Teach-Primary-Issue-19.2

Introduction, pages 4-5 www.teachwire.net | 75 4-5 Welcome to the Tudor period, one of the most turbulent and important in British history. New styles of art are flooding in from Europe and sailors are bringing back never-before- seen fruits and spices from the furthest reaches of the world. The king is popularising tennis and the new technology of book printing is spreading radical new ideas about religion. The most extraordinary place of all is the Tudor royal court, where every day is a whirl of ceremonies and tournaments, banquets and pageants. Beware of being too dazzled by the splendour of the court – it’s a dangerous place. All the changes happening in politics and religion have created tension, and courtiers love nothing more than plotting each other’s downfalls. Things are especially risky during the reign of Henry VIII because although the king is educated and romantic, he’s also known to be suspicious and unpredictable. At Henry’s court, the most powerful positions are also the most dangerous – none more so than that of the queen. You might already have heard that Henry VIII had six (SIX!) wives. You might even be able to tell me what happened to them (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived), but how much do you actually know about their lives? It turns out that each one of Henry’s six wives was an extraordinary woman in her own right. One led an army, one helped to create a whole new church and one was the first female author to publish a book under her own name in English. Ready to meet them? Extract from T E ACH RE AD I NG & WR I T I NG In this sentence I use the senses – the look of art, the taste of fruit, and the smell of spices – to help my reader imagine the distant world I’m describing and make its history seem more immediate. I wanted to contrast the ideas of ‘power’ (which is usually meant to protect its holder!) and ‘danger’ here, to show that the Tudor court was a place where no one could take anything for granted and no one was safe. I chose the movement word ‘whirl’ here to capture the excitement, drama, and potential danger of the Tudor court. I want my reader to know that it was a far cry from the sort of slow, boring, polite royal court they might be picturing. In this sentence I offer my reader little snippets of stories to come without fully explaining them – like in a movie trailer! If they want to find out which queen led an army and why, they’ll just have to keep reading. Here I address my reader directly again, as though they’ve actually travelled back in time and entered the Tudor period. This is designed to make them more invested in the stories to come, and encourage them to consider what they might have done had they encountered Henry VIII. I mention tennis and printed books in this sentence because they’re things that we take for granted today but which were brand new for the Tudors. I want my reader to start considering how else this period might have affected our own, so the history begins to feel less distant and irrelevant. I use a question and answer here to identify a problem (my reader probably doesn’t know much about the real stories of Henry VIII’s wives) and to promise that my book will provide a solution, giving them a reason to keep reading. I’ve started with a direct address to my reader – I want to drag them in to the narrative whether they like it or not! Henry doesn’t come across well in this book, but I didn’t want to be completely unfair to him. That’s just bad history. This image of courtiers making evil plans for fun is silly and exaggerated, but it also alludes to the very real danger to come. Henry VIII’s queens couldn’t trust anyone at the Tudor court.