The Tudor Tours- Henry VIII & Anne Boleyn at Thornbury Castle

Hello, welcome to the Tudor Tours.

Today, my girlfriend and I are going to Thornbury Castle.

Thornbury Castle is a Tudor castle, and it's the only Tudor castle in England that you can spend the night.

So what are we doing? We're stopping the night. So follow me and I'm going to show you around.

So everyone, we've arrived. We are here now at Thornbury Castle, and as you can see, the wind is blowing, but the sun is shining. We're all happy, aren't we? We're happy.

Take a look at this place.

So we're all checked in and we're now just walking up the staircase that Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn would have walked in their 10-day stay.

How excited, Bethany? Very excited.

Right, the door is just here. We're now about to enter the room.

Henry and Anne probably stood in this very window looking out into the garden. And I've got to say, this is one view I would love to wake up to every single morning. It is bloody fantastic.

The earliest records of anyone living here at Thornbury was at the time of King Athelstan. Now King Athelstan was the grandson of Alfred the Great.

The land was also mentioned in the Domesday Book and then passed into the hands of the Stafford family.

Henry Stafford, the second Duke of Buckingham, was executed without trial by Richard III.

His son Edward succeeded him, and under Henry VII was restored all his father's lands and titles. And in 1511, he started to build Thornbury Castle.

As you can clearly see, Thornbury looks very much like a fortress.

Now was Buckingham thinking to himself, maybe if he uprises against the King, he has a stronghold here at Thornbury? Because we know that he certainly thought to himself, if Henry died, he had a good claim to the throne.

So above the gate, you can see many different things, coats of arms and what have you, but you can then see, 'This gate was begun in the year of our Lord 1511, the second year of the reign of King Henry VIII, by me Edward Duke of Buckingham, Earl of Hereford, Stafford and Northampton.' And then the motto, and I can't say the words, I do apologize, is 'Dorren Savant' or 'Dorren Savant' or something like that. And that word means 'henceforth' or 'hereafter'.

The Duke of Buckingham, like the Tudors, was a descendant of Edward III, and he felt that he had a very good claim to the English throne.

Now he was said to have been the most honorable and affluent nobleman in the country.

Now, at the wedding of Prince Arthur and Catherine of Aragon, his gown was said to have cost 1,500 pounds.

Now, in today's money, that's just a couple of grand short of a million quid. A million quid? You must be bloody mad. Or loaded.

Now it would appear that Henry had much admiration for Buckingham, because in 1518, he called him his right trusty and right entirely well-beloved cousin.

But on the 17th of May, 1521, Buckingham was executed for treason.

It was said that he traitorously conspired and imagined to shorten the life of his sovereign lord, Henry.

Now, you may have been thinking to yourself that part of Thornbury looks like a ruin, but this is actually a Tudor building site, because Buckingham lost his head before he got a chance to finish his mini palace.

In 1523, Thornbury was confiscated by the Crown. Now Mary I stayed here as a child, but most famously, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn spent 10 nights, oh, I got hit by a leaf, 10 nights in 1535. Just look at that.

So I'm walking now, probably in the very gardens that Henry and Anne would have been walking in. I mean, I could stay here all day. No, wait, I am.

Now, when you come to Thornbury, you cannot miss the church that is attached onto the side of it. Now, this is St. Mary the Virgin Church.

Now, I'll hazard a guess that when Henry and Anne stayed here for 10 days, this is the church that they would have been worshipping in when they were stopping here at the castle. So let's go in and take a quick look.

Now, one thing I haven't mentioned as yet, I'm actually about to propose to my girlfriend, Bethany. She knows nothing about it. So I'm hoping she can't hear me. And I'm now about to walk back up the spiral staircase to the bedchamber. Wish me luck, folks. She won't say no.

Bethany, you know I love you. And you're my princess. Well, would you like to become my queen? Bethany, will you marry me? She said yes! Woohoo!