Dr. Kat, this a new favorite !! I am much more interested in people like this than monarchs; they are the representation of a strata of society we don't hear enough about, the thinkers, the positers of ideas and theories that swirl around drawing rooms and clubs, eventually taking form or not. I love it and your gift of bringing them to life !! I wish this was more current so you'd be sure to see it. Thank you. Pat America
Dr. KAT, you are a "mind opener". I would like to thank you for your work that you do. Have always loved history. During these trying times of 2020 and 2021, you have been my life saver. Just wanted you to know that some in the world is blessed by your knowledge and research. I have always wanted to explore our Mother country, England's early history. Since I am an American, I have always been interested in all things American. Thanks for such a fair assessment of history and how it is read and giving several angles in which to observe time, people and events.
I have never heard of this brilliant man before. While my Celtic soul finds his suggested policy toward the Irish repugnant, he was undoubtedly a forward thinker. Thank you Dr. Kat for gifting us with this knowledge!📖
Wonderful video! I do enjoy hearing about people from history who aren't spoken about very often. Thank you for such an insightful and informative video! God bless!
Well... show me a village, a town or a capital city or indeed a nation in history that didn’t look over the grass at what someone else had and didn’t say “I want what they’ve got and I’m going to take it”. Back then it was was ‘eat or be eaten’, and however horrific those times were, it has always been that way since man walked and sharped his first flint.
I think it is important to learn about people of the time who weren’t royals because there is a lot we can learn about the era from their perspective. I have not heard of Sir Thomas Smith before and he was an interesting figure.
I am really interested in your interpretation of the Earl of Surrey, Henry Howard. I ready a bit of his biography and some of his poetry because it was tangentially related to an essay I was writing for my undergrad degree. Bishop John Bale is also an interesting figure.
Hi, thanks for your interesting series on all sorts of historical facts on Tudor England. I don't really know a lot of figures that are not very well known in history. Since the English history I know is mostly in Dutch textbooks I read in high school and in documentaries I watch on tv or in digital form. I do have a question, though. When I studied Library studies we learned about Samuel Pepys and his diaries. He is very well known, I think. Are there diaries similar to his from other people (maybe even women) that could be of interest when studying a time period. Also, I know an American historian who studied letters from politicians to their wives (in George Washington's time) because she says that politicians may fib facts to their male counterparts and the press but will mostly tell how they really feel to their wives. Has somebody done something similar for English politician's in your time period that you know of? She studied those letters to search for violence in the early political field in America. Anyway, I'm sure that whatever your updates will be I will find them very interesting. Thank you very much!
I had never heard of Sir Thomas Smith before now. Some of his advice would be helpful to the US these days :D I think this is great idea, covering lesser known figures in history. It gives us a broader and deeper knowledge of the times and the people. One person I've always been interested in is Christine de Pizan. I've read a little about her but would love a lecture from you!
I would be really interested in hearing the story of jack Sheppard the loveable carpenter /criminal rogue who escaped prison four times. (Literally an escape artist) London’s earliest example of a celebrity !
Hello, Dr Kat. Thank you for this interesting post about Thomas Smith. The end piece about his enthusiasm for colonialism and empire building is especially interesting. I wonder if his ideas provided an academic basis for enlisting second sons to extend English colonialism in the Americas during the Stuart period. This subject is of particular interest to me because my ancestor Matthew Strickland received in 1670, on condition of transporting a shipload of colonists to Virginia, a large land grant in Isle of Wight County. I do realize that Virginia is beyond the bounds of your usual bailiwick, but Strickland was born in the English county of Cumbria, and I am confident that he and his cohort considered themselves to be Englishmen until late in the Georgian period.
I know that William Marshall, the first Earl of Pembroke, has had much written about him in historical fiction. I would like to see his story as true in history as possible. Thank you.
I had not heard of Sir thomas Smith at all (and I came via your link from the Great Debasement). I would be very interested in hearing more about these folk who are left on the margins of poular history.
Fascinating - I wonder if he was just one of those guys who loved to play devil's advocate? I now have a much better appreciation of what "debasement" means! Thanks a bunch Dr. Kat!
