Elizabeth’s love life is the stuff of dramas and legends. This is Carol Ann Lloyd discussing Elizabeth’s Suitors and her new book: Courting the Virgin Queen; Queen Elizabeth and her Suitors. Patrons and YouTube Channel members have regular Author chats where we talk with authors about their books, their research, and more. Patrons and members are invited to attend live, and then I put the recordings up for all to enjoy.
Learn more about Carol Ann at https://www.carolannlloyd.com/
Buy Courting the Virgin Queen on Amazon or wherever you buy your books!
A Very Rough Transcript of my chat with Carol Ann Lloyd on Elizabeth’s Suitors.
 Hey friend, welcome back to the YouTube channel for the Renaissance English History Podcast. I am your host, Heather. I have been podcasting on Tudor England since 2009 with the original Tudor History Podcast. This channel is where I put all of my episodes from all of my shows, as well as lots of extra content like this video right here.
So every month I do author chats for patrons and YouTube members, members of the channel, and patrons, and so you’re gonna see The chat with Carol Ann Lloyd that we had, uh, yesterday. Carol Ann Lloyd is an awesome person. She speaks at TudorCon. She has spoken at every TudorCon since the beginning. She’s written a book called The Tudors by the Numbers.
That was her first book. And then her new book that’s just come out is called Courting the Virgin Queen. It’s all about all of Elizabeth’s suitors, which is always a popular topic. So in this interview, we talked about a lot of different things. From how it is that a princess in the Tudor period managed to reach the ripe old age of her mid twenties without being married, which was very unusual for that time.
We also talked about some of the surprising things that Carol Anne found doing her research, some of the surprising suitors. We talked about how Parliament felt about her being single, about Elizabeth being single, Some of the forces pushing Elizabeth towards marriage and then also why Elizabeth was so against marriage, what she thought about marriage, uh, in general, not just the psychology of having seen her mother and her stepmothers die in childbirth, but some of the other things she might’ve been thinking about.
So enjoy this conversation. If you want to be part of conversations like this live ongoingly, you can either join the YouTube channel here by clicking join this channel. Or you can become a patron on Patreon at, uh, patreon. com slash englandcast. And we try to do monthly chats like this with authors.
Thank you so very much. Enjoy the chat. Recording in progress. There we go. I always forget to hit record and then like right in the middle. When you wait. Yeah. So yeah, don’t, what did you say? But I’m excited to talk to you about your new book, Courting the Virgin Queen. Um, what led to, what led to this book?
Cause last year you had the tutors by the numbers, how this one came into being. So, um, there were a couple of things. One was that I had been doing, um, just some work on Elizabeth. I’ve always been really fascinated by Elizabeth and had been posting a lot. Part of the reason I wrote the tutors by numbers is.
And when I looked at Mary and Elizabeth’s reign together, add those two together, it’s the final 50 years of the Tudor dynasty, which is pretty remarkable. And it’s 42 percent of the Tudor dynasty. So those were the two numbers that propelled me into the numbers. But just looking at these two women and their coronations and everything got me really, you know, digging in with Elizabeth.
And, um, someone at pen and sword saw me posting a lot about Elizabeth and said, Hey, we’re looking for someone to write about her suitors. Are you interested? And so they did to me. And I was interested because that was one of the things I was looking at. So I kind of chose the images this way. You can see Dudley, who’s, you know, sort of the forever and then the Duke of both Alan Saul and eventually or Frog, um, who’s sort of the final, because her re was pretty much from the day she took the throne and even before, but as Queen from the time she took the throne until well into the 1580s, uh, whether or not she was going to get married was not the question.
It was always. Whom will she marry? It was always a question of which lucky young man, um, gets the job, or old man as the case may be. So it was, it’s just a really interesting way of looking at fur as a person, as these, um, courtiers and suitors. are sort of swirling around her. Yeah. That’s how I got started.
So, I want to ask you, just going back, it’s, it’s such an interesting thing, and I know it has to, well, I’ll let you explain why, but that both her and Mary become queen not being married, um, that neither one of them were married by the time they got to, in Mary’s case, what, she was in her thirties, and then in Elizabeth’s case, in her mid twenties.
Right. and they weren’t married. So was there, well, this is specifically about Elizabeth, so we’ll talk about her. What was the early, what were the early discussions about her being, because that’s very unusual for a princess to not be married by the time she’s in her mid twenties. Yes. So tell me about that.
