Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the Tudors

Follow Anglotopia in all the places

Anglotopia website: anglotopia.net

Anglotopia store: store.anglotopia.net

Anglotopia app: available on iOS App Store and Google Play Store

Quentin Lake's coastal walk: https://theperimeter.uk/

-----

What makes someone dedicate their life to a country that isn't their own? Jonathan Thomas, founder of Anglotopia, has spent 19 years building a community for Americans obsessed with British history, culture, and travel. We talk about how he started the site in a closet in Chicago, what turns a casual Anglophile into a lifelong devotee, the best places to visit in Britain beyond the tourist trail, and his plans to walk Hadrian's Wall this summer. Plus we swap notes on what it actually takes to build a business around something you love.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We talk a lot about living through uncertain times, especially now. New technology nobody fully understands. Institutions that keep changing the rules. A world that feels like it's shifting faster than anyone can keep up with.The Tudors would have recognized that feeling immediately.Between 1485 and 1603, England went through changes that were, by any measure, total: the printing press, the Reformation, the dissolution of the monasteries, the literal discovery of unknown continents. And unlike us, they didn't get to look back at it from a safe distance. They were living inside it, without knowing the outcome.This video looks at how ordinary people actually experienced that upheaval — and what it might tell us about our own.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you emptied the pockets of a Tudor woman in 1535, what would spill out?

In this episode, we’re opening the drawstring purses, apron folds, and girdles of 16th-century women to see what they actually carried. Not the romanticized version. The practical one.

From gold pomanders packed with ambergris and spices…
To iron keys tied on fraying string…
To bread wrapped in linen because there was no such thing as “grabbing something later.”

We’ll look at:

• The scented luxury of court life
• The devotional habits that traveled at the waist
• The money, keys, and tools women kept on their bodies
• The stark differences between noblewomen, merchants’ wives, and servants
• And what everyday objects quietly reveal about class, privacy, and control

This is a “What’s In My Bag” video: Tudor edition.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There were moments in Mary Tudor’s life when escape seemed like the safest choice. Imperial ambassadors discussed secret routes to the coast. Ships waited across the Channel. Loyal advisers urged her to leave England before her enemies could move against her.

In this video, we look at the most dangerous periods of Mary’s early life, first under her father Henry VIII, when Anne Boleyn’s rise left her isolated, illegitimate, and under constant pressure, and then again under her brother Edward VI, when her refusal to abandon the Catholic Mass brought her into direct conflict with the Protestant government.

At least once, imperial ships were ready to carry her to safety in the Low Countries. All she had to do was go.

But Mary refused every plan. She stayed in England, even when it put her at risk, and that decision would shape the dramatic events of 1553, when she claimed the throne.

This is the story of the times Mary nearly escaped, and why she chose not to.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did the Tudors celebrate Valentine’s Day? And if so, what did it actually look like before chocolates, roses, and greeting cards?

In this episode, we step into mid-February in Tudor England, that quiet stretch between Candlemas and the start of Lent, and explore how people marked St. Valentine’s Day. From candlelit church processions and weather lore to love poems written in the Tower of London, we look at the real traditions behind the holiday.

You’ll hear about the medieval belief that birds chose their mates in mid-February, the Duke of Orléans writing a valentine from captivity, and Margery Brews’ heartfelt love letter to John Paston. We’ll also look at how Tudor households actually celebrated, from drawing valentines by lot to exchanging gloves, ribbons, and small gifts.

It’s a gentler, quieter kind of Valentine’s Day, set in a world of church calendars, cold February mornings, and handwritten letters carried across the countryside.

A small holiday, but one that brought a little warmth to the middle of winter.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices