About this episode

This episode explores the complex and often harsh realities of the Tudor royal nursery, highlighting the roles of various women and the extreme measures taken to care for royal infants.

The Tudor royal nursery wasn't a cozy domestic space. It was a department of state, with its own hierarchy, its own politics, and sworn oaths of loyalty just to rock a cradle. This week we're going inside it: the Lady Mistress running the show, the wet nurses who gave up their families and their freedom to feed someone else's baby, the swaddling operation that occasionally involved hanging an infant on a wall, and the extraordinary lengths Henry VIII went to in order to keep his precious son Edward alive. Plus the women who made all of this work, and whom history mostly forgot to name. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: Heather Teysko

Topics covered

• Tudor royal nursery
• history of childcare
• politics of the nursery
• Henry VIII
• women in history

Keywords

• Tudor
• royal nursery
• wet nurses
• Henry VIII
• Edward
• childcare history
• women's roles

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• The Most Important Woman in Tudor England You've Never Heard Of · April 22, 2026 · 24 min
• What If Mary Queen of Scots Had Run? A Tudor Thought Experiment · April 21, 2026 · 22 min
• The Medieval Women Who Ran Businesses, Won Lawsuits, and Refused to Be Pushed Out · April 20, 2026 · 37 min
• Why Tudor England Refused to Eat Tomatoes For 200 Years · April 17, 2026 · 21 min

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