Dr Flannigan’s lecture gives an insight into Tudor England, explaining that throughout the Tudor ‘long’ Century (1485-1603) there were five rulers who governed 2-4 million people over their cumulative territories. Dr Flannigan introduces that the secular order of Tudor England existed alongside the parallel Church system, and the implications of this. Essential to any order, Dr Flannigan explains, is the ability to communicate – a challenge when not all subjects could read. However, Tudor monarchs were able to develop their ‘image culture’ though royal progresses and court ceremony, which projected the grandeur and magnificence of the monarchy, and proclamations which reinforced the order of the day. Dr Flannigan also introduces some subjects’ responses to the ceremony they experienced, indicating an element of collaboration between subjects and sovereign.
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