by Lucy Penhall, Macy Russell, Hannah Baldwin and Stephanie Potts, Year 13
On Friday 16th November, we travelled to Stevenage to attend lectures at the Gordon Craig theatre concert hall by renowned historians: Dr Anna Whitelock from Cambridge (pictured on home page), John Morrill from Cambridge and David Starkey also from Cambridge. They discussed their opinions on Henry VII, Henry VIII and whether there was a Mid – Tudor crisis after the accession of Edward VI and during the reign of Mary I. This was beneficial to our study of A level History as we were able to gather different historical perspectives about each monarch helping us to construct arguments in our essays. For example Dr Anna Whitelock provided a contrasting outlook on the reign of Queen Mary replacing the traditional view of ‘Bloody Mary’ with the image of a courageous, transgressive political pioneer. The opportunity to hear renowned historians speak is invaluable for the History student among us.
