This week in YouTube May 11
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Hey friends, welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast. This is the weekly highlight reel of videos that I have put out on YouTube. So in case you don't know, you can go over to YouTube and watch all my videos. The channel is History and Coffee, and you can just search for my name as well, Heather Tesco, History and Coffee, and you will get it. And you can subscribe there. Thank you to the many people who already subscribe. And then what I've started doing is

weekly highlight reels of some of the videos that have gone out on YouTube that would be of interest to the podcast listeners as well. So thanks for listening. And you can also, like I said, go over and join me on YouTube history and coffee and search for Heather. And there I am. So let's get right into it.

It is May 1st, May Day. I got up this morning and started singing It's May, The Lusty Month of May from Camelot, which my mom loves that movie. And I don't know, somehow that song...

It's like part of the soundtrack of my childhood. So I got up and started singing that this morning and I put it on. Normally at breakfast, we listen to classic FM and I put that on instead, but it was like the old Broadway version. My husband and daughter were both just looking at me like, what is this music that you're playing for us? I was like, it's

It's the lusty month of May. It's May. So anyway, I hope that you are having a good May as well. And that's what we're going to talk about today. May Day, which was a celebration of spring and renewal. We're going to talk about how our Tudor friends would have celebrated May Day, as well as some notable May Day events that happened as well. Because there were some things that happened on May Day throughout the 16th century, obviously. So let's get right into it.

It is a day today, May Day, for drinking, for dancing, for crowning a May Queen and welcoming warmer days. It's a day when inhibitions go out the window and all kinds of frolicking happens. There's also that magical, now is the month of May-ing, it was Thomas Morley, I think. Now is the month of May-ing when merry lads are playing, fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.

And I remember singing that in high school chamber choir.

I'm sorry, I just had to subject you to my singing. Anyway, I sang that in high school chamber choir. And it really makes me laugh when I see it. It's a really popular one that a lot of chamber choirs do. And it always makes me laugh when I think about us because we were up there in like our little tuxedos and our little satin dresses looking very prim and proper singing the 16th century music. And it's basically a song about making out in the hay. And like there's a lyric that's like, why then why sit we musing? Youth's sweet delights refusing.

Each with his bonny lass upon the greeny grass. Ooh, so that's May. It's a time for frolicking in the grass with your special someone, I suppose. Anyway...

However, May Day could also mean riots in the streets, royal theatrics, or the beginning of a queen's final fall. And so today we're going to look at the many sides of May Day in Tudor England, from maypoles to mobs and from Anne Boleyn's last public appearance to angry apprentices smashing windows in a rage.

Let's start with the traditions, shall we? May Day celebrations had deep roots, stretching all the way back to ancient festivals like the Celtic Beltane and the Roman Floralia. These early spring rites were all about fertility, renewal, and abundance. In Tudor England, these ideas had not gone away, they just got a bit more English.

Villages raised tall maypoles, often hauled in from nearby woods and painted in very bright colors. People danced around them with ribbons, they drank ale, they took part in may games, there was Morris dancing, greenery draped over the doorways, and the crowning of a local girl as the May Queen, a living symbol of spring itself.

Even the court got in on the fun. Henry VIII, especially in his younger days, loved a good May Day pageant. There are records of elaborate disguising, sort of like Tudor costume dramas, where he and his friends dressed up as Robin Hood and his merry men and burst in on unsuspecting courtiers. It was one of the few times of the year when the lines between royalty and commoners could blur. You also saw that at Christmas time with the boy bishop and

that type of thing. So, you know, it was a day when you could just get up to shenanigans. The celebrations were popular also with the working classes as well as apprentices, and that meant that May Day could become a powder keg. Which brings us to one of the most infamous May Days in Tudor history, and that was May 1st, 1517. London was super tense. The city's population it

exploded in the early 1500s, many native-born Englishmen, especially tradesmen and apprentices, were increasingly resentful of foreign workers, particularly Flemish and French artisans who'd come to England and found success in clothwork, in shoemaking, and in other skilled trades. The sense among many Londoners was that these foreigners were taking English jobs and flaunting their wealth.

in the lead-up to this may day anti-immigrant sentiment was boiling over there was a preacher named dr bell and he gave a sermon at st mary's spittle warning that foreigners were growing too rich and powerful and he called on englishmen to act and they did

On the night of April 30th, a riot began. Apprentices and laborers flooded into the streets, attacking the homes and shops of foreigners. The mob was huge. It was over a thousand people strong. And they moved through areas like Cheapside and St. Martin-le-Grand, looting and shouting, down with the strangers.

The Duke of Norfolk was called in with troops to restore order and dozens of the rioters were arrested. Some were executed quickly as an example, but then in a dramatic moment a few days later, Catherine of Aragon reportedly went down on her knees before Henry VIII and begged him to show mercy. This, of course, was the traditional role of a queen to beg for mercy, and Henry agreed and many of the young men were pardoned. The event was used as a demonstration of royal clemency.