Im interested in Eustace Chapuey ( Im not sure I spelled it correctly) He seems to be a Spanish diplomat to England, during several years/generations of the Tudor rule of England. He certainly was the person we get a seemingly honest observation of England during the 'Tudor years'. He also seems to 'advise' Catherine of Aragon and Mary I. How old was he when he came to Court and how long did he report on Tudor Court? What became of him?
Very well done! I recently discovered I’m a descendent Of Sir Denis Pack who fought at the Battle of Waterloo. I would love to hear what you could come up with about him. Cheers!
Hi Caleb, thank you! I'm glad you liked the video. I've had a little poke around already - Sir Denis Pack certainly saw a lot of action! I'll definitely see what else I can dig up and will add his story to my list of future videos.
Dr. Kat, I'm a fan from the Philippines. I wish to know more of Elizabeth Woodville, the white queen of Philippa Gregory. I'm glad I've discovered your channel because I can look at the nonfiction of version of it all.
This is interestingly a question I asked myself so often "why we are so interested in history and prefer a certain century, era or country?" I wonder that myself. Even if a person is interested in history throughout time (like me) I am more interested in history beginning with the Renaissance. (and leaving out the 16.and 17. Century a bit) why is that? 🤔 And I was so happy when I stumbled across the collections of articles by Henry mayhew because I was really getting tired of just watching documentaries or reading biographies about royal or noble population. The collection has if I am not wrong 10 volumes (?) and one may be able to spank someone with it to the other side of the world, so heavy is one volume (😂) but it's about victorian City districts, about illnesses that occur because of bad maintenance and, most importantly, a variety of workers and poor people were interviewed and their words were written as quotes. I guess it's common knowledge in Britain about mayhew or at least by the schooled and not so much schooled historians, but for me as a German woman searching and researching about victorian times that is magnificent! (I have to add I was very pleased to be able to buy queen Victorias translated diaries from age 13 to 21 in a book published in 1913,and this diaries does not get printed in German anymore, at least not the entirety of it) ... I just had to share and thought maybe someone else is fed up by reading and learning history through upper society and likes to read something about the people earning their money and also how science and technology started to change their jobs
I am a social historian, the problem with trying to look at the lower orders is that their footprint is very small. I am watching in Ulster, Co. Tyrone, my ancestors were Ulster Scots planters. The Plantation of Ulster is filled with intresting history. I also love early modern history, especially the history of British witchcraft. I was a student of Dr Andrew Sneddon, Ulster University, a leading academic in the study of Irish witchcraft and magic. The subject of witchcraft and gender might be a good topic for Dr Kat to discuss. Or the impact that king James I (James VI of Scotland) had on Scottish witch hunts may be of intrest to some people. Were Scottish witch hunts started from below, or as the late Christina Larner argued, were the state directed? Thanks Dr Kat for another history fix. Please keep your content coming ! Every time I watch one of your videos I am left wondering why you do not have your own TV show.
When I see this old map I always wondered how they back then were able to set up those? I mean of course those maps are not very accurate but they are accurate enough. Did they have special equipment? What they used? Who measured it? How? Seamaps I can explain to myself but landmaps?
Fascinating topic. I couldn't watch it, though. I could only listen as the audio and the video were so far out of synchonization that it was impossible to watch. Let me stress, though, absolutely wonderful content brilliantly presented.
I'd never heard of Sir John but I have to wonder if a friendship developed between he & my ancestor Sir Ralph Sadler/Sadlier, diplomat & administrator to Henry VIII, Edward VI, Jane & Elizabeth I given they were contemporary's & both laid low during Mary I reign.
Dear Dr Kat, First off, I am a fan. Second: I've had to tutor my daughter for her Y11 exam on Othello. I was a mixed race kid and always loved Othello but, as prep have read a LOT of I suppose, new research about the creation of the text that doesn't match tradition, ie that Elizabeth happily entertained Turkish and African envoys yet James hated both as inferiors, which lead to Iago's most racially offensive texts. And in the world of the BLM movement, some guidance would be fair. Could you--would you--address this issue of color, the Elizabethans and Jacobeans before 1619?
Although I don't Sir Thomas More is underrepresented in history, I would like to learn about him. My only remembered knowledge of him is the Hollywood version of him is the 1966 version "A man for all seasons."
