Emily Paine from Angel Magazine interviewed me recently over a cup of tea at the British Library. We talked of cabbages and kings, but above all, about New College of the Humanities, and my new book and series. Her flattering piece can be read on p. 47 of Angel’s March 2012 issue or by clicking on the picture to the left.

I’ve just finishing filming a three-part series on the Tower of London. Made by production company True North, it will air on National Geographic in April 2012. My co-presenter was the brilliant Joe Crowley.

We explored some of the best and most fascinating stories associated with the Tower of London: from Anne Boleyn’s alleged adultery, to James Scott, Duke of Monmouth’s botched execution in 1685, and from Father John Gerard’s daring escape from the Tower in 1597, to the storming of the Tower by a huge mob of peasants in 1381. In each case we were challenging some of our basic assumptions about the Tower, and learning a lot along the way: even in areas where we thought we knew it all already!

I met a wonderful array of experts, including a former spy and a Home Office pathologist, explored the Tower’s defences, and got to look at some beautiful historical documents. I even spoke to a relative of the last person to be executed at the Tower (in 1941!) which was immensely moving. Joe learnt how to make an executioner’s axe, shot targets in a firing range, and scaled Tower 42! Clambering into priest holes, going to where Robert Catesby and the other Gunpowder Plots had their final shoot-out, and seeing the farmer’s field where German spy, Josef Jakobs, landed in Cambridgeshire, all brought home new perspectives on some familiar, and some unfamiliar, material.

Many of the nine cases we investigated fell within my area of specialism – the Tudors and Stuarts – so filming the series was a particular joy to me. Some of the documents that fascinated me most were letters from Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey (whom I’m convinced should henceforth be called Jane I) and Mary I in the crisis of July 1553. I also enjoyed reading the post-mortem report on Lady Arbella Stuart’s corpse in 1615, and several Acts of Attainder under Henry VIII, chiefly those against Thomas Cromwell and Katherine Howard.

I also read the oldest book I think I’ve ever held: a fourteenth-century account of Simon of Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury’s death by Thomas Walsingham, kept at the College of Arms. (It was great that my palaeographic skills came in so useful, but I admit that the one thing I wasn’t expecting to come away from the series with was a conviction that I must improve my Latin!)

It was also particularly amazing to be let into the Acts Room at the Houses of Parliament: every roll is an Act of Parliament passed between 1497 and 1850! I could have stayed in there for a very long time.

Joe and I researched different aspects of each story and then came back to share our perspectives, which occasionally led to some heated debates. I hope the series will be as fun and informative to watch as it was to make!

The abstract is below, and you can read it here in its published form in French History (volume 25, issue 4, December 2011, 408-426) if you are subscribed to French History or have institutional access to online scholarly journals.

There is a pre-print manuscript version of the article here: Crossing boundaries Lipscomb French History final manuscript for those who don’t have such access.

Abstract

Using evidence from cases recorded in the registers of the consistories of southern France, the author investigates the way in which Languedocian women policed each other’s behaviour, enforcing a collective morality through gossip, sexual insult and physical confrontation. In contrast to case studies by other historians, it is argued here that gossip does appear to have been a peculiarly female activity, but far more than simply being an outlet for malice or prurience, it gave women a distinctive social role in the town. No less evident is the involvement of women in physical violence both against each other and against men, violence which, though less extreme than its male counterpart, nonetheless occupies a significant role in the proceedings of the consistories.

I was lucky enough to have the acclaimed cartoonist, Adrian Teal, draw an unbidden caricature of me very recently, and as I think it’s completely brilliant, I thought I’d share it with you.

Teal on Twitter: @adeteal

I spent Friday learning all about this lengthy process, with Sally Pointer (www.sallypointer.com), author of The Artifice of Beauty, who has years of experience in reproducing historic cosmetics, for a new series on historical biographies for the History Channel (Canada), being made by Proper TV.

First, we explored how the young Elizabeth I created her image. Wanting to look pure and virginal, she favoured a natural, alabaster look. To make her skin pale, she used the best quality ingredients around, namely, white lead and vinegar. Sally brought real white lead with her – I’m sniffing it here, it smelt awful! – but in the interests of health and safety, we used reproduction lead on our model’s face (an actress and interpreter from Past Pleasures).

Elizabeth I also often used egg white to glaze her face, which helped hide wrinkles and gave her a smooth complexion. It also acted like a Renaissance botox, because it became impossible for her to move her face! It was also quite the thing to paint on blue veins, so as to make the skin look that much more transparent.

Recent research at the National Portrait Gallery has suggested that portraits like the Darnley painting of 1572 don’t show us an accurate picture of Elizabeth I, because the pigments of her rosy cheeks have faded, making her appear more ghostly than she would have been.