Still, the evil May Day riots left a scar, and they were a grim reminder of how easily joy could turn to violence, especially when a holiday gave the restless a reason to gather and a sermon gave them a target. Now, 19 years later, May Day would once again be a turning point in Tudor history, but this time the chaos wasn't in the streets. It was in the court in front of the king himself. At the heart of it all was Anne Boleyn. By May 1st, 1536, Anne's position was

was already dangerous. She had failed to give Henry the living son, the court was swirling with rumors, and Cromwell, once her political ally, now had aligned himself with her enemies. The wheels were in motion, but Anne just didn't know it all yet. That morning, the court gathered at Greenwich Palace for the traditional May Day joust, and it was a pageant of chivalry, knights in gleaming armor, banners flying, and the crowd cheering as favored champions rode into the lists.

Anne was there, watching from the stands, seated beside the king. To anyone looking on, it seemed like a normal springtime celebration. Now, Henry Norris was there. He was a close friend of the king, one of the king's closest friends and one of Anne's most trusted allies, and he rode in the tournament. Anne had known Norris for years. He was part of her inner circle, and he was rumored to be one of her admirers. Now,

Most likely, nothing inappropriate ever happened between them, but the accusations would come soon enough. During the festivities, something shifted. Without warning, Henry stood up and left. He abandoned the joust, boarded a barge, and returned to Whitehall. Those close to him knew what it meant. Something serious was unfolding. That same evening, Norris was arrested. He wasn't told what the charges were at first, only that he was being taken in for questioning.

Now, they had recently had that fight a couple of days ago. Those of you who get my Tudor Minute in your YouTube feed, it's a short I put out at most days, know that they had this very public argument a couple of days ago where she said that he looked to dead men's shoes. And she realized what a mistake it was because mentioning the king's death

was treason so she asked him to go to her almoner and swear that nothing improper had ever happened between them which was like kind of a weird request and it probably made things worse because that very oath was then later twisted into a plot of proof that something had happened

Within days, more arrests had followed. Francis Weston, William Brereton, George Boleyn, Ann's own brother, and the list of accused men grew rapidly, and the charges—adultery, incest, treason—became more grotesque by the day.

For Anne, that May Day joust was the end of her safety. It was the last time she appeared publicly as queen sitting beside her husband, applauding the courtly games. She would shortly be under arrest and in the tower. And so May Day, this festival of life, growth, new beginnings, became the day when Anne Boleyn's fall truly, truly began. Not with any kind of dramatic arrest or confrontation, but with a public celebration that suddenly turned very cold.

as the king moved away though anne boleyn's fall would cast a long shadow over may day at court the tradition didn't stop with her in the reign of her daughter elizabeth may day remained a popular holiday it took on a more polished and curated tone of course elizabeth understood pageantry

and symbolism better than anyone, she used this with seasonal imagery to reinforce her image as the youthful, eternal virgin queen. Even as she aged, portraits showed her surrounded by springtime motifs, roses, flowers, fertility symbols, and her courtiers played along with the theme.

Some years, the court would put on masks or entertainments to mark the day. These weren't quite as wild as the Robin Hood escapades of her father's early reign, but they still allowed for spectacle. Elizabeth may not have danced around the Maypole herself, but she understood the power of tradition, especially when it could be molded into political theater.

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Outside the palace walls, May Day continued much as it always had. In the countryside, villagers still raised maples and crowned May Queens. But in London, the tone began to shift. By the 1590s, city officials, many of them with very strong Puritan leanings, began cracking down on the holiday. This is when we also see the crackdown against the theaters, for example, and all of those kinds of entertainments that were seen as too secular.

By 1594, May Games were officially banned in the city on the grounds that they encouraged disorder, idleness, and, as one official put it, a return to potpourri and pagan vanity. And so, in just a few generations, May Day was going from royal revels to festive chaos to something viewed with suspicion, a relic of an older world that didn't fit with the stricter moral codes of late Elizabethan London.

But whether it was surrounded with garlands or dancing or marked by riots or arrests, May Day was always more than just a spring holiday in Tudor England. It was a time when tensions could bobble up. So it was a time when there was this duality of this fun springtime celebration with the potential of violence.

So whatever you are doing today, May 1st, whether you're raising a Maypole or not, I hope you are having a most fabulous day and taking some time to remember the tradition of May Day, which is very ancient and very special. So there we go.

We are going to talk about that time that Anne Boleyn got the sweating sickness. So the sweating sickness was a terrifying disease in England. A lot of times it gets confused with the plague. It wasn't the plague. It was similar to the plague in some ways, but it wasn't the plague. It was brand new. It was something that had never appeared in England before Henry VII. And it terrorized them. Like it was petrifying.

And we're going to talk about when Anne got it and also how that affected her relationship with Henry because her relationship with Henry was still fairly new at this point. And it led to an increase in the intensity, I guess you could say.

Let's start by talking about the sweating sickness. Imagine a disease that came out of nowhere, made you break out in an uncontrollable sweat, and then killed you within hours. That sounds fun, right? That was the reality of this very mysterious and terrifying illness known as the sweat. It was an epidemic that swept through England multiple times in the 16th century.

in the summer of fifteen twenty eight and got it she was young she was in love and she was already at the center of one of the most dangerous romances in history but that summer everything came to a halt because the woman that henry the eighth wanted to make his queen was suddenly fighting for her life

The sweating sickness wasn't like the plague or other known illnesses at the time. It came on very suddenly. There was a headache, shivering, fever, followed by intense sweating, chest pain, and delirium. People could be dead within a single day. There was no clear cause, no known cure, and no explanation. It seemed to strike the young and fit most often, particularly men, especially courtiers. The

The first major outbreak came in 1485, just as Henry Tudor arrived in England to fight at Bosworth. That timing gave the disease an almost apocalyptic edge, and it reappeared sporadically throughout the early 16th century. Doctors were baffled. The only known treatment was to get into bed, stay very still, and hope and pray.

It was so feared that even the king, who rarely let fear show, would abandon his palaces and flee at the first sign of it. Of course, Henry was notoriously hypochondriacal, and he was petrified of the sweat as well.

So I've done a couple videos on the sweat here. I'll link to one here somewhere so you can check it out and dig even deeper. Let's talk about that 1528 outbreak, shall we? It was especially devastating. It hit London and the royal court during a time of intense political upheaval. Henry was in the middle of his long, messy break with Catherine of Aragon. Anne was firmly established as his romantic obsession. The

the king had already begun lobbying the pope for an annulment. But when the sweat returned, everything else just stopped. Henry, who had always been obsessive about his health, bolted from court and began moving from palace to palace to palace to stay ahead of the infection.

some members of his council were ordered to stay behind to handle affairs but they didn't all survive the diplomat william compton died for example so did anne's brother-in-law william carey mary boleyn's husband fear gripped the court

Letters stopped, meetings were cancelled, and Anne Boleyn, already removed from court for her safety, suddenly fell ill herself. And this pulled Henry into one of the most emotionally vulnerable moments of his entire reign. So it's June 1528, and Anne is staying at Hever Castle.

removed from the court to avoid the growing outbreak, and the disease finds her anyway. Word traveled quickly to Henry, who was staying safely away. His reaction was immediate and unusually emotional. He wrote to her with uncharacteristic vulnerability, admitting that the news had struck him deeply. He sent his own doctor, William Butts,

one of the best in England, straight to Hever to care for her. Henry may have been married to Catherine Veragon, but Anne was the one that he was thinking about during this national health crisis. That level of care, personal letters, top physicians, daily updates, wasn't something that he offered lightly. Anne recovered, but...

But like we said, not everybody was so lucky. Her brother-in-law left their two children without a father. For Anne, it was her own brush with death. And for Henry, it was likely a wake-up call, proof that he could lose the woman that he had risked everything for at any moment.

Anne's illness became a defining moment in her relationship with Henry. Until that point, the courtship had been filled with flirtation, ambition, and long stretches of political delay. But the sweat added a new layer, urgency. Henry's emotional reaction, the panic, the personal letters, the dispatch of his physician showed how deeply attached he was. This wasn't just lust or political gain. He genuinely feared losing her.

and when Anne recovered, it may have strengthened her position even further.

Some historians believe that this episode may have made Henry even more determined to secure her position as queen. If death could come so suddenly, the need for a legitimate male heir and a new wife to provide one was even more pressing. And in fact, for Henry, who was viewing things through his theological lens, thinking of himself as, you know, this great theological thinker, survival itself could look like divine endorsement. So Henry likely saw this as even more proof

that God wanted them to be together, that God was supportive of this union. Henry might have seen that survival like fate clearing the path for her.

By early July, Henry was writing to Anne, mentioning that he was overjoyed at her recovery, and he was assuring her that his heart was still hers. But Henry still kept his distance for a while. He was still going around from castle to castle, staying out in the countryside to avoid the sweat, and so he didn't see her for a while, even after she was recovered. But he was even more emotionally invested than he had been before, and he continued to press on with his story.

plan to marry her and to get rid of Catherine. By October, she was back at court. Her presence was documented in various letters and diplomatic reports. So that summer was when Henry almost lost her. And like they say, sometimes you have to lose something to realize just how important it is. And

And Henry almost lost Anne and realized that he wanted her more than ever. So there we go. A little bit about the sweating sickness and when Anne Boleyn caught it at Heber in the summer of 1528. Thanks so much for listening to this week's YouTube highlights. Remember, you can go over and subscribe. History and Coffee, Heather Tesco. You will find me there.

And we'll be back again next week with more highlights from what went out on YouTube throughout the week. Thanks so much. Have a great week.

Now at Verizon, we have some big news for your peace of mind. For all our customers, existing and new, we're locking in low prices for three years guaranteed on MyPlan and MyHome. That's future you peace of mind. And everyone can save on a brand new phone on MyPlan when you trade in any phone from one of our top brands. That's new phone peace of mind. Because at Verizon, whether you're already a customer or you're just joining us,

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