Jacques Francis - Tumblr Posts

John Blanke was not the last African to serve King Henry VIII. As a French diplomat remarked to his English counterpart in the summer of 1545: ‘King’s hearts are  in God’s hand and he turns them as pleases him from peace to war and from war  to peace’. During his final war with France, instead of a skilled musician King Henry required the services of a man versed in an art that was at this time little practised by Europeans, but which people from West Africa were taught from birth:  swimming and diving.

Black Tudors: The Untold Story