Thunder Round the Throne: The Life of Honor, Lady Lisle

Amy Licence

Amy Licence is a journalist, author, historian and teacher, currently living in Canterbury. Her particular interest lies in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, in gender relations, queenship and identity, rites of passage, sex, pilgrimage, female orthodoxy and rebellion, superstition, magic, fertility and childbirth. She appeared in BBC2’s ‘The Real White Queen and her Rivals’ documentary (2013) and Yesterday Channel’s ‘The Private Lives of the Tudors’ (2016). Her first book, In Bed with the Tudors was nominated for the 2015 People’s Book Prize.

About the event

The life of Honor, Lady Lisle, follows a dizzying narrative arc. Born into a West Country family, her second marriage propelled her into Anne Boleyn's court, as the new step-aunt to Henry VIII. Her husband, Arthur, was the illegitimate son of Edward IV, bearing the dangerous surname Plantagenet, one of a few survivors of the old regime. At his side, Honor witnessed tumultuous change in England, before heading out to run the Tudor enclave of Calais. Her surviving letters speak of a happy family, domestic arrangements, clothes and food, as well as including snippets of news about Henry's love life and the unfolding Reformation.

A devout Catholic, Honor found herself in a difficult position when instructions arrived to carry through religious reforms in a reluctant, rebellious town. As the pressure increased upon the couple, and one by one, the giants of the Tudor court fell, did Honor ever fear that she may suffer the same fate? What exactly caused accusations to be made against Honor and Arthur? What role did Honor's faith play? Just how close did she come to dishonour?

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