Hello and welcome to Talking Tudors, a fortnightly podcast about the ever-fascinating Tudor dynasty.

My name is Natalie Gruniger and I'll be your host and guide on this journey through 16th century England.

Are you ready to step through the veil of time into the dazzling and dangerous world of the Tudor court?

Without further ado, it's time to talk Tudors.

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Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to another episode of Talking Tudors.

I'm your host, Natalie Gruniger.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Before we dive into today's episode, I'd like to remind you that bookings are currently open for a weekend with Elizabeth Woodfield, a two-day online event beginning on the 19th of July.

Explore Elizabeth's life and RAIN via six pre-recorded lectures and one live Zoom discussion.

I'm immensely proud of the lineup and so excited about the topics being covered.

There will be contributions by Susan Higginbotham, Sarah Griswood, Dr.

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Participants will have access to all the content for two months and can register from anywhere in the world.

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Now, on to today's episode.

I'm thrilled to welcome Amy Fleming to the show to chat about the early lives of the children of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.

Amy is a historian and author from North Yorkshire.

She's a married mum of three and has worked in history and heritage throughout her career.

She completed an MA in early modern history as a mature student and has since written two books and is currently working on her third.

She focuses her work on Tudor England and is particularly interested in the lives of women and children in the period.

Let's dive straight into our conversation.

Welcome to Talking Tudors, Amy.

How are you?

I'm very well, thank you.

Thank you very much for having me on.

Yes, lovely.

I've been looking forward to our chat.

So let's just start with an introduction.

Could you just say hello to everyone and just tell us a little bit about you and your background?

Yeah, of course.

I'm Amy from North Yorkshire.

I'm married to Drew.

Hello.

Mom of three very big boys.

They're all at secondary school.

I keep saying little boys and they're really not.

I went to university first time around in North Wales at Bangor about 20 years ago now.

And then I did a master's at York as a mature student.

And in between that time and having lots of children, I also worked at lots of heritage attractions and history-based places, all different periods all over the country.

So I've got quite a broad background, really.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

And we're actually here to chat about your new book.

Very exciting.

It's called Tudor Princes and Princesses, The Early Lives of the Children of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.

So what inspired this particular project?

I think there's a few things at play.

I wrote a blog post seven years ago now, just on a whim, because I find the whole Henry VII's reign fascinating but there was so little about the children especially the ones that didn't grow up so to speak that I just wanted to bring it all together so I wrote this little blog post and it's been so popular and I've referred to it so often in my own research as well that I just thought oh do you know what I think these people need their stories telling and then when I was researching for my first book there was so much overlap between the two that I just I started to pull things together and thought, actually, there might be a book in this too.

And that's sort of what started it all off.

Wonderful.

And perhaps for any of our listeners who are fairly new to the Tudors and Tudor history, can you just remind us of how the marriage between Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York, in fact, came about?

Yeah, so their marriage, on the surface at least, it's purely political on Henry's part.

And Elizabeth and he had not actually met before he arrived on England's shores in August of the 1485.

So for him, he had announced, yes, I will marry this woman, Edward IV's eldest daughter, the heiress essentially to the whole house of York.

So he said, oh, I will marry her and she is going to be my bride.

And he made this announcement in front of everybody.

And I don't quite know how Elizabeth must have felt.

It's very much.

But when he did eventually become king, he was told by parliament even, you must make good on this promise because this marriage had so much promise to it, to bring peace, to bring stability, to unite, to stop the wars that had been going on, the civil war.

So I think for both of them, it was a political move.

It was something that they felt was best for their own positions and also for their roles as king and queen, as princess, as whatever they saw themselves as at the time.

They felt it would be in everybody's best interest for this marriage to go ahead.

It's interesting to think that they hadn't actually met.

But when Henry became king and they did meet they just went oh actually yeah okay we'll do it let's do it it's great and it's it's a I think they they both saw it as an opportunity rather than a something they were being forced into now Elizabeth was a young woman she was a bit from a big family Henry at the time anyway he wasn't you know he was only 28 he was healthy he was you know he'd got everything going for him and he'd just been making of England.

It kind of felt, I could imagine that it felt like the right thing to do from a personal perspective as well as from a political one.

