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Tom Holland takes the chair as historians and archaeologists come together to discuss issues and share the latest historical research.

Today: a recently discovered letter sheds light on how politics were often played out through drama at the court of Elizabeth; we mark the 400th anniversary of the 17th century radical John Lilburne and the biographer and Bronte expert Juliet Barker selects her inheritance books.

Joining Tom from the University of Durham is 聽 and from the University of Southampton .

Dr Neil Younger who works at the Open University has come across a letter from one wealthy Nor-folk gentleman to another which describes a visit that Elizabeth 1st made to New Hall near Chelmsford in September 1579. New Hall was the home of the Earl of Sussex. A privy councillor who was on the conservative, catholic wing of the establishment and someone who Elizabeth re-spected. The possible marriage of Elizabeth to the catholic Duke of Anjou was central to politics at this time and some feared that it would seriously upset the delicate balance between Protestant and Catholic that she sought.聽聽

The letter that Dr Younger has discovered shows that, through a spectacular drama put on for Elizabeth鈥檚 visit, Sussex was making clear his support for a marriage with Anjou. Furthermore, this bold statement comes only a matter of weeks before John Stubbs had a hand cut off for writing a frank-piece of anti-Anjou advice to the queen.

Helen Castor visited New Hall (now a school) in Essex to meet Dr Younger to find out how drama was used to make political statements and why Sussex could do this at a time when others were being punished for entering the debate