Tony Robinson takes us back 500 years, to life under Tudor king, Henry VIII. Tudor towns were evil-smelling places but amongst the smelliest homes would have been that of the local ‘knacker’. Tony introduces Thomas Grimes, who chopped up dead animals to make clothes, shoes or glue. But thanks to Henry VIII, who executed more bigwigs than the other Tudor monarchs put together, there was another need for Thomas’s skills: as an executioner! Next, Tony meets Richard Roose, who rose from pot washer to cook, for the Bishop of Rochester. The copious meat dishes that Richard prepared for the Bishop, would have been heaven to ordinary Tudors. Unfortunately, Richard’s boss fell out with the king over his affair with Anne Boleyn and Richard got caught up in it all and was boiled alive for his troubles. Farmer Richard Jenkynson and his wife Anne lived in Yorkshire, ploughing the fields, cooking and weaving. But poor farmers like Richard had to fight for their king when ordered. And suddenly he and his family found themselves off to war, to fight the Scots at the Battle of Flodden. Feisty Elynour Rummynge, was an ‘alewife’, brewing ale and running a pub in Leatherhead. Elynour’s brew became so famous that a poem was written about it, but for all the wrong reasons: it was rumoured to contain chicken droppings! Tony gets on board Henry VIII’s warship, Mary Rose, to meet sailor, ‘John’, one of 500 seamen who died when it sank in 1545, in a battle with the French. John had a hellish job, stumbling around in the dark with a bucket of hot pitch, trying to keep the ship waterproofed. The ship sank so fast that John had no chance of getting off. A disaster that foreshadowed Henry’s own death, just two years later.