Absolutely.

I know.

I think when we think of Henry VII, or I know sometimes when I do, I picture a much older Henry VII.

I rarely think of the man that we're talking about here, you know, in his 20s.

It's interesting to imagine him and Elizabeth so young, obviously, and all that drama.

They're surrounded by this incredible drama going on and it does seem to have evolved into a very effective partnership i think so which is really interesting so maybe amy if you could introduce us then to henry and elizabeth's children seven of them i believe seven yeah seven children only four of them survive sort of early years and that's why we only know that they've got these these four children, but there was Arthur as the eldest and then Margaret comes after him in 1489, then Henry, who we all know so well in 1491, and then Elizabeth in 1492.

And they were the sort of original four, so to speak, two boys, two girls.

It's almost a bit too sort of perfect.

Even today, that would be sort of like, oh, brilliant.

That's a full set.

Great.

But then, unfortunately, Elizabeth dies in 1495.

She was only three.

She goes very, very quickly, very suddenly.

It was totally unexpected.

And it's the first sort of loss that the family have experienced.

Mary comes along just shy of six months, seven months later.

She was born in March of 1496.

And then we have Prince Edmund, who he unfortunately dies at sort of, I think he was about 16, 17 months old.

So he's a real baby when he dies.

And then Princess Catherine is the last of them.

She was only a couple of weeks old when she died.

And she actually died just a few days after her mother died, after Queen Elizabeth died.

And it was probably due to problems following Catherine's birth that Elizabeth dies.

So it's a lot of loss very, very quickly, all in one go at that sort of point.

Elizabeth's death and Catherine's death at the same time, only less than a year since Prince Arthur had died.

So I describe it in the book as Henry VII's very own Anna Cereblis.

It's so much loss, so much upset, so much promise just gone and he's just left no wife.

His heir is a child again who hasn't been given the same support and tuition and he's having to start basically from scratch.

He at one point has three male children and now he has one.

So it's really sad that that's the way it goes.

But the children that did survive, you've got Arthur, Margaret, Henry, and Mary.

Obviously, unfortunately, Arthur dies aged 15 in 1502, but the other three all go on to be monarchs in their own right.

So the ones that did survive, they all went on to do huge things and it had great impact on history.

So it makes you wonder what the others could have done had they survived as well.

So yeah, there's a lot of children and a lot of information.

Yeah, I think it is quite, especially with Arthur, I think it's such a what-if moment, isn't it?

One of those great what-ifs of the Tudor dynasty.

I just, yeah, it's interesting to imagine what would have happened.

It's almost too much to think about because he was, when you read about him and his time at Ludlow, you realise just how respected he was how clever he was how capable he was it was almost like henry vii but 2.0 so to speak you know he was sort of an upgrade on him and it's it's you sort of think oh gosh he would have been such a good respected king and you know he was this joining of these houses he was he was the promise of what they you know they'd signed up for at bosworth almost you know this this boy embodied it and then he was gone and it's like oh gosh I think everybody was a little bit like well what now at that point it's not even you know even today we sort of think what if at the time I believe they they probably thought the same sort of thing and so tell us a little bit about what their childhoods were like and what were the expectations placed upon them you said that Arthur was the embodiment of this whole union of two houses so what about the other children as Well, what was expected of them?

I think all the children were seen as a group, as this embodiment of the union of the houses and the future of what England could expect.

There was poetry written about them and this Tudor rose emblem was used about them.

They were this union.

For royal children at the time, their childhoods were actually pretty normal.

I think that's as much as you can say the word normal for a royal, especially when you compare it to their parents' childhoods.

They didn't have to go into exile, they didn't have to go into sanctuary, they didn't lose a parent early on, they weren't separated from people.

They were given a secure home a secure life they had siblings they had both their parents around they were treated in the way that you would expect a prince or a princess of England to be treated which like I say compared to how Henry had been brought up.

Away from his mother and father and then in exile and then Elizabeth who had been pillar to post with all of her brothers and sisters and then in sanctuary for a time and not knowing whether she was going to actually remain a princess and being declared illegitimate and all these things.

