A new year blog
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To celebrate the start of 2022, there are 22 facts you might not know about the Tudors!
- The Tudors had glasses which were used for reading
- The official penalty for fighting at the royal court was the loss of a hand
- Elizabeth I’s godson invented the first flush toilet and she was one of the first people to own one
- There had been a Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London since the medieval period
- Elizabeth I encouraged her sailors to plunder Spanish ships and steal their treasure
- Henry VIII once planned to marry two of his children to one another
- Only the royal family were allowed to wear the colour purple
- Henry VIII had the first ever stair lift
- Elizabeth I survived multiple assassinations attempts
- Rheumatism was treated by the patient being made to wear the skin of a donkey
- At one point, the punishment for poisoners was to be boiled alive
- The Tudor period lasted for over 117 years
- It was fashionable to have black teeth as it showed you were wealthy enough to afford sugar
- It was during Mary I’s reign that England lost its last territory in France – Calais
- Courtiers at the royal court consumed about 5000 calories a day
- Tudors used to sleep sitting upright in their beds
- Some Tudors only washed properly once a year
- Despite popular opinion, table manners were very strict in the Tudor times
- England became wealthier with the Tudor monarchs
- A law was passed in 1512 which banned ordinary people from many games, including tennis, dice, cards, bowls and skittles
- Only wealthy Tudors were allowed to hunt deer. Yeomen farmers could hunt foxes but poor Tudors could only hunt hares and rabbits
- The Tudors celebrated Christmas with lots of traditions including a Father Christmas figure and lots of food