Thomas Tudor: His Mysteriously Long & Varied LifeSingle facilitated interactive story-telling workshops Thomas Tudor was born the year king Henry VII, is crowned. He lives in Shooters Hill near Eltham, now in South East London but at that time a place of forest and highwaymen.
His father has connections in Court and Thomas looks forward to a comfortable and lazy life. However, his father finds him work a trumpeter to Henry VII, replacing one sacked for being drunk.
After Henry VII’s death, Thomas witnesses Henry VIII’s coronation feast and plays at the tournament to celebrate the birth of his first son. Fond of the infant Princess Elizabeth but concerned at the number of Henry’s wives who are being disposed of, he decides to leave court and, looking for adventure, becomes barber/surgeon on the Mary Rose, swimming to safety when it sinks. Thomas trains as a physician in Constantinople, returning home for Elizabeth’s coronation and to become a physician. When the plague hits London he is trapped inside Windsor Castle with the frightened queen threatening to hang anyone who tries to enter Windsor. He makes friends with the queen’s pastry chef, hoping to cheer her up, and produces one of the famous ‘birds in a pie’ but the dish goes wrong and the birds become entangled in the queen’s hair so he leaves court once more and becomes an itinerant actor, joining Shakespeare’s troupe and finally performing before and reconciling with the aging queen, the last of the Tudors. Workshops: Using drama games and exercises, pupils will learn about: 1. Banquets: surprising table manners & unhealthy diets 2. Horrible illnesses and their equally horrible cures 3. Who ruled before and after the Tudors? Suitable for: KS1 & 2 Curriculum: In addition to contributing directly to the History curriculum, this piece will also help in the work of delivering Creativity across the Curriculum, including Literacy.
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