Their children, I think it was important to them that it be stable and secure and very normal childhood to give them the best chance of fulfilling this expectation of being the next generation of this dynasty.

I think politically, obviously politically, that the whole time Henry's fighting off pretenders and there's battles and there's upheavals and threats from abroad and all these things going on.

But I think that maybe not so much Arthur, because obviously he would have been expected to know how to handle this kind of thing.

But particularly for the first few years, there wouldn't have been any of that.

They would have sheltered the children from all of that.

And they would have tried to make it so that the children saw England as a stable and something to be proud of, something that they would go out and represent.

They are the royal family.

They are put there by gods.

So they are expected to behave as such.

So the expectations on the boys were you grow up you learn you become king or you become duke of york and you support the king that was it that that was how it was framed for them their role was purely to be this next set of the royals for the girls slightly different because it was kind of expected that they would make these foreign or diplomatic marriages but they were english princess first and they were given the same pride in their country as the boys were.

You see it when Margaret is making her progress to Scotland as she goes through England.

You see how excited everybody is to see this Tudor princess, this princess of England.

And until she reaches the border, she is very much princess of England, also queen of Scotland.

And then once she gets over the border, she's Margaret Tudor, queen of Scotland.

It's a very subtle change, but you see her going up and she is very much.

Representing her family, representing England wherever she goes, because that is legacy, I suppose.

That's who she is and where she comes from.

And she's very proud of that.

And the same with Mary, to a certain extent, when she goes over to France, she's very much Princess of England.

And she's representing her brother, and she's representing the English crown.

And she has to be, she has to fulfill those obligations.

So there's a lot of expectation placed on these very young children to fulfill a lot.

But I think they saw it as normal.

They didn't see any issue with it, really.

It is a lot of pressure, isn't it, when you look at it and thinking about how this pressure must have affected their development, their belief systems.

It's absolutely fascinating.

So, in terms of Henry and Elizabeth's involvement in their upbringing.

You know, obviously, Henry is king, he has a lot on his plate, as you've already mentioned, with rebellions and all sorts of things.

So how involved are they in the sort of day-to-day upbringing of their children?

I think more involved than you would possibly think.

I think there's this idea that Tudor parents generally were very hands-off and didn't really pay attention.

You know, they sort of handed the children off at the earliest opportunity to somebody else and then they came back fully formed humans that they could take full credit for but there's there's a lot of mentions of the children in sort of records and particularly account books obviously when they're making payments to the households for the children or for services that the children need or things like that so in Elizabeth's personal account you see her buying clothes for the children buying fabric to make certain outfits paying musicians to come and entertain them at court and things like that so she's taking this this role in their lives that we haven't really seen a mother do before but it's possible that.

Her own mother had this kind of involvement.

Elizabeth Woodwell was a very involved mother herself, so maybe Elizabeth saw that that's what I'm supposed to do.

Henry, again, you probably wouldn't think, oh, he'd got a lot of time for this, but he is often seen making decisions for the children, so things like who's going to be their tutor, who's going to be in their household staff.

Elizabeth also chose a lot of the nursery staff.

Some of them even were in her own nursery.

She knew they were trusted.

She knew how they behaved she said right you can look after my own babies now but for henry it was much more practical he sort of saw it as his his way of making an impact on their lives by choosing things that would make an impact on their future so you know choosing their tutors saying what they would be learning buying books for their libraries choosing who was be at arthur's on the council for Arthur at the marches, things like that, who would be his companions there.

It was all decisions that would have an impact on future decisions and connections for the children.

But they also spent a lot of time together.

Arthur was sent to Ludlow when he was three, but up till that point he had been at Farnham in Surrey.

So he was not very far outside of London.

And then the other children were all sort of kept together in a sort of nursery household.

And they sort of travelled around the London area.

They were never very far away.

So I can imagine that it wouldn't have been too much for either of them to come and visit the children or for the children to be brought to court for Christmas and New Year, Easter, occasions, state dinners, things like that, things where the family would want to be together or they'd want to make a show of strength and, you know this is the future you know to lay the children out as a as a beacon for what is to come something so I think they they did spend a lot of time together and they they had the children as a.

Part of that family and a part of their lives and they were a part of the children's lives as a result.