Instead, Sally explained that Elizabeth used crushed cochineal bettles for rouge, which was spread over the whole cheek and not just brushed along the cheekbones. The same cochineal was used for the lips. We still use a derivative from cochineal (carminic acid) in our cosmetics.

The Elizabeth look also demanded using lampblack to create dramatic dark eyebrows. The Elizabethans didn’t use mascara (or apparently, kohl), which surprised me, and explains their wide-eyed look.

Of course, Elizabeth’s use of lead did not do her face any favours. It ate into her skin, making it spongy, grey and wrinkled (lead poisoning is also associated with fatigue, headaches, abdominal pain, depression, loss of coordination, slurred speech and other delightful symptoms). The only answer: layer on the base more thickly. In later life, therefore, Elizabeth’s appearance was greatly more artificial. Thomas Tuke could have been describing her in his 1616 A Treatise against Painting and Tincturing of Men and Women when he wrote that:

‘white lead, wherewith women use to paint themselves was, without doubt, brought in use by the divell, the capitall enemie of nature, therwith to transforme humane creatures, of fear, making them ugly, enormious and abominable… a man might easily cut off a curd or cheese-cake from either of their cheeks’.

This is the look being sported by our older Elizabeth model (who is quite beautiful without all this slap, which just goes to show!)

Elizabeth also stepped up her artificiality in the colours used on her cheeks and lips. No more innocent cochineal, now Elizabeth used the garish vermilion, also known as cinnabar, which gave an intense red colour. It also poisoned her because vermilion is mercuric sulphide. Every time Elizabeth licked her lips she ingested this toxic substance. It was the mercury in felt that led to the expression ‘Mad Hatters’. Elizabeth too may have suffered from the litany of symptoms of mercury poisoning: lack of coordination, sensory impairment, personality changes, memory loss, irritability and brain damage. Any of them sound familiar when we come to the older Elizabeth?

Reporter Tom Bateman put together a lovely feature on our work, on Henry VIII’s disability therapy which features on their website.

You will also be able listen again to the clip later today.

You can find out more about the performances, which run from today until Sunday, at Hampton Court Palace, in the post below. The project is supported by a Wellcome Trust People Award.

There’s going to be a feature on the project on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme tomorrow morning (Thursday 6 October), so do listen out for that.

I’ve already written in History Today about some of the research I’ve done that underpins this project, but thought it might be helpful to give you a short summary of the research findings here (I also plan to produce a scholarly article, exploring this research in more depth, before long).

We’ll be exploring the research issues tomorrow in an academic symposium at Hampton Court Palace on All the King’s Fools: speakers include Christopher Goodey, Dr Elizabeth Hurren, Prof. Thomas Betteridge and me.

And on Friday, we’re running a heritage showcase day for heritage professionals. It’s all go!

You can find pictures and follow our progress at www.allthekingsfools.co.uk.

Above all, do come down to Hampton Court this Thursday 6 to Sunday 10 October 2011 to catch these groundbreaking and thought-provoking performances in action! Buy your tickets here.

Research summary

All the King’s Fools explores an under-research part of the history of disability: that of the natural fool.

Court fools were of two sorts: the natural fool and the artificial fool. An artificial fool, a term that seems to have been synonymous with ‘jester’ was one who mimicked the ‘foolishness’ of the other. A natural fool, who was also described as an ‘innocent’, seems to have been a person with learning difficulties (although it is always hard to understand the categorizations of the past and they can’t necessarily be transferred unproblematically onto the present). The evidence from visits to monasteries, letters, and statutes suggest that these natural fools were widely present in society, highly visible, and understood to be distinct from those with mental illnesses such as insanity.

Will Somer was one of most famous fools of Henry VIII’s court, and continued on as a fool through the reigns of Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. There is contemporary evidence to suggest that he was a ‘natural’, including John Heywood’s play Wit and Witless and, chiefly, a payment in 1551 of 40s. to William Seyton ‘whom his Majesty hath appointed to keep Will. Somer’. This suggests that Somer did not receive direct wages, and instead, had a carer. This is also true of other court fools, like Sexton (also known as Patch). Sexton was not paid directly, but three men were given money to buy his food and do his laundry, whilst the king provided clothing for him. ‘Thomas the Jester’, by contrast, did receive direct payments of 20s. on two occasions.

There are several indications that fools were very important at Henry VIII’s court. The first is their inclusion in a dynastic portrait of his family from 1545. The second is that they were not dressed in the multi-coloured motley of medieval fools, but were attired in rich fabrics. Above all, they were also the ones to whom Henry would turn when he was melancholy or sick.

