Henry VIII

Henry VIII and the Lords of the Council

‘Pastime with good company’ – how the image of ‘Bluff King Hal’ glosses over the harsh realities of life-and-death court intrigues played out among the nooks and crannies of the king’s private apartment.

A Night at the Opera

David Starkey visits the Lincoln Center for a night at the opera.

Spectacle and Power: Apollo & Solomon at the Court of Henry VIII

The transition of Henry VIII from Renaissance monarch to the Reformation patriarch, supreme head of the Church of England can be charted through the visual images of spectacle and power emanating from the royal court.

Richard Bayfield, a relapsed protestant descrubed for Sir Thomas More as ‘a dog returning to his vomit’, is burned, from John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments. Southern Methodist University Bridwell Library. Public Domain.

Sir Thomas More and the Heretics

Thomas More is often thought of as a family man who died for his principles, not as a burner of books and heretics.