Question from Brittany - Martin Luther and support for Katherine of Aragon

I was in the process of writing a paper on my favorite wife of Henry the 8th, Katherine of Aragon, when I searched her on wikipedia to get reference links from the bottom of her page to check out. I would never use anything from wikipedia in a paper because it isnt always reliable, but I came across a part of the page that said that Martin Luther supported Katherine in the king's Great Matter. This little fact did not have a note at the bottom to verify it, so I'm not sure if it's true or not. I tried googling anything about Luther and Katherine to see if anything more would come up, but I'm still not sure. Is there anything that either Luther or Katherine wrote that mentions his support of her? And if so, where might I find it so I can cite it in my paper?

Comments glitch

Blogger seems to be having trouble with comments tonight (I keep getting an error message when I try to approve them), so if you submitted a comment today and it hasn't shown up, that's why. Hopefully it will be resolved soon!

Update: It looks like everything is working properly now.

Question from Elizabeth M - Margaret Lee and Anne's imprisonment

I'm not sure of this has been asked before--if so, please forgive the repeat.
I have just finished Alison Weir's The Lady in the Tower, The Fall of Anne Boleyn.
I am curious about Margaret Wyatt Lee. Weir states there is no contemporary evidence that this lady attended Anne Boleyn in the tower or on the scaffold. I have read several places that Margaret Lee was the chief mourner at Anne's funeral--such as it was. Ms. Weir states that since her coffin was not interred until after noon, mass could not be said, and so only a blessing was said over the coffin. I was just wondering of anyone has any thoughts on whether Margaret Lee was there? It seems so strange that with nearly everything about Anne's days in the Tower being noted so copiously, why the identities of the ladies who attended her in her last few days and on the scaffold are so sketchy.

Question from Elizabeth M - Boiling of Cromwell's head

After his execution, why was the head of Thomas Cromwell boiled before being put up on a spike?

Question from Bettina - Anne of Cleves' household after the divorce

I'm wondering about Anne of Cleves after she was divorced and retired to Richmond, or more specifically, her household. It seems her old household was dissembled after the split from Henry and some of her ladies went on to serve Katherine Howard. But what about Anne? Did she still enjoy the full household a member of the royal family would have, just made up of new people (or a mix of old and new ones), at Richmond? And what happened with that huge castle after it became her residence? Even with a full-size entourage and the number of servants that entailed, wouldn't a big part of it have simply stood empty?

Question from Jessica - Mary Seymour

This is a question about Mary Seymour.
There is some information on your site about her. Alison Weir wrote in the Six wives of Henry the Eighth that she more than likely died in infancy. As someone else asked, why wasn't her death officially recorded then? Even if she did reach adulthood, her death wasn't recorded. Why not? Given the friendly relationship between Queen Mary I and Katherine Parr, (hence the namesake of Mary Seymour) it doesn't seem like she would be a target needing to live a secret life as someone had suggested. Queen Mary also enjoyed a warm relationship with Mary Seymour's aunt, and Queen Mary's step-mother, Jane Seymour.
Can you point me in the right direction about where to find more information?

General Curiosity.


Previous related thread:
http://queryblog.tudorhistory.org/2006/09/question-from-hayley-mary-seymour.html

Question from mobrien - Cleves and Anne's dowry

H8's fourth wife Anne of Cleves -- where exactly is Cleves? Was any sort of dowery involved with this marriage?

Question from Bron - Alice More

Where can I find out more about Alice More/Middleton nee Harpur, please? I have just read R. W. Chambers' biography of Sir Thomas More and Alice simply disappears from the account just prior to his execution.

Question from Elizabeth M - Questioning of Jane Seymour in Anne Boleyn investigation

During the investigation into Anne Boleyn's alleged crimes of infidelity before her trial and execution, was there any contemporary source that mentioned whether or not Jane Seymour was asked questions? She was a lady-in-waiting to Anne. I have never seen anything that says she was questioned. Was that because she was known to be King Henry's paramour and it was decided it was best to leave her alone? As a lady-in-waiting, she would have been in a position to know if Anne had had liaisons of the intimate kind. Is there any evidence she offered what she may or may have not known to anyone?