Tudor medicine is famed for the use of bleeding and amputation, but was actually very holistic, and also paid attention to a patient’s diet, behaviour and mental state. The Tudors believed that the body consisted of four humours: choler (yellow bile), phlegm, black bile and blood, which needed to be kept in balance. One of the ways to achieve this was to ensure the presence of mirth in a person’s life. The physician Andrew Boorde, in his 1542 First Book of Knowledge, stated that:

mirth is one of the chiefest things of Physick.

Mirth meant laughter, but also amusement, good company, lively conversation, music making, and being merry with one another. This is where the fools could be so important.

A contemporary chronicle notes that Will Somer had ‘admission to the King [at all times], especially when sick and melancholy’, suggesting that Henry VIII relied on Somer in his lowest moments. This is confirmed in a later book by Robert Armin, who wrote:

Few men were more beloved than was this Fool

Whose merry prate kept with the King much rule.

When he was sad, the King and he could rhyme,

Thus Will exiled sadness many a time.

Another essential component of mirth was honesty. Fools were thought to be uniquely equipped to speak the truth, because their innocence gave them a special relationship to God. The Bible, in 1 Corinthians i.25, appeared to suggest that God spoke through their foolishness:

All men are fools before God and the foolishness of God is wiser than men’s wisdom.

The humanist Erasmus had popularized this idea with his 1509 work The Praise of Folly. When most around the king were yes-men, Henry could rely on Will Somer and other fools to speak honestly. We have evidence of him being able to change Henry VIII’s mind.

These special qualities of fools – their ability to bring mirth and their relationship to truth – explains their privileged, hallowed status that brought them both favour and authority at the court of Henry VIII.

I would like to acknowledge and thank Dr Elizabeth Hurren and Prof. Tom Betteridge of Oxford Brookes University, and Lauren Johnson of Past Pleasures at Historic Royal Palaces,  for their research help and contributions.

It has been such an enjoyable process visiting 50 Tudor houses, palaces and castles to walk in the footsteps of some of the sixteenth-century’s most famous – and infamous – characters.

The trip has taken me from Penshurst Place, the home of the Elizabethan courtier-poet Sir Philip Sidney, to Ludlow Castle, where Prince Arthur fatefully died in April 1502, and from Thornbury Castle, the half-finished fortified manor house of Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham, who was executed in 1521, to the oak in Wymondham at which Robert Kett is said to have gathered the Norfolk rebel armies in 1549.

I’ve seen magnificent architecture – like Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire or Montacute House in Somerset – domestic beauties – like Gawsworth and Little Moreton Halls in Cheshire – and spectacular vaulting places of worship – like St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle or Westminster Abbey. There are so many gems.

Above all, I’ve loved researching the stories. Can’t wait to see what you think of them. But meanwhile, thought I might share with you some photos of the best bits and most wonderful details over the next couple of months… watch this space.

http://www.historytoday.com/suzannah-lipscomb/all-king%E2%80%99s-fools

With royal biographer Christopher Warwick, comedienne Tracey Ullmann and anchor Lisa LaFlamme

With Tracey Ullmann

http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2011/jun/09/ac-grayling-new-college-of-humanities?CMP=twt_gu

On board Sir Francis Drake’s Golde Hinde… well… on its reconstruction in London on 8 June 2011 to talk with Chris Hollins about the Spanish Armada for The Weather Show Live (except confusingly, this bit obviously wasn’t!)

>> Update: Now named The Great British Weather Show; my cameo is screening on Wednesday 3 August 2011 at 7.30pm.

As one of those future staff, I replied, and my reply features in today’s Evening Standard, which you can read on p. 47 (http://standardonline.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx) or here:

Today, on 5 June 2011, in the press – see The Sunday Times – Professor AC Grayling and a group of world-leading academics announce the launch of New College of the Humanities (NCH), a first-class independent university college, based in Bloomsbury in central London.

Fourteen leading professors will lecture at the university and they include, for history, Professor Sir David Cannadine, Professor Linda Colley, and Professor Niall Ferguson.

It is a new model for humanities in the UK and seeks to protect the humanities, which are likely to be under threat in coming years. It also values teaching: in the first year, students will have 12-13 contact hours a week, including two tutorials, one of which will be one-to-one.

NCH will initially offer eight degrees, with major and minor pairings in Law, Economics, History, Philosophy, and Literature.

NCH will admit its first undergraduates in October 2012, and is immediately open to applications. It is a paid model combining scholarships and tuition fees. The fees are £18,000 a year, or £6,000 a term (for both UK and international students). NCH will also offer 50 assisted places in the first year (more than 20% of the year’s intake), which will be a mixture of 100% scholarships, which will be means-tested, and exhibitions, where the student will pay only £7,200 a year – a fee lower than almost all UK universities.

For more details, see www.nchum.org or Twitter @NewCollegeH.

