Episode 168 - Rival Queens: An Outdated Narrative with Kate McCaffrey (All Things 16th-Century Women

Natalie Grueninger speaks with Kate McCaffrey about outdated narratives about the Tudor queens.

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Musical break courtesy of Jon Sayles.

[Kasiopea_a_Andromeda]

Another phenomenal episode. Thank you Natalie, you are doing a wonderful job 👍🍀👏

[nikbear]

Excellent episode, really enjoyed that! Ms McCaffrey was very interesting to listen to 👏

[stephanieking]

Great episode, addressing the root cause behind those persistent inappropriate narratives about women. I remember my excitement last year when the news about the Book of Hours were shared online. Kate has such a great job at Hever now. Well done. I want to read Natalie's book now....'challenging Eric Ives'....!

[rosemarykelty]

Love this episode. My second listen and it’s absolutely fascinating to think about ways to look at historical women through fresh perspectives and without imposing modern terms on them. Thank you!!!❤❤❤

[Morrigan]

Except Anne and Catherine absolutely were rivals, and Anne did have to knock Catherine off that throne to take it. Sure, you can blame the patriarchy for the system of that time being that way, but the historians since then, male and female, were still just telling it like it was. Like anything else, people will have their favorites from history and those they dislike, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I think we have to be careful about letting our modern sensitivities and hard lean into censorship to color our historical perspective. If we don’t, we’re just doing the same thing I constantly hear the Victorians and historians from other eras being accused of, but in the opposite way. And after all, they were much closer in time to both the events in question and contemporary sources of those events, than we’ll ever be, so I’m far more apt to believe them than a modern historian who seemingly just didn’t like something they said about a favorite of theirs.