aka The John Dee Chronicles
J.A. Downes 
Introduction Imagine walking into your local parish church on a Sunday morning in 1549 and hearing the familiar words of worship spoken in English for the first time in over a thousand years. The Latin phrases that had echoed through stone arches since time immemorial were suddenly replaced with the vernacular tongue of ordinary English … Read more
Introduction In the annals of Tudor history, few royal marriages caused as much controversy as the union between England’s first crowned queen regnant and the future king of the world’s most powerful empire. When Mary I of England married Philip II of Spain in 1554, she wasn’t merely choosing a husband – she was making … Read more
Introduction What if the most powerful monarch of the 16th century turned marriage proposals into weapons of diplomacy? Elizabeth I of England did precisely that, receiving over 40 marriage proposals during her 45-year reign whilst never having the slightest intention of walking down the aisle. From kings and emperors to archdukes and princes, Europe’s most … Read more
Introduction In the summer of 1553, a sixteen-year-old girl found herself proclaimed Queen of England for just nine tumultuous days. Lady Jane Grey’s brief reign represents one of the most dramatic episodes in Tudor history, a period when religious tensions, political machinations, and succession disputes collided with devastating consequences. Yet the legal foundation for Jane’s … Read more
From Insurrection: Weddings can be murder: “He crawled a little closer to the edge of the rood loft, intent on concealing himself between the newly replaced statues of Christ on the cross and the Virgin Mary. He cursed as a jagged splinter from the roughly hewn loft floor speared into the palm of his hand. … Read more
Introduction In the annals of Tudor history, few events capture the brutal absurdity of Henry VIII’s reign quite like the execution of Anne Boleyn on 19th May 1536. What makes this tragic episode particularly striking is not merely the questionable charges of adultery and treason that led to her death, but a legal technicality that … Read more
Introduction In 1533, Henry VIII presented what he believed to be an unassailable biblical argument for annulling his marriage to Catherine of Aragon: Leviticus 20:21, which declares that a man who marries his brother’s widow “shall be childless.” The King’s theologians argued that this divine curse explained why Catherine had suffered multiple miscarriages and failed … Read more
Introduction In the flickering candlelight of Essex House on a cold January evening in 1601, one of England’s most celebrated war heroes was plotting the downfall of his own queen. Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, once the darling of Elizabeth I’s court and her rumoured favourite, had fallen so far from grace that he … Read more
From Insurrection: Weddings can be murder: “It took several minutes for Wyatt’s plaintive entreaties to calm Dee’s anger. Eventually Dee exclaimed, “I sent a message telling you we’d be arriving this evening, did I not? Therefore, there is no excuse for not warning your camp guards. My friends could have been injured by your guards’ … Read more
From Divination: A Conspiracy of Blood: “John Dee woke before dawn, his mind already turning over the revelations from the previous evening’s lecture. By the light of a candle, he mixed a fresh batch of ink, then settled down at his desk to build on his efforts of last night and to reproduce what he … Read more