Who is Who?

A significant problem for people interested in sixteenth century Europe is keeping track of the vast cast of characters at the courts of the Stewarts, the Tudors and their European cousins. Many of the individuals who had an influence on the period travelled within the courts of Europe, marrying, divorcing and remarrying as they went, taking an entourage of supporters who might stay in one place, or move on. Within each family, the same Christian names were repeated with maddening frequency down the generations, and titles were created and recreated as heirs died out.

In addition, many, if not most, people, married more than once, with children by each marriage. Often, step-children married each other. All of this, allied to the propensity for any individual to change his or her allegiance for seemingly trivial reasons, makes for huge confusion as to exactly which individual did what, when and why.

We are continually adding to this People section biographies of the men and women whose lives define the age – whether sovereigns, statesmen, soldiers or scholars. The biographies vary in length and detail, depending on the amount of information available. For our Person of the Month, the biography is as comprehensive as we can make it, but for some people of whom little is known other than the fact of their existence, and perhaps, the office or job they held, there is a short summary. In addition, we have created family trees that show how closely interrelated and interconnected almost everyone from the gentry class upward was.

The most important thing in life to a sixteenth century mind (leaving aside religion, and even sometimes superseding it), was advancement of the family unit. This mattered both at the top levels of society, but also further down, with the merchant class keen to marry into the gentry or nobility, and the yeoman class to climb to gentry status.

The old families were very sniffy about the “new men”, whom the Tudors encouraged. Men of “low” birth, whose merit lay in personal talent and the ability to work hard were looked down upon by the nobles. However, most of those nobles themselves had, a generation or two previously, climbed the ranks through marriage or industry.

The Howards of Norfolk, often pointed to as the premier noble family in England, were of this sort. One of the most important Scottish families was that of Douglas, who had a huge influence (not always benign) on the politics of the first half of our period.