Show Notes
Was Jane Seymour once friends with Anne Boleyn? What did she really think of Mary Tudor? Was there a hidden reason she pleaded with Henry VIII to spare the monasteries?
Join me for a conversation with Dr Elizabeth Norton about her groundbreaking new book, which draws on fresh archival evidence to offer compelling new answers to these questions - and many more. She reveals Queen Jane Seymour to have been far more complex, ambitious, clever, and politically engaged than history has long allowed.
Forget the quiet, submissive queen of legend. This is the untold story of Henry VIII's third wife.
More from Single Malt History with Gareth Russell
At the decadent court of Charles II, his Italian sister-in-law established herself as a patron of female artists, but, at the same time, faced scandal and betrayal from within her own family. I'm joined by Dr. Breeze Barrington, author of "The Graces: The Extraordinary Untold Lives of Women in the Restoration Court."
In a must for "Wolf Hall" fans, Dr. Miranda Malins stops by to discuss how the Cromwells rose from obscurity to serve Henry VIII, mould a church, challenge Anne Boleyn, and overthrow a king.
From shopkeepers with secrets hidden in their diaries to actresses dating Nazis and a socialite taking tea with the Kaiser's wife, life in a German town in the years between the two world wars is the topic of a fascinating new bestseller, "Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe." I'm joined by its author, Katja Hoyer, to discuss everyday life in the Roaring Twenties and how the heart of Germany fell under the spell of fascism.
Behind the grand houses, crowded streets, political speeches and public celebrations of nineteenth-century Belfast were lives marked by love, loss, ambition, violence, faith and politics. In nine remarkable stories, this episode explores the people and events that reveal a city in all its contradictions. From high society scandal and the Great Famine to abolitionism, heartbreak, domestic abuse and a powerful sense of community.