Strangers and aliens in Tudor England

When we think of the Tudor period, for many of us, images of the glittering court come to mind, Henry VIII standing square or Elizabeth I draped in her pearls. But there's another side to this history. In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Nandini Das traces the lives of ordinary early modern people to reveal a world of constant movement and migration. Speaking to Charlotte Vosper, Nandini explains that beyond the monarchs and courtiers, Tudor and Stuart England was actually being shaped by the ordinary people who crossed its borders. You open the book with the letters of Klais van Verviken, an ordinary Flemish hatmaker, and of Hassan Aga, treasurer to an Ottoman governor.

Why are these letters significant? How does this set the tone for your book? What is it about? Thank you, Charlotte. You know, we think we know about Tudor England, Henry's wives.

and codpies, Elizabeth's jewels, Shakespeare's skepted isle, and there was a moment of doubt when I started my book instead with not all that glamour and sensationalism, but with a hatmaker complaining about lard. This is Clias, who's a Flemish hatmaker, writing home to his wife from Norwich in 1567, and urging her to come quickly to England, except that he says she must remember to bring two wooden butter dishes, because here, he says, they cook with lard, with pig's fat. And it's such a small detail, it's a matter of taste and habit and homesickness. Anyone who has packed a bottom, you know, tin of Pringles when they're going on their year away or something like that will immediately understand the pull of it.

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