Well, it’s really interesting because, um, early in her life, and by early in her life, I mean as a tiny baby, there was a possibility, there was an exploration of her being betrothed to one of the sons of Francis I, who was the, um, representation of the What Henry the eighth wanted. I mean, he really wanted to be best friends with Francis or he wanted to conquer France.
I mean, he kind of swung back and forth, but in one of those moments where he’s pursuing a relationship with France and getting on Francis’s good side, there was a chance that his son and baby Elizabeth would be married. And at that point, she was a legitimate heir to the throne. And as such, she was a hugely attractive possible bride.
For royal houses throughout Europe and France in particular at this moment. Now it fell through Henry as always asked for more than half. I mean, he wanted so much that eventually that all fell through, but fast forward, just a couple of years, um, Henry falls out of love with Anne Boleyn. And, um, there’s the whole issue of all these trumped up, I believe charges and she is executed.
Their marriage is annulled. And so before she’s three. Elizabeth is declared illegitimate and she is officially removed from the line of succession and an illegitimate child of a king who has no chance of inheriting the throne. Is not as attractive as a marriage partner. So even though there are a couple of opportunities before she becomes queen, the possibility of her marrying Thomas Seymour, which I think he was very interested in.
He didn’t care if she was official or not. He really wanted to marry her. That did not work out as we know, for various reasons. When Mary was queen, uh, Elizabeth did represent a threat to her throne. The Wyatt Rebellion. was about maybe passing over, getting rid of Mary and getting Elizabeth on the throne.
And so both Mary and Philip, Mary’s husband, thought it might be good to marry Elizabeth off, get her out of the country, married to a Catholic prince. It was, of course, assumed as a woman, she’d go along with that. But Emmanuelle Philbert, the particular choice, would not marry her unless she was recognized as Mary’s heir.
And Mary didn’t want to recognize her. So for the reality of her being legally illegitimate, she was returned to the line of succession by Henry VIII late in his reign, but was not made legitimate. That illegitimacy did position her as less. Attractive, less potentially powerful, and of course, if Mary had had a child or if Edward earlier on had had a child, she wouldn’t have come to the throne.
So the further away she fell from the throne, the less attractive she was, and as an illegitimate daughter, the less attractive she was. And that’s really how she ended up still being single. You’re not 25, which in those days for a royal is very unusual. Yeah. Um, I wanted to just go back to, because like you said, uh, Henry had added her back into his will.
So she was part of the line of succession. So then during the time of Edward’s reign, that makes me question, did Edward ever try to marry her off? I know there was stuff with Mary and the threat. What did Edward think about her? There were some possibilities. Edward’s focused. I think he definitely didn’t plan to die as young as he did.
Right. Right. I mean, it wasn’t like, and some people feel like. He was sickly his whole life. He wasn’t sickly his whole life. It was actually quite a robust young man. As a child, he was very healthy. He had some bouts of childhood diseases, as we all do, quite frankly. Um, but it’s only at the end of his reign that he becomes so ill.
So people were expecting him to get married. His great priority continued to be pushing reform. And so I think, had there been a possibility to marry Elizabeth to another country involved in reform, it was just very unusual in Europe, and especially in the Europe royal houses, for there to be other than Catholics.
And Edward did not want to marry her to a Catholic. And what about anybody who would have been? In England. Like I was thinking with Mary, there was the idea of who, what, one of the Henry pole or what, who was it? Wasn’t there. Yeah. Yeah. And Edward Courtney was a possibility. Um, but Edward and, and really Thomas Seymour was a legitimate possibility.
If he had not, um, killed the dog. Yeah. And I know, I know Rebecca has a lot of feelings about him not killing the dog. Right. Yeah, an ongoing debate, but he was accused of treason and found guilty of treason and executed. Um, but here’s position as the uncle of the king was actually a very high and before he committed treason, a very, um, attractive position marriage to him would have kept Elizabeth in England, which she wanted.
That’s where her family, she and Edward were actually pretty close. Um, she had friends in England, her household, all of that. And so it would have been both for both of them, except for the treason, a good marriage. And so yeah, just that one step without might’ve been, it would not have been appealing to Thomas Seymour’s older brother, Edward.
