5th March:

1496 – King Henry VII of England issued letters patent to John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), the Italian navigator and explorer. Click here to read more.
1549 – A bill of attainder was passed against Thomas Seymour, Baron Sudeley, after it was argued that his offences “were in the compasse of treason”. Seymour had been accused of attempting to kidnap his nephew, Edward VI, and also of plotting to marry the teenaged Elizabeth and put her on the throne.
1558 – Smoking tobacco was introduced in Europe by Francisco Fernandes.
1563 – Birth of Sir John Coke, politician and influential administrator during Charles I’s reign.
1572 – Death of Edward Hastings, Baron Hastings of Loughborough, nobleman and soldier. In July 1553, when Lady Jane Grey became queen, he was involved in assembling supporters of Princess Mary in the Thames Valley and became one of Mary’s trusted confidants. In the reign of Elizabeth I he was imprisoned in the Tower for hearing mass, but was released after taking the oath of supremacy.
1575 – Birth and baptism of William Oughtred, the mathematician responsible for developing a straight slide-rule, a gauging rod and various sundials. He also introduced the “×” symbol for multiplication and the abbreviations “sin” and “cos” for the sine and cosine functions.
1618 – Burial of Robert Abbot, Bishop of Salisbury, in Salisbury Cathedral.

On this day in history, 1st March 1620, Thomas Campion, the famous Tudor and Stuart physician, poet and musician, died. He was laid to rest on the same day he died at St Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet Street, London.

Campion was born in 1567 and was the son of John Campion, cursitor to the chancery court, and Lucy Searle. His father died when he was nine, so he was brought up by two stepfathers. Campion was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and he was admitted to Gray’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court in London, in April 1586. His Oxford Dictionary of National Biography biographer, David Lindley, notes that Campion did not proceed to any formal qualifications at Cambridge or at Gray’s Inn, but that it was while he was at Gray’s Inn that he became involved in acting in revels and writing songs.

26th February:

1548 – Birth of courtier George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, son of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, and his wife, Anne. George was the grandson of Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne Boleyn.
1552 – Executions of conspirators Sir Thomas Arundell, Sir Michael Stanhope, Sir Miles Partridge and Sir Ralph Fane. Arundell and Stanhope were beheaded on Tower Hill, while Partridge and Fane were hanged. They were condemned as traitors after being accused of conspiring with Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, against John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.
1564 – Christopher Marlowe, poet, translator and playwright, was baptised at St George’s Canterbury. Marlowe was the second child of John Marlowe, shoemaker, and his wife, Katherine. Marlowe’s works included “Tamburlaine”, “Dr Faustus”, “The Jew of Malta” and “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love”. Click here to see a Claire Chats video on Christopher Marlowe.
1608 – Death of John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells, in the palace at Wells. He was buried in Wells Cathedral.
1619 – Death of Edmund Bunny, clergyman, preacher and theological writer, at Cawood, Yorkshire. He was buried in York Minster. His works included “The Whole Summe of Christian Religion” (1576), “A Book of Christian Exercise, Appertaining to Resolution” (1584) and “A Briefe Answer, unto those Idle and Frivolous Quarrels of R.P.” (1589), a response to Jesuit Robert Person.

19th February:

1473 – Birth of Nicholas Copernicus, the Renaissance mathematician and astronomer, in Thorn, in the province of Royal Prussia, Poland. Copernicus is known for his theory of heliocentric cosmology, or the idea that the sun was stationary in the centre of the universe and that the earth revolved around it.
1547 – King Edward VI rode from the Tower of London to Westminster in preparation for his coronation the next day. Click here to read more.
1546 – William Cavendish was appointed Treasurer of the Privy Chamber. He later claimed that he had paid £1000 for the position.
1567 – The imprisoned Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, was informed of the murder of her son, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, by William Cecil’s wife, