Claire Ridgway (née Brassington; born 11 February 1971) is a British historian and author of books about the Tudor dynasty, with a particular focus on the life of the Boleyn family. Since 2009 she has run the websites TheAnneBoleynFiles.com and Elizabethfiles.com. In 2014, Claire founded The Tudor Society. Early life and education Ridgway was born in Lancashire in 1971, her father was a headteacher and her mother was a housewife. She credits her primary school teacher, Mr. Taylor, for setting her off in her love of literature and history. She graduated from the University of Warwick with a BA Hons. with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in Religion and Education in 1993. Ridgway met her husband, Timothy Ridgway, at university and the couple married in 1995. They have three children and Ridgway opted to give up her teaching career to be a full-time mother for 10 years before returning to her career. Early career Primary School Teacher – 1993–1996 Freelance Writer – 2008–2009 Historian, author, blogger and vlogger – 2009–present Historian, author, blogger and vlogger In 2009, Ridgway set up her Tudor history website, www.TheAnneBoleynFiles.com, and it rapidly grew into a major website for the study of the Tudor period. Through her website, Ridgway was involved in running historical tours through her company History Tours of Britain. The first tour was in 2010, with subsequent tours until 2012. These tours were based around Hever Castle in Kent, with notable guest speakers such as Eric Ives, John Guy, Julia Fox and Elizabeth Norton. The company was closed due to Ridgway wanting to focus on her writing. Ridgway's first book, The Anne Boleyn Collection (2012), was a collection of the top articles from her website. Ridgway quickly followed her first book with a more in-depth study of the lead-up to the execution of Anne Boleyn. This book, The Fall of Anne Boleyn (2012), shows the brutal speed that Anne Boleyn was taken from power, and sold 69,000 copies in its first two years. Putting together her detailed research into the Tudor period, Ridgway's third book, On This Day in Tudor History (2012), is a larger book with 366 entries about things that happened during the reign of the Tudors. It includes notable births, deaths, coronations and interesting trivia. This book sold 12,000 copies within its first year. In 2013, Ridgway published a second instalment of The Anne Boleyn Collection. However, in this book