I read Lord Burleigh as a bit dignified, perhaps a bit grumpy because of the gout, old for his age, almost a sort of professor emeritus. I could see a young one of twenty or thirty trying to poke the bear a bit by taking such a stance as suggesting the Queen marry the Earl of Leicester, but not a man of nearly fifty. But then Sir Thomas may have considered that he (nor the Queen, for that matter) wasn't getting any younger, and he saw something good in the idea, so what the heck, why not. And there wasn't anybody else the Queen seemed remotely interested in, as she most decidedly was with Dudley. It may not have been about trying to get under Cecil's skin at all.
He sounds like so many very intelligent, but very self-opinionated people I have met (and, yes, sometimes within myself as well). The need to feel they know better than those given the responsibility for making the decisions. I don't think it is so much a matter of wishing to antagonise people per se, but just saying "I am cleverer than all you lot".
I had never heard of this man before watching your interesting video and now that I have it seems to me that he was a pragmatic utilitarian. Aspects of his morality are unacceptable these days however we have the benefit of hindsight which he did not
I had not heard of Sir Thomas Smith before. My view from watching this video is that you are overplaying his importance as an individual, but looking at his life is incredibly important, not because he was more important than many of his contemporaries, but probably because he is representative of many of his contemporaries, none of whom have any individual visibility. Showing the opinions of someone like Sir Thomas Smith is probably giving a valuable glimpse into the mood of a large segment of the public of the time.
I don’t know that she is “lesser known” but, I’d love to see a video on Georgiana Spencer and possibly a review of the Netflix movie about her.- although I’d like both, a video about her and her life. And, a separate video about the Netflix movie that was made, or loosely made, about her. Her is the link to the Netflix movie, if you have not seen it. Check out “The Duchess” on Netflix www.netflix.com/title/70099610?s=i&trkid=13752289
IF the movie about Georgian is based on a degree of accuracy and truth, I’d love to know what became of her daughter that she was forced to give up. Note: I am from the US and therefore many of the English/UK notables I am unfamiliar with. But, I’m very interested in learning.
I don’t think we like to see celebrities have a spectacular fall; more like we’re fascinated by celebrity scandal because we know of them and also because some people without fame or fortune think that those that have it have everything.
You talk about Thomas Smiths policy for Ireland, yet ignore that the British policy for Ireland was not merely an English policy. The reason for the large Scottish Plantations in Ireland was because the Scots were just as keen on colonising Ireland as the English were, and when James VI of Scotland became James I of England the Scottish and English agendas aligned. As for the broader issue of Empire itself, as you mention, Smith was taking his cue from the legacy of the Roman Empire. The question we have to ask ourselves, after we have finished flagellating ourselves over our own empire, was whether Europe would have been better if there had never been a Roman Empire, or whether the Persian empire was evil (ofcourse, the Greeks insisted the Persian empire was indeed evil, and continued to do this as Alexander the Great build his empire from the ashes of the Persian Empire)?
Love the idea of the lesser known people! I would love to hear about Henry VIII’s jester Will Somers. Can’t wait to watch your next video!
Dr. Kat, this a new favorite !! I am much more interested in people like this than monarchs; they are the representation of a strata of society we don't hear enough about, the thinkers, the positers of ideas and theories that swirl around drawing rooms and clubs, eventually taking form or not. I love it and your gift of bringing them to life !! I wish this was more current so you'd be sure to see it. Thank you. Pat
America
Dr. KAT, you are a "mind opener". I would like to thank you for your work that you do. Have always loved history. During these trying times of 2020 and 2021, you have been my life saver. Just wanted you to know that some in the world is blessed by your knowledge and research. I have always wanted to explore our Mother country, England's early history. Since I am an American, I have always been interested in all things American. Thanks for such a fair assessment of history and how it is read and giving several angles in which to observe time, people and events.
I have never heard of this brilliant man before. While my Celtic soul finds his suggested policy toward the Irish repugnant, he was undoubtedly a forward thinker. Thank you Dr. Kat for gifting us with this knowledge!📖
Wonderful video! I do enjoy hearing about people from history who aren't spoken about very often. Thank you for such an insightful and informative video! God bless!
