* All Singing, All Dancing – “Sexually explicit jigs were a major part of the attraction of the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Restoration stage, as Lucie Skeaping explains.”

* Nonsuch Palace Gallery to open its doors – This is the gallery that has the model of Nonsuch Palace that I posted about previously

* The February issue of the BBC History magazine has an article on Foxe’s Book of Martyrs that sounds interesting.

In a follow-up to this round-up from two years ago, Greenwich has now been officially made a Royal Borough.

* Greenwich celebrates royal borough honour

* What makes Greenwich a ‘royal’ borough?

* Bloody Tales of the Tower – Presented by Suzannah Lipscomb and Joe Crowley for National Geographic. Now *this* one I am unreservedly looking forward to!

* US publication of sequel to Mantel’s award-winning ‘Wolf Hall’ moved from November to May

* BlancheParry.com has a calendar out for 2012, with proceeds once again going to Bacton Church, Herefordshire

* Historic Knole House in Sevenoaks may be forced to close to public – More information on the fund raising appeal here

Another neat video from the Historic Royal Palaces You Tube channel:

And a video about symbols in Holbein’s The Ambassadors You Tube channel from the National Gallery (check back through the uploads for more on this painting and others by Holbein, as well as other great art!):

* In a follow-up to last week, the portrait of Catherine of Aragon up for auction at Christie’s ended up selling for £151,250 (about £100,000 over the initial estimate!) and the portrait of Katherine Parr sold for £27,500, about twice the estimate.

* History Today has announced the shortlist of the Longman-History Today Book award and among the finalists is Thomas Penn’s work on Henry VII, Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England

* The UK Parliament Archives twitter account linked to a page about the King’s Seat in Westminster Hall, which led me to poke around the rest of their pages on the building. I’ve been fascinated by Westminster Hall for a long time, since it is the only large surviving piece of the Palace of Westminster, which dates back to 1097 (William II) and was the place of several events in Tudor history. Be sure to look at the videos from the virtual tour!

* Royal matters – Interesting answer on the question of the numbering of King Edwards

* A castle celebrates the Queen’s 500th birthday – More on the plans of Sudeley Castle to celebrate Katherine Parr’s birthday next year

* Imagined Lives: Portraits of Unknown People – Display at the National Portrait Gallery that opens December 3 that looks at 14 portraits of unknown men and women (I’m not sure if this is the same exhibit that was at Montacute House last year or a continuation of the same project)

* Revealed, Henry VIII’s lost pleasure palace: Amazing scale model recreates Nonsuch Palace more than 300 years after it was destroyed – More photos of the recreation of Nonsuch Palace that I posted about in a previous Sunday Short Takes

* Scottish football ‘more than 500 years old’ – Way back when this blog used to be a static “News and Events” page I had a post about the ball mentioned in this article, but it must not have made it through the transition. This new documentary evidence sheds some interesting light on the history of sport in the 16th century.

* First maps of Cornwall sell at Bonhams for £46,000 – This is a follow-up to a news item I posted about a few weeks ago

* In the Footsteps of Anne Boleyn: A Time Traveller’s Guide – A book project from Natalie of On the Tudor Trail. Sounds fabulous!

* Henry VIII’s Astronomical Clock at Hampton Court Palace – another neat video from Historic Royal Palaces!

* And finally – new blog header time! I’ve been rotating among the four I originally made and it was time for a change. This one is a view of Greenwich painted in the late 16th century. I have one left from the original batch that will be posted at the start of 2012.

* Early Journal Content on JSTOR, Free to Anyone in World – The electronic journal database JSTOR has opened up, for free access, content for which the copyright has expired.

* Oxford research ‘recreates’ Henry VIII’s Nonsuch Palace and A king’s ransom for Nonsuch Palace model – Neat reproduction of the lost palace

* Anne Boleyn gave birth to Princess Elizabeth on September 7th, 1533. Susan Walters Schmid provides an interpretation of Anne Boleyn’s life, who, even almost 500 years after her death, remains an intriguing figure. – Published on the History Today website on Elizabeth I’s birthday

* Mary Queen of Scots necklace on display – the necklace will be on display through October 31 at Annet House Museum in Linlithgow, Scotland

* Quadripartite Indenture – Indenture between Henry VII and the monks of Westminster Abbey from 1504 featured on the British Library’s Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts Blog

* McMullen Museum hosts rare treasures of British history – A great chance to see some Tudor and other British history treasures on display in the US. More information from the museum

From the “I really should pick up a lottery ticket department”:

* Homes of the Week: Castle Lodge, Ludlow – Just outside the walls of Ludlow Castle

* Up for sale at £20m: Liz Taylor’s dazzling jewellery collection including pearl once owned by Bloody Mary

* Elizabethan map of Cornwall included in sale of valuable collection of cartography

And finally, a few You Tube videos:

* Hampton Court Palace: ‘A potent symbol of political intrigue and violence’ – From the Guardian’s “Britain’s Best Buildings” series

* New flythrough of the Mary Rose Museum currently under construction

* Mary Arden’s Farm blog – If you’re interested in Tudor and Elizabethan daily life topics, check out this new blog from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

* English Heritage Free Sites Audio Tours – English Heritage has put up mp3 versions of audio tours for their free sites that you can download. Be sure to check out some of the other goodies in their multimedia library!

* Damon Albarn and the Elizabethan magical mystery man and The Mystical Artefacts Of John Dee At The British Museum – I don’t get a whole lot of hits on my “John Dee” news alert, so it was particularly surprising to get two in one week (even though they are related, prompted by a new opera)

* Gunpowder Plot documents among millions of papers put online by National Archives and Fourth and final part of State Papers Online – I’ve linked to related stories on this topic in the past and it’s nice to see that it is finally complete. Unfortunately there still doesn’t appear to be a way for individuals to access it without an institutional affiliation (which I’m lucky to have through work!).

* And finally, Mullions XP – Operating System For The Tudor Times, a fun video sent to me by Stephanie through twitter. Enjoy!

* 1536 Act of Union is displayed for the first time ever – From 5 May 2011 to 27 July 2011, the 1536 ‘Act of Union’ between England and Wales will be on display at St Fagans: National History Museum, Cardiff.

* Leamington exhibition looks at Queen Elizabeth I favourite Robert Dudley – More information from the Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum including Exhibition information and Events

* Tickets are now on sale for the grand opening of Stirling Castle Presents – a Palace Fit for a Queen in June. I’ve linked to a lot of previous coverage of the work that has been done to restore the apartments at Stirling back to their appearance under James V and Marie de Guise and I really wish I could be there for the opening!

* The program for this year’s Peterborough Festival has been posted and will include several things of interest to Tudor history fans, including a talk by Dr. David Starkey at Peterborough Cathedral, burial place of Catherine of Aragon

* Anne of Cleves house to reopen in Sussex – Nice BBC video about the house, which had been temporarily closed to do restoration on its roof, which was in danger of collapse

* Dr. Stephan Edwards of Some Grey Matter alerted me to a new book collecting all of Katherine Parr’s writings, both works and letters. One of the claims in the book is that Katherine wrote, in her own hand, Lady Jane Grey’s prayerbook, which you can find more about here at his site. You can also find more about the Mueller’s book at The University of Chicago Press page for the title, and the Amazon pre-order link is below (US store link only right now).

*Knole – Five Centuries of Showing Off from National Trust Knole on Vimeo

* Holyrood Abbey Tour