Dr Owen Emmerson & Kate McCaffrey & Nathen Amin

Dr Owen Emmerson & Kate McCaffrey : Hidden Hever: Uncovering the Past, Inspiring the Future

Join Kate McCaffrey and Dr Owen Emmerson for a fascinating exploration of newly uncovered research that is reshaping our understanding of this iconic 14th-century castle and its most famous residents. This talk will reveal how recent discoveries have transformed the accepted history of Hever Castle’s origins and offer us exciting new insights into the lives of Anne Boleyn and Anne of Cleves. The talk will reveal how the Boleyn family used the castle, including the extraordinary survival of their recently refurbished private living quarters in the west wing. It was in these very rooms that Anne Boleyn made her fateful decision to marry Henry VIII, and where she stayed during key moments such as the Sweating Sickness outbreak of 1528.

Son of Prophecy: The Origins of the Tudor Dynasty by Nathen Amin

As England’s most celebrated dynasty, it’s often overlooked that the Tudors have their origins in rural Wales, far from the centres of English power where they dared to become great.
When Henry Tudor won the crown by defeating Richard III, he was a stranger to those he now ruled, an ‘unknown Welshman’ in the words of his defeated foe. At home, however, Henry had long been championed as the Son of Prophecy, a foretold national messiah who would free his oppressed people from their misery.