So let's talk a little bit more about their education obviously you know many hours in their in their day was spent at their lessons or studying or learning something or other so can you tell us a little bit more about that yeah so it kind of comes in sort of two two phases really you've got arthur who was educated separately because obviously he spent most of his older years at ludlow so he was in his own little household he did have companions that were sort of school chums so to speak but he was given a more sort of princely education more traditional his tutor Bernard Andre was chosen by Henry because he had this broad spectrum of knowledge and he could give Arthur a good.

Political education at the same time as giving him more of the sort of more modern humanist style of education so the classics and language and things like that but it was more important for Arthur to have this political education as well as the more sort of what we'd stand to call education nowadays but there was also on top of that sort of a physical education they were still expected to be able to ride and hunt and play musical instruments and things like that that was sort of to do with their more practical and physical abilities so all of the children had that aspect although it wasn't as prevalent as you might think they were not encouraged to do too much because it was risky if you put a royal heir on the back of a horse there's always a chance something might go wrong but also it was seen as something that might impact their physical development if they did too much physical activity which is kind of counterintuitive nowadays we want kids to be outside and running around but they did too much it was a worry that they would strain themselves or make themselves ill through the sort of overexertion so they were encouraged to do a little bit but not too much the other children had their own tutors but they were much more on this sort of humanist side of things it wasn't as important that they have this sort of princely.

Background and this knowledge of politics so their tutors focused on things like classics languages theology sciences mathematics and they it was more of a rounded education to sort of make them into it so that they could understand diplomacy and when people came to visit they could speak the languages of the visitors and things like that it was designed to make them into a diplomat is the best way to put it rather than a future king or queen or whatever that was always the intention but it was more focused on being that rounded person.

Thing that they wanted because that was the way that the humanist teachings were going at the time.

The tutors that the other children had, that Henry had, and then the girls joined in with, was John Skelton and William Blount.

Both of those had spent a lot of time on the continent.

They had been influenced by this humanist school of thought that everybody could learn.

Everybody needed to learn languages and classics and learn to read the Bible for themselves and things like that so they they were given this education that would allow them to go forwards and be i suppose be successful in those roles that they were given because they were given this european style education because they wanted to attract a european you know husband for the for the princesses or or a wife for for the for the boys so yeah it was it was quite a modern way of doing things compared to how henry and elizabeth had been educated but it was becoming more and more common over on the continent so if you look at like Catherine of Aragon for example she was given quite a broad education compared to others before her her old household was very well educated but even so the next generation would be even more so educated because they could see the benefit that it had had yeah these this bunch of children were given the best that money could buy.

Absolutely, yes.

And did you find that there were major differences with how Henry, the future Henry VIII, was educated and how his sisters were?

Because they were together for a number of years.

So I'm just wondering if you came across anything around that?

They were, for the most part, given exactly the same, which is really unusual.

It's really unusual.

I think it's partially this idea that Elizabeth was very clever herself.

And did she sort of say, well you know the girls can do it too we already have the shooter in the building you might as well get your money's worth you know put the girls in too but also it was becoming more prevalent an idea that women could be educated should be educated, Margaret Beaufort was also around a lot.

She was a very well-educated woman.

Henry VII possibly didn't see any reason why his daughters wouldn't be able to have this education.

All the evidence says that they were given exactly the same opportunities.

It's just that the girls and the boys, perhaps Henry particularly, was a very clever young man.

And he was, when you read about how their scholarly activities went on.

You've got Arthur who gave it a good go.

It didn't come very naturally to him to do all this classics and language and things like that, but he did it and he was relatively good at it.

Henry, it all came natural and he sort of flew through whatever he was given.

He wanted to know more and potentially Margaret and Mary, maybe they didn't have that same enthusiasm maybe that's where the differences came in you know he was given if he was in school now you know it'd be extension work that he was given you know sort of on top of what everybody else was doing sort of thing to you know keep him keep him going but the boys and the girls for the most part had pretty much the same opportunities it's just whether or not they were able to sort of go with them margaret seems to have been very capable physically she was a very good horsewoman very good at hunting when she goes up to scotland she makes everybody raises lots of eyebrows because of how capable she is mary seems to have had an aptitude for languages she was very good at conversing with people whenever they came came to court she had a maid that spoke french with her when the spanish king and queen are shipwrecked she comes and speaks spanish with them because she's learned it from catherine of aragon and it's she seems to have been very linguistically capable so I think the girls and the boys it went to their strengths as much as it did about giving them the same education they sort of, went in those directions because they were given the opportunity to follow them.

