Author’s note: I have done research using todays’ tools, including Wikipedia (to which I contribute) and Google AI as well as print history books, etc. 

 The Tudor Era was both the best of times and the worst, to borrow lines from Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities.

The Tudor era saw a British Renaissance, with advances in farming and other technologies, the arts, shipbuilding and empire-making. It was a time of new thinking about what it means to be human and what it takes to be in harmony with God. 

It was the era of William Shakespeare. 

Those are some of the best things.

The worst were embodied by the murderous King Henry VIII. His killing rampages –two queens beheaded, friends murdered, countless others. And the bloody wars of religion that followed Henry’s break with Rome that left the country battling between Protestants and Catholics. 

It brought the Reformation and destruction of church buildings, lands and goods; and, most egregiously, of the nation’s illuminated manuscripts. These books preserved Western knowledge – dating back to the classical era of Rome and Greece. Monks and nuns had painstakingly scribed them. The so-called Reformation saw most of them destroyed. 

 Here are more facts about Tudor times: 

 The Tudor era in England spans the years 1485–1603. King Henry Vlll and Queen Eizabeth I were the key monarchs.

 Henry reigned 38 years, from 1509 to 1547.

 Queen Elizabeth I, Henry’s daughter by his marriage to Anne Boleyn, reigned from 1558- to 1603 ,44 years, outstripping her father in longevity.

 Historic irony: Henry VIII was obsessed with providing a male heir to the start-up Tudor dynasty. Yet, he had in the royal nest a monarch- in- the making, Elizabeth. This daughter, whose mother Ann Boleyn he had beheaded, became more illustrious than her father.

 Elizabeth was disowned by her father as was her sister, Mary. She was restored to the line of succession, though, when the family became reunited at the urging of Henry’s sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr. 

 Tudor teeth: Tudor-era peasants had healthier teeth than their betters, archaeologists find. The new import of sugar from the Americas was costly. Wealthy Tudors were swimming in it. Peasants could not afford it, though they made good use of honey. Lack of coin saved teeth.

 Big spender: Unlike his miserly father, Henry VII, Henry VIII's spending was so lavish that, for example, one year’s Christmas celebration lasting 12 days at court reportedly cost the equivalent of his entire year of tax revenue. It featured dishes such as roast swan, grand masques and pageants, and gifts for more than 1,000 guests and staff. 

 Weird Tudor stuff: The Groom of the Stool – a coveted position in the Tudor court, assisted the king with bowel movements. All the better to whisper ideas to the king and to learn the news – such as planned executions. 

 Though the era was well behind modern medical practices, use of herbs for tonics and poultices was widespread. Some worked. Alehoof , for example – an herb taken with honey and hot water–was a remedy for congestion. (Today we might add lemon.)

 While courtiers ate venison, game pies and lavish desserts, commoners mostly ate potage –a thick soup or stew made of grains, vegetables such as turnips, herbs and perhaps a bit of salt pork or fish. Also bread, butter and cheese. The rich drank wine and ale; the poor drank ale and beer.

 Biggest land grab in history: The English Reformation began in 1534 when King Henry broke with Rome, declared himself head of the Church, and began seizing, selling off and tearing down abbeys and convents. This began England’s rocky turn from Catholicism to Protestantism. 

 Goodbye to great edifices: Approximately 800 religious houses, including monasteries, priories, convents, and friaries, were dissolved. Most were sold, many torn down, goods plundered. 

 The monastic libraries had huge collections at a time when books were relatively rare. Historians vary in their tally of books lost and destroyed, with estimates of thousands to hundreds of thousands. It is reported that only three volumes of more than 646 in the abbey of the Augustinian Friars at York, remained. Some books, though, were saved.

 The Tudor era is so rich, so much to discover. In retrospect, it displays both the best and worst of humanity: The religious mania and intolerance that caused so many murders (ironically and sadly, in the name of the Prince of Peace); and the imagination and verve that led to new worlds of thought and invention.