I think I would like to hear your take on Sir Francis Bacon. Our original renaissance man.
Anne & Mary Boleyn’s mother & MARY KINGSLEY! I’ve read the two books available about Mary Kingsley & found her to be fascinating 🌎🌏🌍✌🏼
I certainly had not heard of Thomas Smith, and I'm very grateful to you for this very interesting presentation.
Please do a video on Sir Thomas More, Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey), and/or Sir Thomas Wyatt. I’ve learned so much from your channel! Thank you!!
Well... show me a village, a town or a capital city or indeed a nation in history that didn’t look over the grass at what someone else had and didn’t say “I want what they’ve got and I’m going to take it”. Back then it was was ‘eat or be eaten’, and however horrific those times were, it has always been that way since man walked and sharped his first flint.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on Christine de Pisan, Hildegard Von Bingen and Queen Jadwiga of Poland!
PS I think you/your channel are absolutely great and you are keeping me sane during lockdown 😊
Thank you, I'm certainly up for looking into them!
Have you been playing Civilization recently? Anyway I second Hildegard!
This was fascinating
Thank you
I think it is important to learn about people of the time who weren’t royals because there is a lot we can learn about the era from their perspective. I have not heard of Sir Thomas Smith before and he was an interesting figure.
I am really interested in your interpretation of the Earl of Surrey, Henry Howard. I ready a bit of his biography and some of his poetry because it was tangentially related to an essay I was writing for my undergrad degree. Bishop John Bale is also an interesting figure.
Hi, thanks for your interesting series on all sorts of historical facts on Tudor England. I don't really know a lot of figures that are not very well known in history. Since the English history I know is mostly in Dutch textbooks I read in high school and in documentaries I watch on tv or in digital form. I do have a question, though.
When I studied Library studies we learned about Samuel Pepys and his diaries. He is very well known, I think. Are there diaries similar to his from other people (maybe even women) that could be of interest when studying a time period.
Also, I know an American historian who studied letters from politicians to their wives (in George Washington's time) because she says that politicians may fib facts to their male counterparts and the press but will mostly tell how they really feel to their wives. Has somebody done something similar for English politician's in your time period that you know of? She studied those letters to search for violence in the early political field in America. Anyway, I'm sure that whatever your updates will be I will find them very interesting. Thank you very much!
I had never heard of Sir Thomas Smith before now. Some of his advice would be helpful to the US these days :D
I think this is great idea, covering lesser known figures in history. It gives us a broader and deeper knowledge of the times and the people. One person I've always been interested in is Christine de Pizan. I've read a little about her but would love a lecture from you!
I would be really interested in hearing the story of jack Sheppard the loveable carpenter /criminal rogue who escaped prison four times. (Literally an escape artist) London’s earliest example of a celebrity !
Hello, Dr Kat. Thank you for this interesting post about Thomas Smith. The end piece about his enthusiasm for colonialism and empire building is especially interesting. I wonder if his ideas provided an academic basis for enlisting second sons to extend English colonialism in the Americas during the Stuart period. This subject is of particular interest to me because my ancestor Matthew Strickland received in 1670, on condition of transporting a shipload of colonists to Virginia, a large land grant in Isle of Wight County. I do realize that Virginia is beyond the bounds of your usual bailiwick, but Strickland was born in the English county of Cumbria, and I am confident that he and his cohort considered themselves to be Englishmen until late in the Georgian period.
Would you do research on Joan of Acre, daughter or grandaughter of King Edward Long Shanks?
I know that William Marshall, the first Earl of Pembroke, has had much written about him in historical fiction. I would like to see his story as true in history as possible. Thank you.
I had not heard of Sir thomas Smith at all (and I came via your link from the Great Debasement). I would be very interested in hearing more about these folk who are left on the margins of poular history.
Yay, australia!!! I knew we would get a mention eventually!!!
Please do Sir Robert Burton, Sir Thomas Bodley & the Bodleian Library, & Pepys.
Fascinating - I wonder if he was just one of those guys who loved to play devil's advocate? I now have a much better appreciation of what "debasement" means! Thanks a bunch Dr. Kat!
I just found him in my family tree .....and Weston hanger castle ...where he once lived ! Is near name
Im interested in Eustace Chapuey ( Im not sure I spelled it correctly) He seems to be a Spanish diplomat to England, during several years/generations of the Tudor rule of England.