And I say that because half the men in England were named Edward in this time. King Edward probably would have been happy with that marriage. He was. Um, before the treason fairly close to his uncle Thomas and, um, he was close to Elizabeth. And so without the problem there, that probably would have been something Edward would have felt good about King Edward, um, but it did not because of Edward Seymour, his wanting to hold on to power.
And Thomas Seymour, I think the younger brother sort of feeling forced to overstep in order to get what he wanted. Right. And treason. All right. And so then we talked about Mary. So then here’s Elizabeth, 25, becomes queen, not married. And I imagine there were a lot of knocks on the door and a lot of, um, letters and ambassadors making advances.
What was it? Reliefed ones? Well, some of the early and, you know, really interesting, um, one of the things I loved is that Philip of Spain marries husband. Is one of Elizabeth’s early suitors. And that just seems so ridiculous to us. That’s the same Philip who sent the Armada. Yeah. That same Philip, but early on, he realizes that Mary queen of Scots is married to the Dauphin or heir to the French throne.
And he knows he, you know, if Scotland and France are combined like that, he needs a foothold in England. He doesn’t want to give that up. He has enjoyed being king of England while married to Mary, and that gave him some access to English land and English money and English troops for his wars. And so he wants to carry on with that.
And writing back and forth to the Count of Feria, his eyes and ears in England, about that, the Count of Feria is the one who says, I believe everything depends upon the husband this woman may take. And so he knows it’s really important. They both feel Elizabeth will be thrilled to marry Philip. He is a king after all, and, um, he is supposedly very good looking.
I don’t know. Um, but anyway, they are. I Yeah, Mary was wildly in love with him, you know, and, um, Elizabeth had had at least a decent relationship, especially for the end of Mary’s reign, Philip had encouraged Mary to leave the throne to Elizabeth. I mean, that was already the law. Mary really didn’t have a lot of options, but.
Yeah. Philip felt like he had really helped Elizabeth and expected her to be so grateful she would marry him. Yeah. Elizabeth was not interested in that, but she didn’t want to offend him, so she had to keep people sort of wondering if she might come around and she didn’t say no right away and it was this diplomatic dance.
She was a master at that, wasn’t she? She was. She was so good at it. Tracy Borman likes to call it her answers answerless. Because she’ll say something. And sometimes you do see the men she’s been talking with writing letters later saying, well, she said something, but when I really thought about it, she really didn’t say anything.
So they are frustrated with that. But she learned to only say what she wanted people to hear way early on. I mean, she learned to keep her counsel early on. And certainly during Edwards and Mary’s reign, her ability to appear to say things without really giving people any substance. Saved her life. And so she continued to do that.
So Philip was an early suitor with Mary queen of Scots in France. There were a couple of Scots noblemen that were considered suitors. We always have Robert Dudley. Of course, he’s married when she first comes to the throne. Full technical detail, right? Small detail. But we also have the Earl of Arendelle and William Pickering, English gentlemen that thought she might marry them.
So there are a number of, she did not ever lack for suitors. And early on there were, as you say, many knocks at the door. And what, as you were researching this book, what was like the most surprising one? Um, I, I’ve been the terrible comes to mind, like who would have imagined that? What are some other kind of surprising suitors that you, or just surprising ideas about these suitors that.
Well, I mean, one of the things I didn’t realize that there were two Scott suitors that early. And then of course that all falls apart when Mary’s husband dies and she returns to Scotland. Mary Queen of Scots husband dies and she returns to Scotland. But one of the things that did surprise me. Was how often and how directly Parliament brought it up that she needed to get married.
So even more than the suitors themselves, and we can talk about other suitors. That was also really interesting, but I knew it was political, but how frequently Parliament felt like they had every right. To call upon her to get married and have children. And that they felt like it was totally their business and they were going to tell her what to do.
And her responses to that, I thought that was fascinating. That was an ongoing relationship, Elizabeth and the house of Lords, Elizabeth and the house of commons, the house of Lords and the house of commons, talking to each other, um, deciding who would present her. With certain, um, things they wanted her to hear, it was just fascinating to see that grew out from the very beginning, right up until the 1580s when there was huge parliamentary debate about whether or not she should marry the Duke of Anjou or, and formerly Al Ansar, um, later in her reign.
So that was, that was really surprising to me how, uh, how free they felt to tell her what to do. She’s now how much every how now how much of this so there’s kind of two parts to that There’s the fact that there’s a woman and maybe more but I’m thinking right now two parts There’s the fact that she’s a woman and so a woman can’t rule on her own, right?
