10 February – Catherine Howard goes to the Tower

On this day in Tudor history, 10th February 1542, Catherine Howard, King Henry VIII’s fifth wife, was escorted by barge from Syon House, where she’d been kept since November 1541, to the Tower of London in preparation for her execution.

Sadly, the queen would have seen the heads of her former lover, Francis Dereham, and her sweetheart, Thomas Culpeper, as she made her way to the Tower - a reminder of her own fate.

Find out more in today's talk.

Also on this day in history, 10th February 1567, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, was murdered. You can find out more about what happened to him in last year's video:

Also on this day in history:

• 1550 – Death of Sir Edmund Walsingham, soldier and Lieutenant of the Tower of London. He was buried at Chislehurst. Walsingham was Lieutenant of the Tower when Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were imprisoned there.
• 1554 – Death of Sir William Sidney, courtier and former Steward to Prince Edward (future Edward VI), at Penshurst. He was buried at Penshurst parish church.
• 1557 – Death of Sir Edward Montagu, lawyer and Judge, at his manor of Boughton, Northamptonshire, and buried in the church of St Mary, Weekley. Montagu served Henry VIII as Lord Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench from 1539 to 1545 when he became Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He was also a Privy Councillor and acted as one of the executors of the King's will in 1547.
• 1564 – Death of Henry Neville, 5th Earl of Westmorland, at Kelvedon, Essex. He was buried at Staindrop. The teenage Neville was taken hostage during the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace to ensure his father's co-operation with the rebels. He served Henry VIII as privy councillor and, when Edward VI was dying, signed the letters patent naming Lady Jane Grey as his successor. He swapped sides shortly after Edward's death, declaring for Mary I and bore the Second Sword and Cap of Maintenance at her coronation in October 1553.
• 1612 – Death of Jodocus Hondius (Joost de Hondt), artist, engraver and cartographer, at Amsterdam. Hondius worked with De Bry and Augustin Ryther in 1589 on engravings for the English version of “The Mariner's Mirror”, and was also responsible for a world map. Other works included portraits of Elizabeth I, illustrations for the voyages of Sir Francis Drake, a celestial globe and terrestrial globe.