of Atlantic slavery that they were forced to inhabit, and how they conceptualized two strands of political and legal thought \u2013 freedom and slavery \u2013 in the early Spanish empire.\u201d As she says, \u201cthey discussed ideas about slavery and freedom with Black kin, friends, and associates in the sites where they lived and across vast distances, generating thick spheres of communication in the early modern Atlantic world. Discussions about freedom and its varied meanings moved from place to place through diverse exchanges of information, fractured memories, and knowledge between Black communities and kin across the Atlantic Ocean.\u201d And in recovering these ideas for new audiences, Dr Ireton will offer fascinating insights into this challenging past. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Dr Ireton speaking on Slavery and Freedom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I hope this has whetted your appetite to explore these and our other great presentations and we\u2019ll look forward to welcoming you to Tudors and Stuarts<\/strong> in late April<\/strong>. Not least because the Franciscan Gardens<\/strong> (near to Eastbridge Hospital<\/strong> at 60 St. Peter’s St, CT1 2BE<\/strong>) is offering ticket-holders for the Tudor and Stuarts weekend<\/strong> a discounted \u00a33 entry to the Franciscan Gardens<\/strong> in Canterbury.\u00a0Garden tickets are valid all day during the History Weekend<\/strong>, allowing visitors to enjoy this peaceful 1.5-acre heritage garden and 800-year-old historic site at their own pace.\u00a0Visitors must present a valid Tudor & Stuart event ticket <\/strong>to qualify for discounted entry. Dogs on leads welcome. Children under 17 visit for free with a paying adult. See the website for opening times: https:\/\/franciscangardens.org.uk\/<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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