This event is now fully booked
20 March 2024
6pm - 7pm
The Tudors were a dynasty with a massive problem: the succession. This apparent ‘golden age’ in English history was considerably undermined by the absence of adult male candidates for the throne. The result was a complex attitude to ill-health, death and its commemoration which serves to distort the popular perception of these monarchs.
In this lecture Dr Jessica Sharkey will consider why Henry VIII is buried in relative obscurity, why Edward VI was cast as a sickly Lord Fauntleroy and why Elizabeth I refused to be married to her winding sheet. In sickness and in death, the reality of Tudor monarchy emerges to dispel centuries of successful propaganda.
_________________________
Dr Jessica Sharkey is Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia
_________________________
Students and under 18s with ID cards and medical practitioners who are Fellows or Members of the College will be admitted free of charge. Please email library@rcpe.ac.uk if you are a student, under 18 or a Fellow or Member of the College and would like to be added to the attendee list.