But then there’s also the idea of just stability of the realm that they’re probably quite concerned about that so I guess I wonder like What do you think was the main, or was it a combination? What, what was the driving force be behind all of this? Did they have any just justification or were they just being like, well, you’re a woman.
Of course you need a man. There is part of that. That was a belief, but also she is the last of Henry vii. Children. I mean, it’s surprising for a monarch to see more than one child sit on the throne. Henry VIII is the only one that’s had three children, but we’re out of them. And since neither Edward nor Mary have a child, we’re out of heirs.
I mean, there are some other relatives, there are cousins, but there is a lot of focus on the dynasty and a child to carry on the Tudor dynasty. And, you know, it’s, we’re not even a century. beyond the Wars of the Roses during the early part of Elizabeth’s reign. And so here is a pretty strong memory of literal civil wars fought over who needs to be the king.
And we always did use that term next. So there was a lot of concern about that. That was a legitimate, a more legitimate concern for me and my frame of mind. But there was also an idea that a woman was not capable of carrying the heavy burden of ruling as they would call it and needed her husband’s help with that.
Great. And I’m just thinking about how Henry himself was so concerned with having an heir and like surely. Did Elizabeth herself, did you find in your research, did it ever concern her? Like, I’m just thinking, like, her father did all kinds of crazy stuff to try to get a son. Um, all kinds of in the, uh, whatever.
And then did she ever, like, what was her frame of mind with all of this? Did she just kind of think, well, I’ll be dead so that you worry about it after I’m gone or? You know, it’s interesting because I certainly think she and Mary, Mary, the first tried very hard and, and convinced herself a couple of times she was pregnant, which I think is an indication of how much she wanted to be.
I don’t see that with Elizabeth. The comments she makes, she does say to parliament several times, of course, I’ll get married as soon as God tells me to kind of thing. Um, but she makes some pretty specific comments about would I love my winding sheet? In other words, the child would represent in some ways, her death and the idea of being wound up or winding sheet.
Um, she saw a child. Largely, I don’t know if, if largely is, is too strong the word, but at least in part as a challenge. But think about it. Think about Mary Queen of Scots experience. When the Lords decide that they would rather have baby Prince James. be the monarch than his mother, who’s an adult. Now, she’s an adult who’s made a lot of bad decisions, and we have Darnley dead, and she’s now marrying Bothwell, and so there have been a lot of bad decisions.
But even so, the preference for a male heir over a woman is really strong. And a son would represent Both a benefit, continuation of the reign, but also a challenge to a female monarch. Henry’s sons, Edward was never a threat to Henry VIII, but Elizabeth believed a son would be a threat to her. And so it was a very mixed feeling about that.
Gotcha. And I know they’ve done on, you know, there’s been lots of videos and blog posts about how she felt about marriage after seeing what her mother went through, and I bet a lot of Yeah. Stepmother dying in childbirth and the dangers of all of that. Yes. Stepmother, I guess, dying in childbirth and, um, yeah, so she must have had a lot of ambivalence about that.
But I just like, what was her plan then for it? Because I know even at the very end, she didn’t want to name James until the very, very end. Right. Right. What was, do you know what her plan was? It’s really hard to say what her plan was. The kinds of things she would say is don’t worry, God and I will take care of it kind of thing.
It’s almost as if she believed she would live forever. And she certainly wanted to portray that the later years where she is wearing these unbelievable outfits and all of this makeup and these wigs and these ruffs that are, you know, standing out to here so they shimmer as she walks. It’s not vanity.
It’s convincing people that she’s fine and she’s vibrant and she’s healthy. And she was really very healthy right up till the very end. Unlike her father who deteriorated. And unlike even Mary, her sister, who was ill for quite a long time at the end, Elizabeth was really very healthy, and then she got very sick and died fairly quickly.
But she did not seem to really have a plan for that, or at least she didn’t express it. And she dangled the possibility of naming Mary Queen of Scots as her heir. In exchange for Mary Queen of Scots stopping her own claim to the English throne and stopping her attempts to take the English throne from Elizabeth.
So it’s possible she believed if she didn’t do anything else, she could get Mary to agree to that and then she could name Mary. I don’t know. It may be that she was just saying that. Neither she nor Mary would take the first step toward that resolution, so it never happened. I don’t know. Um, that may have been part of Elizabeth, but you know, once Mary’s imprisoned, it’s not going to be that.
