The Tudor Chest - The Podcast

Hello and welcome back to the first episode of the tudor chest podcast for 2025! This week I am thrilled to welcome tudor food historian Brigitte Webster onto the show for a discussion all about how the tudors ate and drank. We look at table manners, Henry VIII’s favourite foods, what influence foreign cuisine had and even discuss the fact that the tudors had takeaways, yes, you heard that right! Brigitte is at the very top of her field and is remarkably knowledgeable, you’re in for quite a treat, so sit back and listen as we explore all things tudor food and drink!

Jackson van Uden is a historian and one of the key personnel involved in the Katherine of Aragon festival which takes place each year at Peterborough Cathedral, the location of Katherine’s grave, and Peterborough Museum. From talks to tours, light displays and even a commemoration to Katherine with representatives from Rome involved, its a spectacular event and one that has been going on, surprisingly, for literally hundreds of years in one way or another! Today Jackson and I discuss this festival and more around Katherine’s story, and explore why we believe her story is one that is often misrepresented.

Dr Estelle Paranque is an associate professor in history at Northeastern University London and is also a historian, broadcaster and author, who joins me today for a discussion about Catherine de Medici and Queen Elizabeth I. Estelle’s book, Blood, Fire and Gold is the basis for todays conversation, so sit back and enjoy as we discuss how these two formidable women, one a queen regnant and the other a queen consort and then queen mother went head to head across their momentous reigns.

Today I am talking to historian and author Emily Murdoch Perkins about her latest book, Regina - the queens who could have been. In this book, Emily charts the lives of royal women from over 1,200 years of English history and asks the question, would any of them made good queens regnant? From very well known figures such as Empress Matilda and Elizabeth of York, to characters seldom explored or discussed, including a medieval princess who pleaded with her father to be able to lose her virginity and to another who appeared completely naked before the entire court to prove she did not suffer from leprosy. Buckle in to explore the lives of so many remarkable royal women, many of whom remained in the shadows, until now!