He certainly was the person we get a seemingly honest observation of England during the 'Tudor years'. He also seems to 'advise' Catherine of Aragon and Mary I.
How old was he when he came to Court and how long did he report on Tudor Court? What became of him?
Very well done! I recently discovered I’m a descendent Of Sir Denis Pack who fought at the Battle of Waterloo. I would love to hear what you could come up with about him. Cheers!
Hi Caleb, thank you! I'm glad you liked the video. I've had a little poke around already - Sir Denis Pack certainly saw a lot of action! I'll definitely see what else I can dig up and will add his story to my list of future videos.
I did not know anything of this man. Thank you!! ❤
Dr. Kat, I'm a fan from the Philippines. I wish to know more of Elizabeth Woodville, the white queen of Philippa Gregory. I'm glad I've discovered your channel because I can look at the nonfiction of version of it all.
This is interestingly a question I asked myself so often "why we are so interested in history and prefer a certain century, era or country?" I wonder that myself. Even if a person is interested in history throughout time (like me) I am more interested in history beginning with the Renaissance. (and leaving out the 16.and 17. Century a bit) why is that? 🤔
And I was so happy when I stumbled across the collections of articles by Henry mayhew because I was really getting tired of just watching documentaries or reading biographies about royal or noble population. The collection has if I am not wrong 10 volumes (?) and one may be able to spank someone with it to the other side of the world, so heavy is one volume (😂) but it's about victorian City districts, about illnesses that occur because of bad maintenance and, most importantly, a variety of workers and poor people were interviewed and their words were written as quotes. I guess it's common knowledge in Britain about mayhew or at least by the schooled and not so much schooled historians, but for me as a German woman searching and researching about victorian times that is magnificent! (I have to add I was very pleased to be able to buy queen Victorias translated diaries from age 13 to 21 in a book published in 1913,and this diaries does not get printed in German anymore, at least not the entirety of it)
... I just had to share and thought maybe someone else is fed up by reading and learning history through upper society and likes to read something about the people earning their money and also how science and technology started to change their jobs
I am a social historian, the problem with trying to look at the lower orders is that their footprint is very small. I am watching in Ulster, Co. Tyrone, my ancestors were Ulster Scots planters. The Plantation of Ulster is filled with intresting history. I also love early modern history, especially the history of British witchcraft. I was a student of Dr Andrew Sneddon, Ulster University, a leading academic in the study of Irish witchcraft and magic. The subject of witchcraft and gender might be a good topic for Dr Kat to discuss. Or the impact that king James I (James VI of Scotland) had on Scottish witch hunts may be of intrest to some people. Were Scottish witch hunts started from below, or as the late Christina Larner argued, were the state directed?
Thanks Dr Kat for another history fix. Please keep your content coming ! Every time I watch one of your videos I am left wondering why you do not have your own TV show.
I would like to more about thomas smythe and john smith as I'm a direct descendant and family member of both
When I see this old map I always wondered how they back then were able to set up those? I mean of course those maps are not very accurate but they are accurate enough. Did they have special equipment? What they used? Who measured it? How? Seamaps I can explain to myself but landmaps?
Fascinating topic. I couldn't watch it, though. I could only listen as the audio and the video were so far out of synchonization that it was impossible to watch. Let me stress, though, absolutely wonderful content brilliantly presented.
Dearest Dr. Kat, I would much appreciate a portrait of Duke Henry FitzRoy.
I second this!! :)
I'd never heard of Sir John but I have to wonder if a friendship developed between he & my ancestor Sir Ralph Sadler/Sadlier, diplomat & administrator to Henry VIII, Edward VI, Jane & Elizabeth I given they were contemporary's & both laid low during Mary I reign.
I would be interested in learning about William Caxton
Great channel
Please, can you do a video on Sir Walter Devereux? He's my 14th Great Grandfather!
Edward VI's coinage of 1551 was of .925 sterling silver.
Dear Dr Kat,
First off, I am a fan.
