Historyland Ferdaws

 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...

  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 d...

  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 a...

  Giulia Tofana was an Italian professional poisoner. She was famous for selling poison to women who wanted to murder their abusive husbands. She was the inventor of the famous poison Aqua Tofana, which is named after her. The information about her background is sparse. She was born in 1620 in Palermo, during a time when divorce was not a concept which existed. Sons and daughters were married off into loveless, abusive relationships with no possible way of escaping them, not until their spouse's death, nor unless one turns to prostitution and chooses to live with a reputation in shambles. Giulia's home life was not entirely disclosed, however it can be inferred that she was indeed living with an abusive father; she was possibly the daughter of Thofania d'Adamo, who was executed in Palermo on 12 July 1633, accused of having murdered her husband Francis, Giulia's supposed father. She would have been 13 years old at the time of both her parents' murders. Giulia was des...

 Mumtaz Mahal was  the Empress consort of the Mughal Empire from 19 January 1628 to 17 June 1631 as the chief consort of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.The Taj Mahal in Agra, often cited as one of the Wonders of the World, was commissioned by her husband to act as her tomb. Mumtaz Mahal was born Arjumand Banu Begum in Agra to a family of Persian nobility. She was the daughter of Abu'l-Hasan Asaf Khan, a wealthy Persian noble who held high office in the Mughal Empire, and the niece of Empress Nur Jahan, the chief wife of Emperor Jahangir and the power behind the emperor. She was married at the age of 19 on 30 April 1612 to Prince Khurram, later known by his regnal name Shah Jahan, who conferred upon her the title "Mumtaz Mahal". Although betrothed to Shah Jahan since 1607, she ultimately became his second wife in 1612. Mumtaz and her husband had fourteen children, including Jahanara Begum (Shah Jahan's favourite daughter), and the Crown prince Dara Shikoh, the heir-appa...

 Henry Fitzroy: how Henry VIII’s “bastard son” rocked the Tudor court Five centuries ago this summer, Henry VIII got the thing he craved most: a son. But the baby boy was illegitimate – and that, says Mathew Lyons, had serious ramifications for king and country 1.He hoovered up England’s titles On 18 June 1525, a six-year-old boy made a dazzling entrance onto England’s public stage. In a ceremony at London’s grand Bridewell Palace, the boy was made Earl of Nottingham and then Duke of both Richmond and Somerset. The “right high and noble prince”, as the youngster was now styled, had become the highest ranking member of the English nobility. The boy’s name was Henry Fitzroy and the doting father who had bestowed the titles upon him was none other than King Henry VIII. This seems to have been a proud moment for both monarch and offspring. But there was a problem: Fitzroy was illegitimate – and that raised all kinds of awkward questions for the succession and the king’s relationship wi...

  Jane Seymour was the third of Henry VIII's six wives, and the only one to bear him a son, the future Edward VI. She is the queen who 'died', passing away shortly after giving birth. Explore the story of how Jane Seymour came to Henry's attention, whether she really was meek and demure, and whether Henry really did love her most of all Jane Seymour,  Henry VIII ’s third wife, was born in around 1508. Her kinsman, the courtier Sir Francis Bryan, secured a place for her in the service of Queen  Catherine of Aragon . Jane later transferred into the household of Catherine’s successor,  Anne Boleyn . By 1535, Jane was in her late twenties, with few marriage prospects. One contemporary considered her to be “no great beauty, so fair that one would call her rather pale than otherwise”. She nonetheless attracted the king’s attention – perhaps when he visited Wolfhall in September 1535. Anne Boleyn blamed her miscarriage, in late January 1536, on the developing relationship, ...