And in terms of how they got on with each other, we obviously know that there were some tensions later on between Henry and Margaret, certainly.

So did you come across any evidence around their relationship or how they got on?

I think it's difficult to tell for those early years because obviously they're in separate households and it's quite hard to tell how close they were and how well they got on but they do give this impression of being sort of team tudor they're all on the same page they're all together and they're all working towards the same aims and they are very.

Close with one another in that respect you know it's like i'm allowed it's very sibling relationship i see it with my own children you know it's like i'm allowed to pick up on them but you're not yes it's you know if and if anybody says anything about you know it's like the older brother comes in or the younger one and it's like no no I'm allowed to be mean to them nobody else is and I get the feeling that's probably where this where this sort of sits so the king and queen obviously in their own household or households and then you've got the nursery and then you've got Arthur separately but they did come together a lot and while I couldn't find anything particularly to say yes this definitely happened it would have made sense if Arthur had sort of stayed with his brothers and sisters when he came to London it's no point making him his own little household when there's one already built there.

So the chances are that they would have, as a family, spent time together whenever they could have.

I think these arguments that you see later on in life are maybe that's the evidence that we see about personality clashes or that sibling.

There's always those arguments that happen between siblings.

So I just wonder whether later on in life you see Margaret and Henry and Mary and Henry not getting along.

And I can imagine that that would have been similar Bye-bye.

In the nursery situation, just on a smaller scale.

Margaret seems very level-headed and very serious.

She probably would have been annoyed by her little brother, little sister running around.

And Mary and Henry seem to have been very similar and similar personalities always clash.

But as an ensemble, I think they were very together and very loyal to one another.

But individually, I think maybe there would have been a little bit of ruckus every now and again.

Absolutely.

So if you had to sort of summarise the impact that you think their childhood and their upbringing had on the adults that they each became, what would you say?

Well, that's hard because there's so much that you can talk about because there's lots of different factors involved in what sort of led to the impact that the four of them, but particularly the three of them, went down to have.

So you sort of look at the instabilities in their lives the deaths of siblings parents cousins the things that would have had a traumatic effect on them their education and who educated them obviously that always has an impact on everybody you know you think about the influence that your teachers had in you at school things like that the influence of their parents their grandparents the people that were still around in their lives but i think that there are things that sort of jump out when i was writing in the book i was like oh that makes sense now yeah and you sort of look at margaret's behavior as queen she just wanted everybody to be a unit and that's very much how team tudor used to behave she didn't want the children separated she didn't want to have to leave boys behind she didn't want to have to go back to england she wanted to stay but the decisions she made made it impossible So she was torn between her own sort of happiness and her loyalty.

And I think that's probably because of what happened.

She was taught so vehemently that she had to be a good queen, good princess, a good wife.

That when it came down to doing something that she thought was right she often second-guessed herself and it comes through in sort of the letters she wrote things like that henry and mary in their own way have this desire for control of their situation and stability above all so.

Mary says fine i'll marry the french king but next next king i pick you know next husband's on me sort of thing because she wants to make sure that she's in control of her situation because she's seen so many people around her end up in situations catherine of aragon being left behind after arthur's death her own her mother dying because she keeps having you know because she had to have babies older and older her sister in scotland you know having all these dramas mary wanted to control her own fate and because she had been left as the last one standing so to speak she'd been very close to her father and she managed to have this confidence in speaking to the men in her life and asking the things that she wanted and a lot of people at the time thought that she was brash and bolshy and she couldn't she couldn't be controlled and actually she was trying to control the situation because that's what she needed i think that's what's come from her childhood henry's desire for control i think we know where we can see that don't need to explain virtually everything he ever does and all about control.

