Books

* Nancy Bilyeau’s debut novel The Crown is now out in the US and will be out next month in the UK. Stay tuned for a guest post from Nancy soon!

* Kelly Hart’s Jane Seymour is out February 1 in the US and UK, but I haven’t heard much about this one.

* Our Man in Rome by Catherine Fletcher is about Henry VIII’s representative to the Pope during the Divorce. It is out February 2 in the UK and comes out in the US under the title The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican on June 19.

Festival

Peterborough Cathedral’s annual Katharine of Aragon Festival will run January 27 to 29 this year. More information is available on their webpage for the festival. (Note, the graphic on the page currently has last year’s dates, but if you download the program it has the correct information.)

Edited 1-18-12: I corrected the info on Our Man in Rome: Henry VIII and his Italian Ambassador – I mistakenly thought that there were two separate books coming out, when in fact there were two titles for the same book. I get fooled by that occasionally!

* 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.

* Mary Rose £2 coin floated on the Solent – A giant, inflatable replica of the coin I mentioned previously here

* Armada wreck discovered off Donegal – The wreckage of a sunken vessel believed to be from the Spanish Armada has been discovered off the Donegal coast.

* Plan to sail Golden Hinde down Thames – The Golden Hinde could join in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee River Pageant next year.

* Lanterns! Candles! Shakespeare for Jacobeans – A little past the Tudor/Elizabethan period, but a really neat project. More info here from the Shakespeare’s Globe site, including a video and how you can help make this happen!

* In honor of the final Harry Potter movie, a Tudor recipe for Buttered Beere from Historical Foods

* Rare portraits of England’s early monarchs in London display – More from the Making Art in Tudor Britain research project of the National Portrait Gallery

* All the King’s Fools – Interesting article in the latest issue of History Today by Suzannah Lipscomb, related to the work she did that I linked to in a previous Sunday news round-up.

* In the July Issue of History Today – A small but intriguing mention of an article in the upcoming issue about the fate of Katherine Parr’s daughter. What happened to Mary Seymour is in the top 5 of the most frequently asked Tudor history questions I’ve seen.

* Stirling Castle – A Glimpse of Magnificence – I know you’re all probably sick of me linking to things about the Stirling Castle renovations, but as you’ve probably guessed, I’ve found the whole project quite interesting. Here’s a video overview of the project now that it is open to the public.

* 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!

* I’ve mentioned this project many times over the past few years, and now the restored royal apartmetns at Stirling Castle are open! The video in the link to the STV story has some neat views and a snippet of the weavers still working on the reproduction tapestries for the castle. STV – Stirling Castle apartments reopen after makeover (with video) and BBC – Doors open after £12m Stirling Castle royal palace revamp

* And if you happen to be in Scotland, there is an exhibit at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh on The Northern Renaissance: Dürer to Holbein from June 2011 to January 2012 (More information from The Royal Collection website, including links to some of the works featured in the exhibition)

* Starkey to head Parr quincentenary – Next year marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of Katherine Parr, and Sudeley Castle is planning events to celebrate!

* Funding backs probe into John Cabot’s Canadian expeditions – I linked to a related story back in 2009 and I’m happy to see that work is still continuing on this project

* For the more academically minded, there is a nice collection of essays in PDF format at the State Papers Online site.

* Historic Royal Palaces: Curators’ Choice – a new book from Historic Royal Palaces highlighting some of their magnificent treasures. Here’s a video about some of the featured items, more information from the HRP website and Amazon affiliate store links.

* 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).

* Dame Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) – Elizabeth Taylor, Mary I and Hans Eworth

* Lucy Worsley: ‘Lots of historians are sniffy about re-enactors’ – Interview with Lucy Worsley including information about her new series If Walls Could Talk

* Spotted at The Lady Jane Grey Reference Guide Blog – Lecture by Anna Whitelock “Woman, Warrior, Queen – Rethinking Mary I and Elizabeth I”

* Flythrough of the Mary Rose Museum in 2012