Historyland Ferdaws

  Every country has its legends and fairytales, and Portugal is no exception. One of the most well-known Portuguese tales is a love story about King Pedro of Portugal and Inês de Castro. Their relationship did not end as they would have wanted, with Inês being killed by royal minions, but in this case, what life took apart, death put back together. Here is the story of how King Pedro’s and Inês’s tombs were made. It all started in the 14th century when  Prince Pedro  (1320-1367), who was at the time the rightful heir to the throne, met Constança from the Castela Kingdom, whom he was expected to marry in an arranged marriage. Pedro, however, fell in love with one of Contança’s maids; her name was  Inês de Castro ) and she reciprocated the prince’s love. Inês was the natural daughter of  Pedro Fernández de Castro , Lord of Lemos and Sarria, and his noble Portuguese mistress Aldonça Lourenço de Valadares.   She was also well connected to the Castilian royal family Pedro and Inês had a sec

  Brother to the ill-fated Anne Boleyn, second queen of Henry VIII, George Boleyn is best-known for his arrest and subsequent execution for treason. But how close was he to his royal sister, really?  George Boleyn remains elusive through the distant mirror of the centuries, often pushed to the sidelines. For 500 years he has lived in the shadows of his more glamorous sisters, Anne and Mary Boleyn – and, until his arrest for treason in the spring of 1536, he did exactly the same in his own lifetime. As a young man, George sought to carve out a career as a diplomat – with help, no doubt, from his father, Thomas Boleyn – but struggled to be taken seriously. Every advance he made in his career was attributed, not to his own merits, but the influence of his royal sister, Anne Boleyn. In fact, George was an intelligent, literate and artistic young man with a flair for languages and a charismatic personality. He loved jousting and hawking, and cultivated a reputation for being a skilled sport

  Anne Boleyn’s final battle: Henry VIII’s final ‘kindness’ Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, famously lost her head at her husband’s behest. Tracy Borman, the presenter of a new TV series on Anne’s fall from grace, delves into the queen’s dramatic final days At nine o’clock on 15 May 1536, the Great Hall at the Tower of London – part of the now lost Tudor royal palace – was thronging with some 2,000 courtiers, clerics and lawyers, all gathered to witness the trial of the century. Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s notorious second wife, stood accused of adultery, incest and treason. It was the first time in history that a queen of England had been put on trial – and the proceedings resulted in her bloody end. Her arrest, 13 days before, had sent shockwaves across the kingdom and abroad. She had been queen for a little under three years, during which time she had become increasingly unpopular with the people of England and made dangerous enemies at court: none more so than her husband. And

 Did Elizabeth   and her half-sister, Mary Tudor, have a good relationship? Henry’s other daughter, Mary Tudor, had effectively been bastardised when the king divorced her mother, Catherine of Aragon. Following the birth of Elizabeth, an Act of Parliament declared the 17-year-old Mary illegitimate. Both Elizabeth and Mary ended up reigning as queen of England, but what did the half-sisters  think of each other? As historian Tracy Borman reveals, the two daughters of Henry VIII were not necessarily fearsome rivals… Historian Tracy Borman explains… “They should have been enemies from the get-go, but in fact they were very close when Elizabeth was a child. This was because Mary – who was 17 years older than her half-sister – took pity on Elizabeth. “When Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed, Elizabeth was ousted from favour. She didn’t really have anything to do with her father, Henry VIII. It was thanks to Mary – who was quite a maternal and kind woman (we don’t often see that s

  Did Elizabeth I and her mother, Anne Boleyn, have much of a relationship? Anne was executed when Elizabeth was just a young girl – but that didn't mean Elizabeth just forgot about her. So what did she think about her mother? On 19 May 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII, was executed by beheading within the confines of the Tower of London. She had been queen for just three years. Elizabeth was two years and eight months old when her mother was beheaded on 19 May 1536,  four months after Catherine of Aragon's death from natural causes. Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and deprived of her place in the royal succession. Eleven days after Anne Boleyn's execution, Henry married  Jane Seymour . Elizabeth was placed in his household and carried the  chrisom , or baptismal cloth, at his christening Anne and Henry’s daughter, Elizabeth – who became Queen Elizabeth  in 1558 – was just a small child at the time of her mother’s death. So how did Elizabeth I vie

  The tragic story of the ‘Nine Days Queen’: Lady Jane Grey Who was Lady Jane Grey? The Tudor queen reigned for just nine days, having been put on the English throne by her scheming father-in-law before being deposed by her power-hungry cousin and condemned to death by execution.  Explore the story of how Henry VIII’s grandniece became an unwilling pawn of those around her, and lost her head because of it Jane was the great granddaughter of Henry VII through his younger daughter Mary, and was a first cousin once removed of Edward VI.  She had an excellent humanist education and a reputation as one of the most learned young women of her day.  In May 1553, she married Lord Guildford Dudley, a younger son of Edward's chief minister John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.  In June 1553, Edward VI wrote his will, nominating Jane and her male heirs as successors to the Crown, in part because his half-sister Mary was Catholic,  while Jane was a committed Protestant and would support the refo