Sunday, March 07, 2010

Question from Meg - Possible dissertation topic on Tudor consort queenship

Hi, I'm in my second year at university and am in the middle of thinking of a topic for my dissertation next year. The Tudors is my favorite periods in history and I am particularly interested in ideas of Tudor queenship (I am talking the six wives here rather than the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth). I'm not really sure where I want to go with this yet, but I like the idea of the influence that they had over Henry. If anyone has any suggestions that would narrow down my topic, these would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Meg.

3 comments:

Ladyhoby said...

Hi meg never been to a uni so not 100% sure if my suggestion is in depth enough. but one way his queens influenced Henry was in religion.

He before his brother died was heading for the church catholic of course, when he met Anne he changed to protestant, Jane tried to make him go back to catholic which she was warned off that idea. Katherine Parr had to plead for her life when she seemed to be preaching more than Henry wanted

and yet when Henry died and was buried it was more like a catholic than a protestant.

you could look at the prayer books that they wrote, how it changed the running of church for both the bishops and their flocks. also did it change ladies fashion wearing crosses and caring prayer books i think it did but fashion might of changed with out this. also did the change make it harder on the poor or not, hospitals and arms that churches would have given did something come up in its place.

if you look on back blogs you will also find more ideas i find it useful when looking up questions for new topics i want to pursue

kb said...

There is a great deal of material about Henry's wives and their various religious perspectives. As you might suspect, there has been most written about Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn as their relationships with the king were at the center of England's break from Rome.

There is also a lot of material about Katherine Parr's reformist perspective and the circle of women around her, including possibly Anne Askew, that shared this view.

If however, you are interested in queenship, then you might want to examine religion as only one of many areas of influence. There is also patronage, policy, distribution of wealth, social welfare participation, etc.

Your biggest challenge though will be to focus narrowly on either a single topic or only 1 or 2 queens. Six is too many for a third-year dissertation.

As you prepare, start reading secondary source material now. Look at Ives, Warnicke, Harris, Starkey and Guy to start. I'm sure others have additional suggestions.

Keep us posted on how you proceed.

Anonymous said...

Meg, i think that you should try reading Alison Weir's,"The Six Wives of Henry VIII and see which wife you want to do your paper on. I ask to remain Anynomous