Agnes Hungerford was the second wife of Sir Edward Hungerford, a courtier during Henry VIII’s early reign. In December 1521 he wrote his will, describing himself as ‘of hole and perfite mynde and of good memory, being sike in body’. Two years later, Agnes would be attainted and hanged at Tyburn for ‘felony and murder’. Had she murdered her husband? Chroniclers John Stowe and the author of the Grey Friar’s Chronicle certainly thought so. Interestingly, Edward’s will was completed, shortly before his death, fully in Agnes’ favour. She would receive all her husband’s personal property and that of the Hungerfords. Sounds like something from a crime documentary. 

However, before she was taken to her execution at Tyburn, an inventory of her belongings was made so that Henry VIII had a record of what was being received into his hands. It is a meticulously detailed inventory, recording various items of plate, wall hangings and items such as spoons, candlesticks, chests and books. Recorded at Farleigh Castle, the couple’s Somerset seat, there was also a long list of clothing and jewels that Agnes would have used. As well as provide details of the lush fabrics worn by a Lady of the Tudor realm, they dispel the idea that everyone wore brown, or dark green or other earthy colours like you see in the films. 

Stunning Tudor gown made by After Elizabeth

Among the ‘parcelles of rayment’ was an item which Agnes had marked ‘longyng to myne awne body… a gown of cremesyn velvet with Frenche sleeves, lined with tyncell and borded with the same’. By this, did Agnes mean that she was wearing this gown during the taking down of the inventory? It seems likely, as all other gowns and clothing items are simply listed below it without any embellishment or explanation. The circumstances of the inventory being made were unhappy, and the image of Agnes showing Henry VIII’s officials around her home while wearing her crimson gown with French sleeves is an intimate, but sad one. 

Agnes also owned a similar gown with French sleeves in russet velvet, and one of black velvet lined with crimson satin. The colours of black and red are something we might consider as belonging more to the later Elizabethan era, but clearly Agnes dressed to impress in the early 1520s. Gowns of ‘tawney chamlet’ are also listed, decorated with fur, and she also owned another black velvet gown, this one with ‘narrowe sleves’ and embellished with a border of black satin, probably at the chest. 

Formerly attributed to Steven van der Meulen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Elizabeth I was also a fan of red, white, gold and black

A number of kirtles are listed next, some in satin (black and purple), and another in a ‘popinjay colour’. Whatever it was about this item, something reminded Agnes (or the inventory taker) of a parrot, whether it was a strong blue or red colour. She also had another kirtle of tawney chamlet. 

Sleeves were removable from gowns and could be switched to suit whatever colour of fabric complemented the rest of the outfit. Agnes owned four pairs of sleeves, in crimson tinsel, cloth of gold damask, green tinsel and yellow satin and ten other pairs of sleeves made of ‘fine cameryke’. She also had a quarter of an ell of cloth of gold damask, ready to be made into another piece of clothing perhaps to complement the fancy gold sleeves. Equally, it’s possible that this was the fabric left over from making the sleeves, returned to her by her tailor. 

Along with half a dozen blue ribbons, (one of them a ‘great blue ribbon’), Agnes had six frontlets. Four of them were made with cloth of gold, lined variously with tawny velvet, crimson satin and white satin. One of the frontlets described seems particularly fancy, ‘a frontlet of green satin with a cawl of gold and flat gold underneath’. Another was purely crimson in colour, ‘crimson velvet, lined with crimson satin’. She owned two velvet bonnets, one ‘garnished’ and the other plain. Predictably, Agnes also had a scarlet cloak. She certainly seems to have had a preference for the colour in her clothing choices, and would have stood out during visits to local lands, friends and family and while visiting the royal court. 

If you’re thinking that the contents of Agnes’ clothing chests were impressive, wait until we get to the jewels. Listed is ‘an edge of goldsmith’s work for a past set with pearl’, which weighed nine pounds. She also owned two more ‘edges’ of gold of damask with pearls. It’s possible that these were to adorn the bust of a gown, or the edge of a gable head dress or French hood. She also had a string of pearls with true love knots along with other pearl necklaces. One item may have been a very special gift, ‘a gret flowre of golde, and in the same is a saffier [sapphire], an amytys [amethyst] and a gret pearl’. Also in her collection was ‘a flowre of golde with a saffeir and three perles’. 

The list goes on. More jewels in the shape of flowers, one in gold, ‘full of sparkes of dyamondes set abowte with perles, and the Holy Gost in the mydste of yt’. Another was a tablet of gold depicting St Christopher, patron saint of travellers, suggesting that Agnes embarked on longer trips while on household business. There were other, more romantic ones. A heart made of gold, enamelled with white and blue; ‘a great brooch of gold with a man and a woman in him, the value £4’, and buttons of gold with hearts enamelled on the surface. There were more buttons with E&A marked on them, her and her husband's initials. On her fingers Agnes wore gold rings, one of them containing an emerald with four diamonds. 

Agnes was confronted with a tragic end to her story, but the records that the event left behind give us valuable information on how a lady of wealth dazzled when seen by tenants, courtiers and even royalty. There are blues, golds, blacks, whites and a lot of crimson red in textiles such as velvet, satin and damask. She sparkled in diamonds, rubies, pearls, emeralds and gold, proving that appearance conveyed power and influence in the Tudor era, just as in many ways, it can today. 

You might also like: Dressing Up As a Tudor Lady with After Elizabeth, The Return of Medieval Fashion and A New Look at Henry VIII's Wives.

Interested in Tudor history? You might also like my second book, Power Couples of the Tudor Era, published by Pen and Sword Books, which explores the contributions couples made to their own times as well as how they influenced our own. Order your copy here. 

The Tudors are famous for creative expression, art and the theatre during their reigns. But the English Renaissance started a lot earlier than 1485. Find out more in my book Power Couples of the Renaissance. It features relationship dynamics that went against accepted norms of the period and power-hungry couples who ruled, fought and spread the patronage of art, science and culture across the globe during one of the most tumultuous periods of history. Find it on the Pen and Sword Books website. 

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Source: “Inventory of the Goods of Dame Agnes Hungerford, attainted of murder 14 Hen VIII; with Remarks thereon by John Gough Nichols, and the Rev. John Edward Jackson”. In Archaeologia, Volume 38, 1860, p353-372

When AI first came out I was excited for all the possibilities it could bring. Planning my workload, creating images for blog posts and organising my trips. But, as it turns out, creating images of Henry VIII eating ice cream and Richard III surrounded by kittens was fun until I found out that each AI produced image uses up massive environmental resources. The United Nations University, the academic arm of the UN, estimates that each 'typical' AI produced image uses enough energy to power a 10-watt LED lightbulb for 17 minutes. Because all this electronic AI-brain power produces heat, it needs cooling down. In addition to the 17 minutes of a lightbulb being on, 2 tablespoons of water are used to cool down equipment that created that single image. For a more complicated AI produced video, however, you're looking at 4.1 litres of water used. Seems innocent enough? It is, until you realise that hundreds of millions of queries are being sent to the AI computers each day, as we ask it what we should wear to an event, how we should respond to an email and to show us what our garden would look like with a makeover. By 2030, the university warns (just over three years away!), AI's water footprint 'will equal the basic annual domestic water needs of all 1.3 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa', and its centres will consume '945 terawatt hours of electricity... nearly triple the combined annual electricity use of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria... home to more than 650 million people'. There's a very real concern that we simply won't have enough water, or that electricity will be diverted from other important tasks.

Photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash

In saying that, the history world is using AI for valuable things. Digitising difficult to read manuscripts, translating from lost languages and cleaning up damaged images and inscriptions all help us learn more about the past. Digital querying of 1,000 page volumes speeds up research. I have used it myself, for a short time. I have never and will never use AI to produce writing, which will be obvious from the odd grammatical error in my Facebook posts which tend to set off a flurry of pearl-clutching among eager-eyed followers. I'm too much of a control freak to hand over the words I want to tell you all to a computer to construct. Those come from the heart. But a historian friend suggested that AI could be used as a powerful search engine. I tried it out, asking it to find me a transcribed online version of a document by giving it a few paraphrased words. We have to deal with a lot of letters and records, we sometimes forget where to find them. Not only did it often find me the exact quotation I was looking for, but gave me the page number, the edition of book it could be found in and also where I could access the source digitally. As a cherry on top, it even offered to construct me a citation I could use. As exciting as this sounds, I always had to cross-check the information it gave me and found it was only right around 70% of the time. Even worse, I was getting grief from my teenage daughters about the environmental effects triggered each time they saw the ChatGPT logo flash up on my laptop.

Probably one of the more worrying aspects of AI use (if we pretend that we don't need water to live), is the fact that to create the images and text that the user asks for, it scours the internet to find similar work and merges it into something 'new'. I waded into a Facebook group recently after someone posted an AI-generated image of a half-naked, busty woman sitting on a beach, asked for praise and called themselves a digital artist. I pointed out, in just one short sentence, that AI only works by stealing other people's photographs and artwork, 'mass scraping' content and repurposing it, imagining maybe that the artist didn't know this. My comment was laughed at, and I was told to get over it because that's how artists have been inspired for hundreds of years. 'It's how we progress', I was told. The icing on the cake? I was told by the artist themselves to keep comments 'respectful'. Working as an artist as well as a writer, I like to think that we'd want to be more 'respectful' to the artists and their work being scraped by AI engines.

Pinsent Tailoring, a hugely successful tailor who creates eighteenth and early nineteenth-century costumes, has also recently taken to social media to share how images of his creations have been repurposed by AI and used in the wider media without credit. Authors have repeatedly expressed concern that asking AI to create a 600-word blog post about the Wars of the Roses is going to scan all the books online that have often taken years and money to research, and provide you with a condensed version without crediting the primary authors or compensating them for their work. I had to stop for a second myself when I saw an obviously-AI-generated photo-realistic portrait of a historical figure shared in a group, which looked suspiciously similar to a hand-drawn portrait I'd created a few years ago and, yep, eagerly posted on the internet. 

For me, there are definitely advantages to using AI, and honestly, it's everywhere so we have to find a way around it. We have progressed with technology, although I'd question some of its moral aspects. For me, I'm over it. I'd rather conduct searches in archives and search engines and save some of that water for drinking. I don't like the idea of using other people's work and being unable to credit it because there's no research trail. Personally, I'm done. 

For everyone else though, instead of creating millions of images and videos for dopamine-inducing likes and views, asking it what we should eat for dinner that night and using up unthinkable quantities of life-providing resources, maybe just sip on it. Until we find a way to offset these valid environmental concerns and put in place legal structures that compensate and credit original creators for their work, how about we use it tightly for academic research or health benefits, use it sparingly and use our brains for the everyday things we can manage with. 

Now everyone, imagine Richard III on a throne petting fluffy kittens. Fun, right? 

Sources: 

United Nations University: Rising Emissions, Depleting Water and Vanishing Land. Accessed 17 September 2026.

Today, the settlement of Roman Silchester is a ruin - what remains are just fields, a small medieval church and stone walls in various states of height and structure. But once, this was a bustling, busy town with shops, places of worship, defensive walls and an amphitheatre. 

Although Silchester, in Hampshire, has been a place of fascination for centuries it was first seriously excavated in the nineteenth century, and is still giving up its secrets to archaeologists in modern times. Named by its Roman inhabitants Calleva Atrebatum, it is believed to have been established as a Roman settlement in around the first century AD. It was therefore in operation at the same time Boudicca unleashed her rebellion on London, in around 60-61 AD, as her Iceni tribe fought bitterly against Roman influence and control. Archaeology has revealed that its history may be even older, with skeletons found that date to the Iron Age, suggesting that the Roman community was founded on an existing name 'Atrebatum' certainly refers to the Atrebates tribe, who dominated this area during the Iron Age.

