Thomas More is an odd choice for a saint – he had 40 Protestants imprisoned and another 6 burned alive!
Henry VIII asked Thomas Cromwell to find him a fourth wife. Thomas chose Anne of Cleeves and so Henry had him beheaded!
Mary I is known as ‘Bloody Mary’ because she had 283 people executed – but that is nothing compared to the 72,000 executed during the reign of Henry VIII!
When she was growing up, Elizabeth I did not have much money and when she outgrew her clothes, begging letters had to be sent to buy her new ones.
In 1589 Elizabeth I ordered a counter-Armada to attack the Spanish but it failed with 15,000 lives and 40 ships lost.
Life expectancy in the Tudor period was just 35–40 years.
Henry VIII had a ‘Groom of the Stool’ whose job was to help the King have a poo.
Henry VIII felt being called “Your Highness” wasn’t good enough for him, so insisted on being called “Your Majesty” which still persists for monarchs today.
The Tudors had odd ideas about medicine and thought you could cure a headache by rubbing your forehead with a rope used to hang a criminal!
In 1531 Henry VIII made a new law that anyone guilty of poisoning was to be boiled alive!
