Henry VIII: Man and Monarch

Turn the pages of Henry's Psalter

An interactive version of Henry VIII's Psalter is now online. It's another in our award-winning series of 'Turning the Pages' treatments of great books that lets you leaf through them on screen in 3D.

The rich illustrations in the book show Henry as modern-day King David, a pious harpist slaying the Goliath of the papacy. His margin notes on the other hand reveal his innermost thoughts. You can read about Henry's Psalter, and zoom in on one of the illustrations, on our Online Gallery page. You can also listen to an exclusive podcast about the book.

Cycling London in search of Henry

The weather forecast's good for the weekend, so why not cycle round some of London's Henry VIII-related sights and sites with this unofficial Google map bike tour that accompanies our exhibition?

BBC Radio 4 visits exhibition

BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 15-minute programme entitled 'Henry the Scholar', as part of a series examining various aspects of him, at 3.45pm today.

The programme visits the Henry VIII: Man and Monarch exhibition and discusses some of the key items with historian Steven Gunn from Merton College, Oxford, and the exhibition curator Andrea Clarke.

Joining the discussion is James Carley, who appears in our new podcast on Henry's Psalter.

Henry's Psalter podcast up

We've put up a new podcast all about Henry's Psalter, his book of private devotion (13min, MP3).

The rich illustrations in the book show Henry as modern-day King David, a pious harpist slaying the Goliath of the papacy. His margin notes on the other hand reveal his innermost thoughts, as James Carley of York University, Toronto reveals.

You can read about Henry's Psalter, and zoom in on one of the illustrations, on our Online Gallery page.

'Superb show', says Indie

Our Henry VIII exhibition is a "superb show", enthuses Matthew Bell in last Saturday's Independent.

(Though Mr Bell appears to think Henry wrote Greensleeves, which he didn't. He did write plenty of other music though, as featured in our recent podcast.)

Starkey lecture podcast now up

The recording of David Starkey's lecture given on the Young Henry VIII this week is now available as a podcast (65min, MP3).

Hear it at our Henry VIII podcasts page (scroll down).

Tudors, rappers... they're all the same, says David Starkey

David Starkey, guest curator of the exhibition, gave the first of three lectures on Henry VIII at the British Library last night.

He covered the years 1491-1509, from Henry's birth as not heir but as unimportant 'spare', to his ascent to the throne as a glittering and accomplished young prince.

In his lively, opinionated and compelling presentation, Dr Starkey explored many of the themes from his recent Channel 4 series, Mind of a Tyrant, and from the exhibition itself, such as Henry's remarkably female-centred upbringing.

He took a few pot-shots at the government, celebrity culture and the TV series The Tudors, and came up with plenty of quotable observations - such as early-modern aristocratic values being identical to those of modern-day rappers!

If you missed this sold-out event, don't worry. We'll be putting up a podcast of the lecture in a few days. Watch this blog for details.

The next lectures are on 2 Jun and 30 Jun, and are sold out.

Hooray for boos

Someone has put up a couple of audioboos of the May Day Event the other week.

Audioboos are short audio snippets, recorded on an iPhone (perhaps with an accompanying picture) and uploaded via the phone to the Audioboo site, where anyone can listen to them. It's a kind of sound equivalent of Twitter.

The two boos record the sound of a swordfight and the maypole dance.

David Starkey sells out (in the best way)

Dr David Starkey gives the first of three lectures on Henry VIII tomorrow night at the British Library. 'The Young Henry' deals with the period 1491-1509: from his birth to his accession as a brilliant, dashing and accomplished royal European star.

But don't come along if you don't have a ticket! The event was sold out ages ago and there are no spares.

The next two lectures, on Tue 2 Jun and Tue 30 Jun, are sold out too. But if you're not able to make it to any of the lectures, don't despair: watch this space for some good news soon...

Henry VIII May Day pictures

We've just found this set of photos of last Monday's Henry VIII May Day events here on Flickr, on McTumshie's Henry VIII set. They include a good picture of the five-year-old winner of the Henry lookalike contest.