In this episode, host Ellie Woodacre interviews the winner of the Royal Studies Journal Book Prize 2024--Matthew Fitzpatrick. In the interview, we discuss his prize winning book The Kaiser and the Colonies: Monarchy in the Age of Empire (Oxford University Press, 2022), including the inspiration behind the project, the character of Kaiser Wilhelm II and his relationships (good, bad and ugly!) with other global monarchs.

Guest Bio: Matt Fitzpatrick is a Future Fellow and Matthew Flinders Professor of International History at Flinders University. His research is in the field of modern European history, in particular German imperial history. He is the author of three books on this topic, The Kaiser and the Colonies being his most recent. A fourth book, on the history of German Samoa, is due for publication in late 2024 / early 2025. He lives and works on Kaurna country, which is in South Australia.

Links/Further information:

• Matt Fitzpatrick--institutional webpage
• Project Webpage: Monarchy, Democracy and Empire in Germany
• Follow Matt on Bluesky
• Follow Matt on X: @kilderbenhauser

This episode is an interview with Nadia van Pelt about her new book, Intercultural Explorations and the Court of Henry VIII which came out with OUP in December 2023. In this episode Dr Ellie Woodacre asks the author about the inspiration behind the book, the role of the fool at the Tudor court and about an exciting document that Nadia discovered which sheds new light on Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleves.

Guest Bio: Nadia van Pelt is a lecturer at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. She holds a PhD from the University of Southampton, and published her first book with Routledge in 2019. Her research sits on the intersection between literary and cultural history, with a focus on drama, performance, and ritual.

Publications:
· Drama in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Playmakers and Their Strategies (Routledge, 2019)

· Challenging the ‘Ugliness’ of Anne of Cleves, History Today, April 2024

· Speaking of Kings and Popes under the Shadow of Henry VIII’s Treason Act: Bale’s King Johan, RSJ 8.1(2021)

· Katherine of Aragon's Deathbed: Why Chapuys Brought a Fool, Early Theatre 24.1 (2021)

· Royal epistolary courtship in Latin? Arthur Tudor's “love letter” to Katherine of Aragon at the Archivo General de Simancas and Francesco Negri's Ars Epistolandi, Renaissance Studies 38.2 (2024)

· John Blanke’s Wages: No Business Like Show Business, Medieval English Theatre 44 (2023): https://doi.org/10.1017/9781805430438.002 [JSTOR or Cambridge Core]

· Teens and Tudors: The Pedagogy of Royal Studies, RSJ 1.1 (2014)

· Enter Queen: Metatheatricality and the Monarch on/off Stage, The Image and Perception of Monarchy in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2014)

This episode, hosted by Dr Ellie Woodacre, features another roundtable with members of the Henry on Tour project team--we discuss the progresses of Henry VIII and the big themes of the project including kingship & queenship, logistics, legacy and performance.

About the project: This exciting three-year venture brings together a cross-disciplinary team of scholars and technical specialists from both the academic and heritage sectors to explore, evaluate and reconceptualise Henry VIII’s progresses. Led by Historic Royal Palaces in collaboration with the Universities of York and Newcastle, the main research focus will be on the logistics of Henry’s journeys around his realm and their performance as a spectacle, their significance in demonstrating kingship and queenship, and their legacy for the study and interpretation of the Tudors in schools and at heritage sites. The project will map Henry VIII’s complete itinerary for the first time and the associated landscapes, the routes taken, the venues visited and the palaces, country houses and ecclesiastical institutions that accommodated the royal household. Henry VIII on Tour will thus be presenting new stories, posing and answering innovative research questions, and hopefully inspiring greater curiosity about local places and heritage sites. As well as contributing to our understanding of Henry VIII, his wives and court and the relationship with his people in historical terms, the project will be reflecting on what monarchy and visibility means to us in the 21st century.

Check out their upcoming project events HERE.

Guest Bios:
Anthony Musson Project lead / Theme lead: logistics
Historic Royal Palaces

Professor Anthony Musson joined Historic Royal Palaces in 2018 to lead and foster a distinctive vision for the charity’s research into historic palaces, diverse communities, landscapes and collections. He is editor with JPD Cooper of Royal Journeys in Early Modern Europe (Routledge, 2022).

Kate Giles Theme lead: legacy
University of York

Kate is a building historian and archaeologist with a particular interest in the study of late medieval and early modern communal and public buildings. As Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity & Culture, Kate works with national, regional and local organisations to find creative ways of sustaining and sharing their heritage with others.

Kirsty Wright Post-Doctoral Research Assistant
Historic Royal Palaces

My research focuses on early modern architecture, politics and government. I completed my PhD at the University of York on the Exchequer of Receipt in the Palace of Westminster, which explored the relationship between institutional development and the architecture of the palace.

Toby Ward
Ensemble Pro Victoria

Founded at Cambridge in 2015, EPV is a pioneer in combining high-level performance with the latest research. Under their director Toby Ward, EPV won joint-first prize at the London International Festival of Early Music Young Ensemble Competition (2020). Their Gramophone award-nominated debut recording, Robert Fayrfax: Music for Tudor Kings and Queens, was released by Delphian in 2021. Their second album, Tudor Music Afterlives (Delphian, 2022) includes new polyphonic reconstructions.