23 September – A bishop taken ill while preaching

On this day in Tudor history, 23rd September 1571, after being taken ill while preaching a sermon in Lacock, Wiltshire, forty-nine-year-old John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, died at Monkton Farleigh Manor. He was laid to rest in Salisbury Cathedral.

Not many people have heard of John Jewel, but he had an interesting life which spanned the reigns of King Henry VIII, Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, Mary I and Elizabeth I - a time of religious change. He was a clergyman, a Protestant exile, a theologian and bishop, and someone who spoke up for what he believed.

Find out more about John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury in Queen Elizabeth I's reign, in today's talk.

Also on this day in history, 23rd September:

• 1568 – Battle of San Juan de Ulúa, near present day Veracruz, Mexico, between Spanish forces and English privateers led by John Hawkins. The Spanish forces were victorious.
• 1605 – Burial of William Averell, pamphleteer, at St Peter's Cornhill. Averill's works included the romantic “An excellent historie, both pithy and pleasant, on the life and death of Charles and Julia, two Brittish, or rather Welsh lovers” (1581), the Protestant “A wonderfull and straunge newes, which happened in the county of Suffolke, and Essex, the first of February, being Friday, where in rayned wheat, the space of vi or vii miles compass” (1583), a collection of moral narrative “A Dyall for Dainty Darlings” (1584) and “A Mervalious Combat of Contrarieties” (1588).