Second: I've had to tutor my daughter for her Y11 exam on Othello. I was a mixed race kid and always loved Othello but, as prep have read a LOT of I suppose, new research about the creation of the text that doesn't match tradition, ie that Elizabeth happily entertained Turkish and African envoys yet James hated both as inferiors, which lead to Iago's most racially offensive texts. And in the world of the BLM movement, some guidance would be fair.
Could you--would you--address this issue of color, the Elizabethans and Jacobeans before 1619?
Although I don't Sir Thomas More is underrepresented in history, I would like to learn about him. My only remembered knowledge of him is the Hollywood version of him is the 1966 version "A man for all seasons."
I hadn't heard of him. It's interesting
I read Lord Burleigh as a bit dignified, perhaps a bit grumpy because of the gout, old for his age, almost a sort of professor emeritus. I could see a young one of twenty or thirty trying to poke the bear a bit by taking such a stance as suggesting the Queen marry the Earl of Leicester, but not a man of nearly fifty. But then Sir Thomas may have considered that he (nor the Queen, for that matter) wasn't getting any younger, and he saw something good in the idea, so what the heck, why not. And there wasn't anybody else the Queen seemed remotely interested in, as she most decidedly was with Dudley. It may not have been about trying to get under Cecil's skin at all.
He sounds like so many very intelligent, but very self-opinionated people I have met (and, yes, sometimes within myself as well). The need to feel they know better than those given the responsibility for making the decisions. I don't think it is so much a matter of wishing to antagonise people per se, but just saying "I am cleverer than all you lot".
I had never heard of this man before watching your interesting video and now that I have it seems to me that he was a pragmatic utilitarian. Aspects of his morality are unacceptable these days however we have the benefit of hindsight which he did not
Here's a historical figure I'd love to hear you discuss: Dona Gracia Nasi.
More about Gabriel Harvey, perhaps?
Sir. Thomas wyatt the younger Please
Sir John Speed
So Thomas Smith is an accountant 🤔
about
I had not heard of Sir Thomas Smith before.
My view from watching this video is that you are overplaying his importance as an individual, but looking at his life is incredibly important, not because he was more important than many of his contemporaries, but probably because he is representative of many of his contemporaries, none of whom have any individual visibility. Showing the opinions of someone like Sir Thomas Smith is probably giving a valuable glimpse into the mood of a large segment of the public of the time.
I don’t know that she is “lesser known” but, I’d love to see a video on Georgiana Spencer and possibly a review of the Netflix movie about her.- although I’d like both, a video about her and her life. And, a separate video about the Netflix movie that was made, or loosely made, about her. Her is the link to the Netflix movie, if you have not seen it. Check out “The Duchess” on Netflix
www.netflix.com/title/70099610?s=i&trkid=13752289
IF the movie about Georgian is based on a degree of accuracy and truth, I’d love to know what became of her daughter that she was forced to give up.
Note: I am from the US and therefore many of the English/UK notables I am unfamiliar with. But, I’m very interested in learning.
He had a modern mind as to economic matters. Offset by the foundation of modern colonialism. Some trade-off!
I don’t think we like to see celebrities have a spectacular fall; more like we’re fascinated by celebrity scandal because we know of them and also because some people without fame or fortune think that those that have it have everything.
You talk about Thomas Smiths policy for Ireland, yet ignore that the British policy for Ireland was not merely an English policy. The reason for the large Scottish Plantations in Ireland was because the Scots were just as keen on colonising Ireland as the English were, and when James VI of Scotland became James I of England the Scottish and English agendas aligned.
As for the broader issue of Empire itself, as you mention, Smith was taking his cue from the legacy of the Roman Empire. The question we have to ask ourselves, after we have finished flagellating ourselves over our own empire, was whether Europe would have been better if there had never been a Roman Empire, or whether the Persian empire was evil (ofcourse, the Greeks insisted the Persian empire was indeed evil, and continued to do this as Alexander the Great build his empire from the ashes of the Persian Empire)?
Alcoholic beverage?? I know Jack Daniels, Evan Williams, & even Tom Collins.
Never heard of John Smith.
Hello, John Smiths is a real ale 🍻 rather nice actually 😉
Philosopher-Kings fail as often as royals.
He sounds like he just thinks his ideas are the best ideas because he's so smart.
Are the duckies the wives of Henry VIII?