But also when you look at how he, particularly for Edward, he is adamant that his children be safe, kept away from harm, kept away from possible illnesses.

He'd seen three of his siblings and his mum die, various circumstances, three of them at very young ages.

He was probably traumatised by all of this because it had led to such a upheaval in his own life and when it came to his own children he was desperate for that not to occur again and in some ways it kind of did despite his best efforts you know Jane Seymour's early death yeah it's it's really sad I've said this a few times now that I never thought I would be here when being a Henry VIII apologist but having done this research about him you do feel really I guess sympathy for this little boy that's been through so much.

And yes, all right, I think if he'd had a little bit of therapy, he might not have been quite so tyrannical and quite so unstable as an adult and made such decisions.

But when you look at what he went through and how much upheaval and how much change, you can kind of see and understand why.

And it does make you a little bit sad.

You do sort of sit there going, oh, that poor boy.

Yeah, he's a bit of an enigma, good old Henry.

There's no doubt.

Amy, amazing.

This has been fascinating.

So tell us where your book's available.

Where can people get it?

At the moment, I think it's not out in America yet, but I think it's due out in the autumn.

But it's available through in the UK moment through all the usual channels.

And I think the e-book's coming out in the next few weeks as well.

So that should be out soon.

and so yeah but it's available through all the usual channels that aren't UK based bookshops at the moment but I will be updating on my social medias and things when it becomes available overseas and yeah it's all very exciting.

It is it's incredibly exciting but I can't let you go just yet there is one other thing I do when I first have guests on the show and that's what I call 10 to go so these are just 10 quick questions just to get to know you a little bit better so the first one is actually one that one of my listeners wrote to me and said I want you to ask this question, so I'm going to ask it.

And it is, if you could make a discovery, so find any artifact from the Tudor period, maybe something that you know we've lost, what would it be?

What's something that you're desperate to get your hands on?

Oh, that's a good question, isn't it?

I think for me, having spent a lot of time around the Moore family and Thomas Moore's family, we only have one letter in Margaret Moore's handwriting.

So I would love if some of the letters between her and her father would come out we've got lots from him for various different people lots of him that he's written but we haven't got very many got one that she's written in return and I would love to have a few more of those possibly the one that she wrote when he first went to the tower that she supposedly left open for Thomas Cromwell to read and try and convince him that she was a loyal citizen and could she come and convince her father that letter particularly I think that would be the one, Oh, love it.

Fantastic answer.

And what about the last book that you read or perhaps one you're currently reading?

Oh, that's a good one.

The one I'm currently reading is, I've got it here, she's Super Infinite by Catherine Rundell.

So it's a biography of the poet John Donne.

John Donne, yes.

So I'm trying to expand into the Stuart world.

It's fascinating.

And also because I'm currently researching about Stuart Scotland and sort of going forwards into there.

Also, my husband's a keen fisherman and he lent me a copy of Isaac Walton's The Complete Angler and Isaac Walton and John Dunn were best friends.

So it's all very, it's all linked together.

So I'm trying to sort of do a little bit something different.

Oh, I love that.

And what about when you're in writing mode?

Do you have any rituals that you like to to sort of follow to get you into that creative mood.

There's a couple of things that i do i have to have a good cup of tea yes i have to have to have a good that's a must and the bigger the mug the better this is a particularly small one i've got today but you know i do have some bigger ones i'll usually do something like put on the tudors or something something i've watched a million times before because with my office i'm currently at my desk and it's in the living room the tv is right there so i'll put something i've watched a thousand times before on.

But it's normally period drama so that it gets me into that frame of my mind.

And it's, I don't know, it sort of helps to get into that groove.

Yeah, I love that.

And then you don't really have to pay close attention, do you?

Because you know exactly what's going to happen.

And what about if you had time?

You sound like you've got a lot on your plate, but is there a new skill that you might like to learn?

Oh, that's a very good one.

I have a problem with my hearing.

I only have one working ear.

so I wear a hearing aid in one ear but consequently I'm very concerned that if this one goes I might be left with no working ears so I've set myself a challenge that I will learn sign language okay very soon I have said I will do it but I'm not sure when entirely but I will do it you will do it excellent fabulous and what about a travel destination that's on your bucket list perhaps somewhere you haven't seen yet the one I keep coming back to is Rome I went to Florence for my honeymoon and it was phenomenal.

