2009 marks the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s accession to the throne.
To honour the occasion, Historic Royal Palaces, along with Kingston University London and Oxford Brookes University, will host a three-day international conference at Hampton Court Palace on 13 – 15 July 2009.
The conference will be interdisciplinary, drawing on history, literature, music, art, textiles, architecture and theology. It will focus particularly on the fashioning of Henry VIII’s court, including the occasion, itinerancy and material culture of the Tudor court (particularly relating to Hampton Court Palace), the European context of Henry VIII’s reign, biography, and image, whilst also situating Henry as the sacral monarch around whom it all revolved, and honouring his continuing legacy.
The conference will feature a number of keynote speakers, including:
Prof. G.W. Bernard (Professor of Early Modern History, University of Southampton)
Dr Susan Brigden (Reader in History, Lincoln College, Oxford)
Prof. Eamon Duffy (Professor of the History of Christianity, Magdalene College, Cambridge)
Dr Maria Hayward (Director of the AHRC Research Centre for Textile Conservation and Textile Studies, University of Southampton)
Prof. Greg Walker (Masson Professor of English Literature, University of Edinburgh)
Dr David Starkey, CBE
It will also include a roundtable on image and iconography led by Prof. Dale Hoak (Chancellor Professor of History, The College of William and Mary, Virginia) with Prof. John N. King (Professor of English and Religious Studies, (Ohio State University), Dr Tatiana String (Lecturer in the History of Art, Bristol University) and Dr Tarnya Cooper (Sixteenth Century Curator, National Portrait Gallery).
Aims and objectives
Forming an important element of Historic Royal Palaces' commemoration of the accession of Henry VIII in 1509, the conference is part of an integrated programme of events, of which includes a public lecture series, The Henry VIII Talks at Hampton Court, sponsored by History Today. The conference and series are designed to further high-quality research into the reign of Henry VIII and to disseminate this research to a wide academic and non-academic audience.
Scholarly importance
The key intellectual aim of the conference will be to create a space for cross- and inter-disciplinary analysis of the reign of Henry VIII and the Tudor Court. In particular, the conference will draw on the unique possibilities offered by the conference’s location at Hampton Court Palace to focus on a number of emerging areas of scholarly interest in Henry VIII’s court including its material and literary culture, its status as a point of contact and the European influences that shaped its culture.
The choice of keynote speakers reflects our ambition for interdisciplinary debate. The conference will bring together recognised experts in the fields of history (political, cultural and religious), art history, drama and literary criticism, drawing on both academe and practitioners in other institutions, such as the National Portrait Gallery and the British Library. It will integrate existing areas of expertise on Henry VIII and specifically his court, draw on emerging areas of academic interest and seek to provide a springboard for future research into the Henrician Court.
Conference themes and focus
The themes of the conference have been developed by Historic Royal Palaces' Research Advisory Panel, comprising a number of eminent academics including Dr Andrea Clarke (The British Library), Dr Erica Longfellow (Kingston University), Dr Thomas S. Freeman (British Academy John Foxe Project), Dr Steven Gunn (Merton College, Oxford), Dr Stephen Rice (Magdalen College, Oxford), Dr Glenn Richardson (St Mary’s College, Twickenham). Other members of the Research Advisory Panel are represented in the conference programme.
