Medieval Memory and Legacy in the Cultural Politics of Tudor England

The thesis will investigate the nature of the medieval political and cultural legacy inherited by the Tudormonarchs after 1485 through an interdisciplinary approach to archival, architectural, and material culturalevidence. It will analyse how Henry VII and Henry VIII disentangled their mixed Plantagenet ancestry,factionalised into Lancastrian and Yorkist royal claims during the Wars of the Roses, and how that processgenerated the familiar and distinct imagery of Tudor power developed during the later sixteenth century.Important themes will include the intellectual and physical representation of Yorkist and Lancastrianheritage, and how those helped to shape Tudor rule. What specific features of that legacy did the Tudormonarchs exploit in resisting dynastic rebellion, or integrating relatives by blood and marriage into theirexpanding Crown and family power, and how did that exploitation influence the formation of royal andnational imagery, buildings, and visual or written culture?