The gateway ruin at Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum)

The town's stone gateway - or its remains - still survive today, large and looming in the silent, rural landscape. As the point of entry to the town, it would have been guarded by military personnel to help maintain the security of its residents and officials. The road to Silchester led through Tadley and Aldermaston, built by Roman builders to make travel easier and safer. The new and spacious aspect of Roman roads built in straight lines reduced the potential of ambushes around corners or in leafy woodland, and encouraged economic movements between the other Roman towns in the area. Additionally, there was a settlement at the Vyne in Hampshire nearby called Vindomis, and another in Winchester named Venta Belgarum.

As you were waved through the large wooden gates fixed to the large stone gateway, you would have found huddles of buildings, a mixture of large and small, with smaller Iron Age style huts as well as grander, stone houses. Historians as early as the nineteenth century noted the presence of around 25 larger dwellings and 25 smaller ones, positioned around a main street that included homes, shops and workshops. Residents also had access to pagan temples, a Christian church, and a market place, as well as administrative buildings where town officials ran town business. Three mosaics from Silchester can be seen today at Reading Museum in the Town Hall, two of the larger ones from a grand town house, having once paved two separate rooms. The museum also has fragments of plaster on display, decorated with coloured paint, showing that walls would also have been brightly decorated. 

The community also had access to a public bath, similar to that at Bath in Somerset, where residents could go to soak in the warm waters provided by Roman central heating. Delivered by hypocausts, layers of brick or stone under the bathing sites that conveyed heat upwards to heat the bathing waters. There, townsfolk could scrub and moisturise with olive oil, catching up on the daily gossip of the town. The residents, archaeologists discovered, had access to piped water throughout the town, with timber pipes discovered, fitted with iron collars. 

One of the most famous and exciting sites in the now ruined town is the amphitheatre. Today, you can stand in its centre and look up at the many seats which circle the area, where residents and guests would have once looked down on the action. Was it used for gladiatorial combat? It is possible, although to my knowledge no definitive evidence for this has yet come forward. The town was established when gladiatorial entertainments elsewhere in the Roman Empire was popular, and the two alcoves either side of the centre have been suggested as somewhere for combatants to pause and catch their breath. However it is also possible that the amphitheatre staged plays or masques involving actors playing the parts of Roman gods for the entertainment of the crowds. It would also have been a perfect place to broadcast important business or news to residents quickly and efficiently. 

Entrance to the amphitheatre at Silchester

Estimates of Calleva's population hover at around 1,000-2,500 people, but it may have been an even larger settlement. The population was likely made up of those with Iron Age and Roman descent, perhaps travelling to live at the town from other parts of the Roman Empire. Reading Museum reported on their website on the analysis of a male Iron Age skeleton on the site with Spanish parentage, although he had been born in England. Silchester would have been linked through trading routes to areas all over Europe, and so the population was probably quite diverse. Paw prints pressed into pre-baked tiles (visible at Reading Museum) confirm that cats and dogs also roamed around the streets, and surviving artefacts document a number of different trades carried out in the town. 

A bronze statue of Tutela, a Roman goddess relied on for protection, was also found on site. The people of Calleva Atrebatum, whether Iron Age or not, had therefore adopted Roman deities and prayed to them to help ensure their safety. The historian J.E. Morpurgo noted that gods such as Mars and Hercules were also found at Silchester, along with older, Celtic gods. Perhaps, though, with Tutela's own emphasis on protection and security, its residents had heard about the rebellions of Boudicca and her tribe, and feared a similar outcome. 

Liked this? You might also like: The Lost Village of Wharram Percy and Visiting the Historic Church of Lewknor, Oxfordshire.

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https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/your-visit/what-see/silchester-gallery

Visit to Reading Museum, August 2026

https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/blog/people-silchester

A History of the Vyne in Hampshire, Chaloner W. Chute, Winchester, 1888.

Roman Britain, J.E. Morpurgo ed., Penguin Books, 1915. 

The name Blagrave is mentioned every day in the town of Reading in Berkshire, in one of its streets, on buses and even in the name of one of its pubs. But few people know where it originally came from and why it's remembered today. 

