Results: Black Tudors

(Source: Jonathan Carey) At the College of Arms in London on a 60-foot-long vellum manuscript sits an image of a man atop a horse, with a trumpet in hand and a turban around his head. This is John Blanke, a black African trumpeter who lived under the Tudors. The manuscript was originally used to announce the Westminster Tournament in celebration of the 1511 birth of Henry, Duke of Cornwall, Henry VIII’s son. Blanke was hired for the court by Henry VII. The job came with high wages, room and board, clothing, and was considered the highest possible position a musician could obtain in Tudor England. Blanke was no anomaly, but was one of hundreds of West and Northern Africans living freely and working in England during the Tudor dynasty. Many came via Portuguese trading vessels that had enslaved Africans onboard, others came with merchants or from captured Spanish vessels. However once in England, Africans worked and lived like other English citizens, were able to testify in court, and climbed the social hierarchy of their time. A few of their stories are now captured in the book, Black Tudors by author and historian Miranda Kaufmann. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/black-african-tudors-england?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=fc2d9ed1e4-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f36db9c480-fc2d9ed1e4-63459725&ct=t()&mc_cid=fc2d9ed1e4&mc_eid=4018e6eb90