The Queen Elizabeth's Progress
In Summer 2008 English Heritage at Kenilworth Castle worked in partnership with National Trust at Charlecote Park, Warwickshire Heritage Services and Stratford Museums to recreate the progress of Queen Elizabeth I around historic sites and towns across Warwickshire.
2008 marks the 450th Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth I's accession to the throne. Queen Elizabeth I made several trips to our region to meet with her loyal subjects. This was known as a Royal progress. To mark this year we worked together with local schools to recreate the Royal progress around our sites and towns.
What did the project include?
Each venue worked with one local school, inviting them to visit the site and carry out Tudor activities linked to its past. English Heritage worked closely with a class from St John’s Primary School, Kenilworth. The class visited Kenilworth Castle to learn about the importance of reverences and etiquette used at court and made decorated scented gifts to pesent to Queen Elizabeth I. The gifts created were pomanders and tussie mussies - decorated bunches of sweetly scented herbs - and the children learnt why carrying something sweetly scented was so important to hide the nasty aromas of the Tudors.
On Friday 3rd July 2008 the children, from all of the participating schools, dressed in Tudor costumes and joined together at Kenilworth Castle for a wonderful spectacular. They lined the tiltyard and greeted the arrival of Queen Elizabeth and Robert Dudley with a huge cheer and then formally presented their gifts to the Queen in John of Gaunt Hall.
This great day gave the children a first hand experience of Tudor life and allowed us to celebrate and engage young people in their local heritage.
The project also linked to Unit 8 of KS2 History Life for Rich and Poor Tudors.
On the same day our queen visited the garden which was created especially for her visit in 1575 and then spent some time with Robert Dudley in the gatehouse garden.
