What an unruly lot! Beheadings, murder, divorce, rows with the Pope, civil war, fire and plague. The headline stories from the Tudor and Stuart years represent a roller-coaster ride through one of the most important periods of history in the development of modern Britain. The Tudors and Stuarts left us with a lot of blood-stained pages in the history books but what else did they leave behind? Well, quite a lot, in fact. The opening up of the New World, the development of the cast-iron cannon, the first lead pencil, the first shopping centre, the first theatre and even the first spy network - were just some of the legacies from the Tudors and Stuarts.