First Year Collection

Anne Boleyn’s brief reign as Queen of England began, and ended, at the Tower of London, where Henry VIII had sumptuous new apartments built for her. Sadly, these are long gone. Dr Alden Gregory looks at what we know of Anne’s apartments – when and how they were built, and how they were furnished when Anne used them.

In 1497, an uprising of Cornishmen, angry at increased taxes and royal demands, made a remarkable march across England, from the far west of Cornwall to London, to present their grievances to the government. Julian Humphrys looks at the route, progress and outcome of the Cornish March on London.

Henry VIII’s flagship Mary Rose is a remarkable survival, enduring more than 437 years on the Solent seabed before its momentous raising in October 1982. Hannah Leueen Matthews explores the historic and modern-day story of the Mary Rose, the largest marine archaeological excavation in the world, and how the ship’s raising has inspired, and will continue to inspire, new generations, forty years on.

One of the best surviving fragments of Henry VIII’s privy apartments at Hampton Court Palace, the “Wolsey Closet” provides a tantalising glimpse of how colourful and highly decorated those apartments were. Charles Farris explores the wonders of this small space, where nothing is as it seems.

Along with great changes in architecture in the Tudor period, there was a corresponding flourishing of gardens. New concepts from the classical and renaissance worlds, and new plants from the old and new worlds, combined to create a distinctive Tudor style of gardening. Bettina Harden considers what these gardens looked like in Wales and what traces remain of them today.

The spectacular Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey was built to house the magnificent tomb of Henry VII and his wife, Elizabeth of York, sitting at the heart of the Tudor mausoleum. Dr Emma J. Wells looks at the history and creation of this splendid monument to the founder of the Tudor dynasty.