The Tudors are one of the most famous royal families in British history and the Tudor era is a fascinating one to explore with your KS2 children. Check out these Tudor facts to learn more about this key period:
The Tudor period began on 22nd August 1485 and lasted until 24 March 1603. This means the Tudor period lasted for over 117 years.
The Tudors were a royal family who came to power in England in 1485. Two of Britain’s most famous monarchs (King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I) were both members of the Tudor royal family.
The Tudors seized power in England at the Battle of Bosworth, which was the last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses. The Wars of the Roses was a series of battles that lasted for 30 years between the House of Lancaster and the House of York. Henry Tudor was part of the Lancastrian faction. Both sides believed they had the right to the throne.
However, at the Battle of Bosworth on 22nd August 1485, Henry Tudor defeated Richard III, the last Yorkist king, to begin the Tudor reign. He was crowned King Henry VII. He married Elizabeth of York, finally bringing the two houses together.
There were six Tudor monarchs altogether, although only five of them were actually crowned; Lady Jane Grey was queen for just nine days.
Teachers: Check out our fun lesson exploring the Tudor family tree in more detail.
Henry VIII was king for 38 years and, whilst there were lots of political and military events and achievements during his reign, he is most remembered for his charismatic personality and for having six wives.
Henry was married to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, for nearly 25 years but they never had a son together and Henry needed a male heir. For this reason, Henry divorced her. His following marriages were all much shorter. His shortest marriage to Anne of Cleves lasted only six months. Only Jane Seymour, commonly thought to be his favourite wife, gave him what he most wanted – a son.
Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558 after the death of her half-sister, Queen Mary. Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife. Elizabeth I ruled for 44 years – this period is known as the Elizabethan era. She was known as the ‘Virgin Queen’ because she never married.
The Elizabethan era often referred to as the golden age of English history because of all its artistic, cultural, social and political achievements. It was also an age of exploration in which there were many voyages of discovery across the seas to discover new lands.
Teachers: If you're looking for in-depth lesson planning on the Elizabethan Era, check out our Elizabethan England scheme of work for KS2.
Life in the Tudor period depended very much on whether you were rich or poor, and whether you were a man or a woman.
The Tudors lived in a feudal system. This means that the monarch had absolute power and owned all the land in the country. Nobles would swear loyalty to the monarch who would then grant them lands. The nobles would then allow peasants to work the land in exchange for food and shelter.
In Tudor times, you couldn’t rise above the rank you were born into. This meant that if you were poor, you would always be poor.
Women and men had very different roles in the Tudor period. It was a man's job to provide for his family while women were responsible for raising children and taking care of the household. Women had very few rights and were under the control of their fathers or husbands.
Most ordinary Tudor houses were made with wooden frames. The spaces between the wooden frames were filled with wattle and daub. Wattle was interwoven sticks, and daub was a mixture of wet clay and sand, which was pasted over the wattle to secure it all together. The wattle and daub sections of the house were whitewashed, and the exposed wooden frames were coated in tar to protect them from the weather and make them less likely to rot. This is why Tudor houses were a distinctive black and white colour.
Most Tudor houses had a thatched roof, although wealthier families could afford a tiled roof, which was much more durable. Some houses had upper storeys which were bigger than the ground floor! This overhang was called a jetty. It was a good way of enlarging houses without taking up more street space.
Poor people might have had a small garden plot in which to grow vegetables and herbs, whereas richer people would have enjoyed a large garden decorated with mazes, fountains and shaped hedges.
A typical Tudor house had a fireplace with a tall chimney connecting to the outside. The dirt floor was covered in reeds or rushes - there were no carpets. There were sturdy oak benches and stools to sit on. Most Tudor houses would not have had a toilet (or a privy, as it was called then). Glass was very expensive in Tudor times, so people would take their windows with them if they moved house!
Teachers: Check out our FREE Tudor House Outline - it can be used as part of a display, as a colouring sheet or as a simple labelling activity.
Poor Tudors wore loose-fitting clothes made from coarse wool. Men wore trousers and a tunic which came just above the knee. Women wore a long woollen dress with an apron and a cloth bonnet. Their clothing was simple and practical.
The clothes of the rich were much more colourful and elaborate. Fashion was extremely important to rich Tudors, who used clothes as a sign of how wealthy they were. Their clothes were made from fine wool, linen and silk, and often decorated with gold thread and jewels. Men wore white silk shirts with frills at the neck and cuffs, a doublet (a tight-fitting jacket) and striped hose (loose-fitting trousers). Women wore corsets underneath bodices to make their waists look small, and padded underskirts (which were held in place with hoops) gave more structure to the floor-length gowns they wore over them. Children were dressed in miniature versions of these outfits.
Fashion was such a status symbol that there were even special rules (called Sumptuary Laws) to dictate what the different social classes could and could not wear. If you were found guilty of breaking these laws, it didn’t matter how wealthy you were - you could lose your title, your property, or even be sentenced to death! Here are some examples of the Sumptuary Laws:
The Tudor period was a time of religious upheaval. At the beginning of the Tudor period, England was a Catholic country. However, there were lots of new ideas about religion spreading through Europe at this time. This was known as the Protestant Reformation. Protestants criticised the Catholic church, and the Pope in particular, believing that many of the Catholic practices were not Biblical, and that faith in Jesus was the only way to pardon sin.
When Henry VIII was excommunicated from the Catholic church following his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, he made himself Supreme Head of the Church of England. A new Protestant England was formed. Catholicism was now forbidden and all of England’s subjects had to convert to Protestantism.
When Mary I became queen, all the Catholic practices that had been forbidden were reinstated and Protestantism became illegal. Mary was so severe in her treatment of Protestants that she became known as ‘Bloody Mary’. She burned more than 280 Protestants at the stake in her five-year reign.
It was all change again when the Protestant Elizabeth came to the throne after Mary’s death. Most people were glad to have a Protestant monarch again.
Teachers: If you're looking for engaging cross-curricular Tudor lesson planning, check out our Tudors Topic for Year 3 & Year 4 children.
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