So it’s hard to know what she really planned for the future. Yeah. It’s just, I wonder about that sometimes. Cause it seems like that’s one of the very basic kind of responsibilities of a monarch is to figure out your succession plan and so amazing in every other way. Right. And it’s just kind of like, what were you thinking something?
Were you thinking some fruit, something brilliant that we haven’t. Well, it certainly, I didn’t see any of it and, and fairly early on within, I think four or five years of her taking the throne, she had that terrible bout of smallpox that absolutely could have killed her. Smallpox was usually fatal. It’s very surprising in some ways as sick as she was that she recovered.
And there were many emergency meetings of the Privy Council and there was total disagreement. About who they thought should succeed her. So it had been a really pressing issue for a long time. And she continued to resist any urge. Not, she didn’t just not get married. She could have still named a successor, even if it was not going to be her child.
Um, but she refused to even do that. She did not want Focus to leave her and go to somebody else. Yeah. So interesting. And so, okay. Um, well. I I wanna be respectful of your time ’cause I told you it would be about half an hour. And Marie has joined us. Hi Marie. And if Marie has any questions, please feel free to to hop in as well.
Um, of all of these suitors, there’s like 20 of them, huh? Like, which one do you think she got the closest with? Which one? Um, was it the Duke of Alanon? Anju or do you think that was the closest? Well, it’s har, you know, Dudley’s always there. I don’t think she ever would’ve married. Dudley, um, because that would have so disrupted the whole English system, you know, the whole court system.
And he was not one of the higher Dukes and all of that, but I think she loved him. I think he was very possibly the love of her life. I think he believed he could eventually convince her, but that did not happen. I think, um, the Duke of Al Nusra and Al Ju, you know, it’s interesting in the fringe. Um, that’s part of your path to becoming the king.
You know, first you’re Duke of Alsan, then you’re the Duke of Anjou, and then you’re the Dauphin. So these people, um, and they also recycle names. So anyway, um, the Duke of Anjou, her frog, as she called him, I think she really did have a strong affection for him. There was a huge age difference. She was a lot older than he was.
And she was, despite. Her protestations and her physician’s protestations that she was perfectly capable of having children in her fifties in those days. And I’m not saying today, but that is unlikely. Um, most women. Um, if we’re at the most in there, maybe mid thirties, I mean, you know, fertility really did stop much earlier.
So grandmother died at age 37 having a plan. I mean, they started earlier and ended earlier in terms of their having children. And so, um, but. He did what no other foreign suitor had done, which is he came to England to court her in person. And that was huge because that defied the protocol completely.
That was a huge act of respect from him to Elizabeth to come on spec to be evaluated by her as a potential husband. So I think she really appreciated that. I think they had a very friendly relationship. I think they were able to spend time together and really enjoy it. I don’t know that she. ever really thought she would marry him.
And even that marriage so late lit the council so dramatically because he was a Catholic. By this time, Cecil thought, just marry someone. And William Cecil believed France’s help was essential to England’s survival. Walsingham, one of the other really strong voices who had himself been the ambassador to France during the St.
Bartholomew’s Day Massacre and seen right outside his window all of that butchery of Protestants and Huguenots, was so determined she not marry a Catholic, so he was the leading voice against it. So even that late in the reign where she’s maybe looking for companionship, the politics were so dramatic.
That I don’t think she ever could have. There was never a time that the council was 100 percent behind one person. Yeah, it’s interesting. Maybe if they had been, she would have had to do something. But she always managed to, you know, have someone there that the council was split about or that she could cause.
some discussion or dissension among the council. Yeah. Clever. Clever. Yeah. How did she get along with Catherine de Medici? Just thinking, yeah, these, the letters between them is, is really the only advice or evidence, rather the only evidence we have. And both of these women are strong and opinionated and Really running things.
Catherine de Medici is not a regnant queen, but she has sons who have taken the throne often as children. And so she is doing a lot of the decision making and ruling Elizabeth and Catherine de Medici’s older and sort of positions herself because she would be Elizabeth’s mother in law, but Elizabeth married her son.
She kind of positions herself almost as a mother. Elizabeth, I think, although they had on paper and officially and publicly a very respectful relationship, I think Elizabeth always felt like she, as the regnant queen, was the superior position, had the superior position. And it was her kingdom, not her husband’s kingdom of her child’s kingdom.
