What the Tudors Did for Us

What an unruly lot! Beheadings, murder, divorce, rows with the Pope, civil war, fire and plague. The headline stories from the Tudor and Stuart years represent a roller-coaster ride through one of the most important periods of history in the development of modern Britain. The Tudors and Stuarts left us with a lot of blood-stained pages in the history books but what else did they leave behind? Well, quite a lot, in fact. The opening up of the New World, the development of the cast-iron cannon, the first lead pencil, the first shopping centre, the first theatre and even the first spy network - were just some of the legacies from the Tudors and Stuarts.