John Blagrave, one of the more famous of Reading's historic residents, was born to parents Anne and John Blagrave from Sonning. After taking the education expected of a wealthy young teenager, he developed a special curiosity for mathematics and mathematical instruments. At his home in Southcote Lodge he spent hours researching, experimenting and writing, publishing The Mathematical Jewel in 1585, with the wordy subtitle: 'shewing the making and most excellent use of a singuler instrument so called, in that it performeth with wonderfull dexteritie whatever is to be done either by Quadrant, Ship, Circle, Cylinder, Ring, Diall, Horoscope, Astrolabe, Sphere, Globe, or any such like heretofore devised’. In 1590 he published his Baculum Familliare Catholicon sive Generale. This book shared his new invention with the world: a 'familiar staffe', which could be carried along as you walked, and calculated 'geometrical mensurations of all altitudes'. By 1596, he was inspired by the long voyages carried out by Elizabeth I's sailors across the globe, titling his next work Astrolabium Uranicum Generale: a necessary and pleasaunt solace and recreation for Navigators in their long jorneying. After Elizabeth's death, he continued working into the reign of James VI and I, publishing The Art of Dyalling, in two parts, in 1609.

John Blagrave's memorial in St Laurence's Church, Reading (Jo Romero)

On his death in 1611, John left no children of his own, but bequeathed lands in Southcote to multiple family members, it being estimated that up to 80 people benefited from his generosity. He also left a sum of 20 nobles to be given to one woman in Reading each Easter, to help with her personal circumstances. He stipulated though, that she should be of good character and have already completed five years' service to a master of the town. John clearly preferred to help those who were hard-working and trustworthy. The women applied through a process like an election, where they would petition for their right to the cash, with the council considering each application. No doubt many seventeenth-century women benefited immensely from the funds that John left.

After more than 20 years of mathematical enquiry, John Blagrave died on 9 August 1611 and was buried in St Laurence's Church in the marketplace of Reading. His memorial effigy can be seen on the wall inside. It is very similar to that of William Shakespeare in Stratford Upon Avon in design. John is standing (or is seated?) upright, from the waist up, looking out at us and holding mathematical instruments in each hand. It is an early Renaissance-style English effigy memorial, crafted with flourishes, scrolls and painted with accents of gold. Two skulls hover on each side, warning us that death will come for us, too - while figures clad in classical togas hold geometric shapes and lounge on the pillars and structures around him.

The inscription reads: 

Here lyes his corpes which living had a spirit, Wherein all worthy knowledge did inherit, By which with zeal our God he did adore, Left for maidservants and to feed the poore, His virtuous mother came of worthie race, A Hungerford and buried neere this place, When God sent death their lives to call, They lived beloved and dyed bewayld of all. Deseased the 9th of August Anno Domino MDCXI.

John Blagrave was a Renaissance man who helped define his era. He was preoccupied with learning, dedicating hours to the study of new ideas in mathematics and the invention of mechanical instruments. He published works to help spread these ideas and allow people to build on them. Much in the same way too, that the early Medicis of Florence ploughed state money back into public buildings and art, John allocated funds of his own for the relief of the poor and divided up his estate so that many people could benefit from his accrued wealth rather than just one or two people. It is not clear whether he directed the design of his memorial in St Laurence's, but it has clear visual accents of the era: geometric shapes, figures resembling those of classical antiquity and features a number of different mathematical instruments he would have used, and even invented. Not to be forgotten, John Blagrave changed lives in Reading as well as further afield, and contributed to the study of one of the growing disciplines of the seventeenth century. 

Liked this? You might also like: The Cryptic Last Words of King Charles I, Reading's Regicide Daniel Blagrave and A Restoration Era Ghost Story of 1662.

My book,  Power Couples of the Renaissance, examines this era and explores the relationship dynamics that went against accepted norms of the period. There were also power-hungry couples who ruled, fought and spread the patronage of art, science and culture across the globe during one of the most tumultuous periods of history. Find it on the Pen and Sword Books website. 

Sources: 

Visit to St Laurence Church, Reading 2025

Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 2, George Smith, London 1908.