For news reports, see

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Education/article641692.ece

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13659394

Described by Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian as ‘a flashy, silly, undeniably entertaining Tudor romp’, the film features Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn, Scarlett Johansson as Mary Boleyn (aka The Other Boleyn Girl), and Eric Bana as Henry VIII.

The film, based on Philippa Gregory’s bestselling novel, reminds the viewer that Henry did actually also bed Anne’s sister, Mary, before his affair with Anne herself. But there’s some rather pronounced deviation from the historical record on show here too.

Come along and find out what I made of it!

You can buy tickets online at: http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/Cinema_City/film/The_Other_Boleyn_Girl/

How marvellous and refreshing, therefore, to attend Fallen in Love: The Secret Heart of Anne Boleyn, where none of the above is true! This new play, written and directed by Joanna Carrick and produced by theatre company Red Rose Chain, is currently showing in a yurt in the grounds of the sixteenth-century Gippeswyk Hall in Ipswich.

For a start, this play, a simply staged two-hander with actors Fleur Keith and Joseph Pitcher playing Anne Boleyn and her brother, George Boleyn, is beautifully and intelligently written, and never underestimates its audience. The pacy episodic script, with each scene an intimate conversation between the Boleyn siblings, spans from the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520 through to their deaths as traitors in 1536. This format gives an insightful and original perspective on these famous events, allowing us into the secret world of the Boleyns to see their hopes and dreams, Anne’s growing arrogance, but constantly engaging character, and the close, edgy nature of their relationship – helping us imagine why they might have been thought guilty of incest even if they were not.

Carrick offers us an interpretation of the events of Anne’s rise and fall that is both historically plausible and dramatically riveting. She is able to do this because this play has been impressively and impeccably researched. It ranges widely in its references – from the fact that the 18 year old Mary Tudor, Henry VIII’s sister wore out her 52 year old, husband, King Louis XII of France in three months of marriage, to the gruesome deaths of the Carthusian monks in 1535; from Cromwell’s house at Austin Friars to – delighting the audience – the fact that Wolsey was a mere butcher’s boy from Ipswich.

Above all, though, it is the actors, Keith and Pitcher, who astound. Bearing a passing resemblance to Rachel Weisz and Jude Law in younger days, Keith and Pitcher are energetic, expressive, and damn near perfect.

The combination of accomplished writing, gifted acting, astute direction, and exemplary history mean that the result is a practically flawless piece of theatre. If I could, I would watch Fallen in Love again and again.

So make the journey to Ipswich and catch this play before it comes off on 5 June 2011. You won’t regret the effort.

Fallen in Love: The Secret Heart of Anne Boleyn

I gave two talks in May to rather splendid audiences. One, to the Panorama of History weekend crew, posed the controversial question of whether Anne Boleyn was a heroine or a villain, and the other, to the ardent and lively Molesey Local History Society at Hampton Court Palace, considered ‘Henry VIII: The Making of a Tyrant’. Here’s me with Jenny Wood, who very ably organised the latter, at Hampton Court.

This last week I’ve been touring the country, visiting Tudor castles, houses and abbeys, as research for my new book. It’s been absolutely splendid. In the end, I managed to visit:

• Arundel Castle, West Sussex – home to the Howard family
• Sherborne Castle, Dorset – historically home to Sir Walter Ralegh
• Sandford Orcas Manor – a little gem of a Tudor house recommended by a guide at Sherborne
• Glastonbury Tor and Abbey, Somerset
• Buckland Abbey, Devon – home to Sir Francis Drake
• Barrington Court, Somerset
• Thornbury Castle, Gloucestershire – half-built by Edward Stafford, the third Duke of Buckingham, who was executed as a traitor in 1521
• Hailes Abbey, Gloucestershire
• Little Sodbury Manor, Gloucestershire – from the outside as it’s privately owned. Where WilliamTyndale started writing his English translation of the New Testament
• Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire – chiefly interesting to me as the resting place of Henry VIII’s sixth wife, Kateryn Parr
• Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire – owned by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth I’s great love
• Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire – where Mary, Queen of Scotswas imprisoned four times and the Babington plot was devised, and where I was met by the wonderful curator, Lesley Smith
• Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire – incredible house built by ‘Bess of Hardwick’, Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury
• Burghley House, Lincolnshire – Elizabethan mansion built by Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Elizabeth I’s chief minister and Lord High Treasurer. I was given a tour of the Inner Court by head guide, Carolyn Crookall.
• Peterborough Cathedral, Cambridgeshire – where Katherine of Aragon is entombed

As well as great historical stories, and moments when the past seemed almost tangible, the trip made me think anew about heritage and historic sites. More about that – and more photos – another day.

For now, I just want to say how grateful I am to everyone who helped me along the way!