Five centuries ago, a well-equipped Scots army faced the English. The result shaped our history

Coupling star Ben Miles has been cast as Thomas Cromwell in the Royal Shakespeare Company's double bill of Hilary Mantel's award-winning novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies.

Dominic Brigstocke, Steve Connelly DVD/Blu-ray (360mins)

A £27 million museum for Henry VIII’s flagship, the ‘Mary Rose’, will be opened later in Portsmouth, reuniting the ship with thousands of its artefacts after they were salvaged 30 years ago.

American historian urges a rethink on David Starkey and Hilary Mantel portrayals

An heir-raising account of Tudor England

These books are heavy on history but light on emotional substance

A good old traditional kings-and-queens canter through English history, from the withdrawal of the Romans in 410, to the election of the coalition in 2010.

Hilary Mantel has promised to use her third instalment of her Thomas Cromwell trilogy to "bring it home in style".

"There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings." So (almost) ends Bring Up the Bodies: a final flourish that now applies to their creator too.

All my novels are essentially about falling in love and getting a house Well, that's what my husband told me a few years ago. It sounds like a very material view of the world but the house symbolises so much of where our fortunes are sited. For me, growing up, I always wanted a safe home, which was hard for my mother to provide after she was widowed and left with two children to raise on her own.

Most people dread funerals – but next month you can attend a Queen Katherine Parr funeral re-enactment at Sudeley Castle for £45.

The sequel to 'Wolf Hall' is a striking account of one of English history's most shocking episodes. But it can be hard to navigate such austere prose

We're more used to hearing folk ballads sung with a finger in the ear these days, but there's a possibility that their origins were more akin to the demure, precisely enunciated delivery adopted by Lesley Garrett on this collection.