It's incredible.

I would quite gladly go back there a thousand times, but I would love to go to Rome and go to the Vatican and see all the sights there.

I think because I live in York and that's got 2000 years of history and going back to Rome, that would be amazing.

I'd love to see that.

Oh, York's beautiful too, I have to say.

I do love York.

And what about a favourite season?

What is your favourite season and why?

I'm a September baby, so I tend to be more sort of the autumn, the summer into autumn.

I don't like it too hot, but I don't like it too cold either.

So somewhere in there, sort of September-y is about right for me.

Yeah, autumn's my favourite show, I have to say.

Absolute favourite.

And what do you like to do to relax and unwind after you've been working hard all day?

I do have a dog and we We live out in the countryside, so we go on lots of long walks, take him to the beach.

That's a favorite.

Or I do love a good biopic or period drama.

That's my go-to.

If the weather's not great outside, that's what happens.

Beautiful.

And when you were a child, what did you dream of becoming when you were older?

There was three things I wanted to do.

I remember when I was about 12 or 13, we had this conversation at school and everybody wrote down what they wanted and everybody laughed at mine because it was so boring.

But I said I wanted to work in museums, write a book and have a dog kennel.

So I've worked in museums and I've written a book and I have a dog.

You have a dog, so you're basically there.

I've basically done it and it's like, okay, sometimes setting these lower goals sometimes helps.

I had lots of friends who wanted to be astronauts and all sorts of things and it's like, well, I've achieved my dreams.

Where are you?

Amazing.

That is wonderful.

And the very last question for you is to do with a piece of advice that perhaps you've been given at some point in your life or you've just heard along the way that you might be able to share with us.

Could be about anything at all.

I think the one that always comes to my mind, and it's one I was given when my children were really small, but it does sort of, you can use it for any part of life.

It doesn't really matter.

And it's the mantra of this too shall pass.

Oh, yes.

It's, you know, when you're dealing with, I had three under four, so I had lots going on.

And it's the, this too shall pass.

You can use it on anything.

I think if you're in the middle of something that is stressful.

You have to maintain that perspective and say, you know, this is just today.

This is just today.

This is not what every day is going to be like.

It's just right now.

Have the tea, go for the walk.

It'll all be okay.

And this too shall pass.

So that would be what I would say to people.

Oh, absolutely.

I completely agree with you.

And then the very final thing is the Tudor takeaway.

So I do ask all my guests for a takeaway, something for our listeners and viewers to explore after the episode.

So do you have a takeaway for us?

I think for me, I do love a podcast and I know that, you know, I'm on here and I would definitely recommend, but I do, there are so many good ones and they are such a accessible way of keeping up to date with sort of new discoveries, scholarship and books that are coming out.

If like for me, I don't have a lot of time to sit and read for pleasure.

Most of my reading time is taken up with research time or you know background reading for things or I also have a part-time job and it's sort of you know you're sort of going from here and there but let's keep tabs on sort of podcasts that are coming out and I'll listen to the ones, about the new scholarship and about new things that come out new books and then once you've listened to the podcast you can make the decision is that book going to be worth your time or have you kind of, had the potted version sort of thing and it's I do recommend to people that you know get get in the podcast world yeah and you know they're they're a nice condensed you know if you're in the car or cleaning that's my favorite I have a podcast on while I'm cleaning I'll double up on that and and it's it just makes it all very interesting the number of times I have to stop the podcast write down what I'm doing and then carry on the cleaning because somebody said something really interesting it's it's it's a great way of doing it and that's what would be my my takeaway.

Absolutely.

Yes.

And I love the messages I get from people saying, thank you.

You made my ironing session so much better.

It's wonderful.

So thank you.

Thank you for that great takeaway.

And thank you so much, Amy, for taking the time to talk Tudors with us.

It's been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you so much for having me on.

Well, that brings us to the end of this episode of Talking Tudors.

Thank you so much for joining me.

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It's time now for us to re-enter the modern world.

As always, I look forward to talking Tudors with you again very soon.

Music.