Question from Shirley - Sir Walter Raleigh's head

Hi!
I am writing a piece about Sir Walter Raleigh's head! After he was beheaded his wife was given his embalmed head. She kept it at her side for 29 years.
What I want to know is how would it have been embalmed? What would it have looked like? I can't find anything about emmbalming in the 1600s.
Can anyone help please?
Thanks,
Shirley

Question from Michelle - Letters and Papers

Hi, I have a question about 'The Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII', 1910 (?). I've searched online, and am a bit confused as to what this is. While I know this, or at least part of this is available for view online/National Archives, I've seen references to it as a 21 volume set of books. Does anyone know if this exists? If so, is it basically a volume of copies of the primary sources, etc.? Also, is it available for purchase?
Thanks in advance!

Question from Antonia - Law and history dissertation ideas

I am currently in my second year of a law degree and needing to think of a topic for my dissertation next year. i thoroughly enjoy english legal history especially the tudor period and would very much like to do my dissertation on this area but i am struggling to find a topic that is going to be relevent to law and not just history. i would be greatful if anyone had any ideas for me thanx Antonia

Not everything went as planned (big surprise)

Emma already mentioned this in a comment to the previous test post, but I discovered that not all of the recent comments have made it over to the new address. I'm looking through the Blogger help to see if anyone else has reported this. I have a back-up of everything though, so I can manually restore them if necessary.

Update: Blogger's migration FAQ says that it might take a while for comments to migrate through the upgrade, so I'll check back later tonight to see if that's the case. Right now everything after April 21, 2008 seems to be missing.

Update to the update: I've found posts after April 2008 now showing up with comments, so perhaps everything is working its way over. I'll give it a little more time before I totally freak out. :)

Yet another update: Looks like the comments are showing up correctly now and the ability to comment on old posts seems to be working okay (it wasn't working at one point yesterday). I noticed that the new search box isn't returning results for the new address yet (queryblog.tudorhistory.org) so it probably hasn't been indexed yet. The whole site search box will still give you results from the old address (tudorhistory.org/queryblog) so just use that for now.

Testing... testing...

Just testing post-migration.

This blog has moved

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Migrating the blog today

As I mentioned in a previous post, due to changes at Blogger I have to make a change to this blog's address. I did the process with another blog earlier today and it seems to be working okay, so I'm going to take the plunge and do this one. If all goes well, in the next hour or so there will be a message here saying that the blog has moved and you will be automatically forwarded to the new address. There will also be a new feed address (which I will also update on the sidebar when it has all finished). All in all, this move is a good thing since publishing should go a lot quicker and it will be easier for me to update and adjust the design of the blog, which I've been wanting to do for a while.

So.... catch ya on the flipside!

Question from Mary - Children of Thomas Wolsey

I am curious about Thomas Wolsey. I believe he had 2 children and was wondering what became of them and are there any descendants living today.

Question from Elizabeth M - Margaret Clifford

I am curious about Margaret Clifford, a first cousin of the Grey sisters. She earned Elizabeth I's ire for something and was kept under house arrest for a number of years? What did she do? Can anyone tell me about her? I know she was Ferdinando Stanley's mother, but that is about all. Judging from her portrait, she was quite attractive.

Question from Sara - Quote from "Utopia"

I have a question about a quote from Thomas More's Utopia. He says: “For this is one of the ancientest laws among them, that no man should be blamed for reasoning in the maintenance of his own religion.”

I'm a little confused about what this quote is saying. Is he advocating a kind of religious tolerance in this quote? Also, I believe there is some question about whether Utopia is some kind of parody, or if it is really More's beliefs in what society should be (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)? More doesn't seem like the type who would call for religious tolerance, unless it was because he had already sensed a threat to the Catholic Church?

Any insight you can give me on this topic is much appreciated!

Question from Neela - Sleeping arrangements for royalty

I was wondering if anyone would know about sleeping arrangements for royalty. For example, when Elizabeth was a young princess (around 12 or 13) where would her ladies-in-waitng sleep?

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.

Question from szatek-tudor - Chart of Tudor royal bastards

Does anyone have a lengthy geneological chart of tudor royal bastards? My husband, last name Tudor, is much interested in his lineage. Or, would anyone have a good site I could search? One personal note: I'm a Shakespearean by trade and married a Tudor who writes plays! Very cool.

[There has been a lot of discussion of Tudor bastards (usually of Henry VIII) but I don't know if anyone has compiled them into one place? It's something I would like to do, but haven't gotten around to. - Lara]