First post of 2011!

‘Queen Mary Tudor’s Chair’ (c.1554) in Winchester Cathedral. According to a seventeenth-century account, this chair was used by Mary during her marriage ceremony.

I can’t believe it has been two months since I last posted! I promise that this is not due to any sudden lack of interest in Mary, or in Tudor history as a whole. Since my last post I been awarded my MA, worked throughout Christmas, and been busy with PhD applications. I am very glad that the last few months are over with and I can finally get back to updating the Mary bibliography site on a regular basis!


So, what will 2011 bring for us Mary enthusiasts?


This year will see the publication of several ‘Mary-books’. Dr Alexander Samson’s study on her marriage, Mary Tudor and the Habsburg Marriage: England and Spain 1553-1557, is out later this year (no date of publication as yet). There is finally a confirmed date on Susan Doran and Thomas Freeman (eds.), Mary Tudor: Old and New Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), mentioned previously on this blog. Both the paperback and the hardback will be released on 25 March. Alice Hunt and Anna Whitelock (eds.), Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), has already been published in hardback, but at a rather unfriendly price. A preview of the book is available to see here. Will a paperback version be printed? It looks unlikely :(


Jeri McIntosh, whose PhD thesis focused on the pre-accession households of both Mary and Elizabeth (a recommended read!), is currently working on a biography of Mary. It appears to be part of the Queenship and Power series (which Hunt and Whitelock’s Tudor Queenship is attached to). No date has been provided for the biography. There will be a volume on early modern queenship but this is due in 2014.


Are we seeing a new direction in scholarship? In recent years, attention has been paid to the Church under Mary (and we have seen such remarkable works as Eamon Duffy’s Fires of Faith), but it is becoming apparent that there is growing interest in Mary’s role as first crowned queen regnant. The subject of female rule in the early modern period has become a hot topic. Alongside the publications being brought out by the Queenship and Power series, there is also a PhD in the works by a candidate at Liverpool university (Anne Mearns, ‘Early modern queenship: the evolution of gender and power in England, 1553–1714’).


The ‘Religious History of Britain, 1500-1800’ seminar at the IHR has a number of interesting talks planned for this year. Amongst them is a paper given by Anthony Rustell on ‘Evangelical survivalism in Norfolk 1553-8: the careers of Protestant clerics and their patrons in the reign of Mary Tudor’. The talk is planned for 3 May. For more information click here.


Unfortunately there isn’t much else to report. Any news of talks/further literature on Mary’s life and reign would be greatly appreciated.

Some updates

Apologies for the lack of updates. I am currently writing my dissertation (due in less than a month!) and the last weeks have been dedicated to this alone. When I have [finally] finished it, I will discuss some of my findings here as I came across some intriguing information.


Giles Tremlett, The Guardian's Spain correspondent, has written a biography on Katherine of Aragon. He will be attending the Cheltenham Literature Festival (16th October), which I attend annually so I should be able to go. If you can’t make it to Cheltenham, don’t fear – Mr Tremlett will also be speaking at Hampton Court Palace on 11th November. Fellow HRP members, we can get a bit of discount on tickets.


Its early days yet, but I have decided to start a new site which will, hopefully, be of use to students and nonstudents alike. It will basically be a bibliography of works on Mary, cataloguing books, articles, PhD and MA theses. I will divide studies up into sections (so a list of biographies, of works relating to the Marian Church, Marian government, art under Mary, music, etc...). I may even develop this further by adding primary sources as this summer I have worked extensively in the British Library and the National Archive and have become familiar with documents relating to Mary between the years c.1533-1553 (a little give away about the time frame of my dissertation!). I would love feedback about this. If you feel such a site would be useful, please say; if you think it is pointless, tell me. I have got lists of works saved on my computer for my own use but if this will prove useful to anyone else, student and other Mary enthusiasts, then I will gladly post them. I also have a number of magazine articles that I could post there. I will provide links to journal articles, including those that do not require subscriptions to see (which are, admittedly, just a handful!). So please tell me what you think. In the meantime, if someone is working on a Mary related project now and needs some guidance with reading materials, don’t hesitate to contact me.