It was her kingdom. And she wanted to call the shots. So I do think they had a respectful, at least publicly respectful relationship. But, you know, when the chips were down and it was Catholic versus Protestant, it, it didn’t hold up always, um, that Catherine de Medici really was her ally. Gotcha. Gotcha.
Just thinking about her potential mother in laws. Yes. Yes. And it’s, it’s so interesting because, of course, initially Catherine de Medici was Mary Queen of Scots, mother in law. And Queen of Scots wanted to stay in France, and once her beloved Francois died, Mary Queen of Scots wanted to stay in France and marry the next son, and Catherine de Medici said no.
But Catherine de Medici then reached out to Elizabeth, so there’s a lot, I mean, the three of those women, right? And then didn’t Elizabeth want to potentially marry Dudley to marry Queen of Scots, and then their children, and that would be like weird? Really this weird suggestion. No one knows exactly how serious she was.
The one thing that would have benefited Elizabeth by is it would have taken Mary Queen of Scots out of contention in the marriage market, because if Mary Queen of Scots had managed to succeed in her quest to marry, um, the son of Philip of Spain, it was going to become the King of Spain if he hadn’t died.
Um, you know, if Mary Queen of Scots had been able to make a marriage like that, it would have been a huge threat to Elizabeth. So I think she thought deadly would. Um, take her out of that marriage market and keep Mary Queen of Scots on Elizabeth’s side. I, but I don’t know that, I mean, I don’t think that was really ever possible and I don’t know how much Elizabeth really liked it or really meant it as a possibility.
Certainly Mary wasn’t interested, not like Dudley was interested. It is weird. Weird. Wasn’t it? Weird. Weird. Yeah. But I guess when you’re a queen, you, you, you come up with ideas and. Yeah. And, and I, I can’t help but wonder, although officially Elizabeth was very opposed to the Darnley marriage because Henry Lord Darnley was in, further down, but in the English line of succession and he married Mary Queen of Scots without permission and all of that.
But Elizabeth knew what a weak person and. Just the kind of person Darnley was and how he took down people around him. He just brought them down. And suddenly she allowed him to go to Scotland when he hadn’t been. I just wonder if Elizabeth didn’t think, she’s going to fall for him. And that really neutralized a lot of Mary’s power.
The relationship with Darnley really, um, really was damaging to Mary. So I just can’t help but wonder if Elizabeth had that in mind too. Maybe that was planned. Yeah. I wonder. If she was rolling the dice. Great. All right. So, Marie, if you have any questions, feel free to hop in or type them or whatever. Um, and in the meantime, where, tell me where people can go to learn more about you.
You have a podcast, you have books, you have like a whole thing. Tell me about it. Yes. So, um, my podcast is Royals, Rebels, and Romantics. And a couple of times a month, I have some really fun people I’ve been talking to. So I’m really looking forward to sharing some new stuff. We’ve had some great guests.
It’s just so much fun. I just love talking to people. As you know, Heather, it’s just always so fun to talk to people. Um, you can also find me at carolannlloyd. com is my website. And if you’re interested in asking me any questions or anything, it’s carolann at carolannlloyd. com. That’s really easy. And I am on Instagram and Twitter for the moment and Facebook as at ShakeUpHistory.
So you can also find me any of those places. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me. Always such a treat to chat with you, Heather. Always so much fun. I love it. So, thanks so much to Carol Anne for stopping by and having this chat. Remember, if you’d like to be part of live chats like this that happen monthly, you can become a patron on Patreon at patreon.
com slash englandcast, or you can just click join this channel to join the YouTube channel, and you will get notices of other live chats like this that we do. All right. Thank you so much, friend, for watching. Be sure to check out Carol Anne Shake Up History in all of the places and Carol Anne’s books.
Thanks. Um, and yeah, thanks so much for watching. Remember, you are deeply loved, I’m so glad I shared the planet with you, and don’t forget to drink your water. All right, friend, I will be back soon. Bye bye.
Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast,  the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop.
She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 30 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history (how exciting when she got to interview Alison for the first time!). In addition to history, she is passionate about travel, and has lived in 3 countries and 4 states (not counting her perpetual state of confusion), and her family (who help her host her YouTube channel occasionally).
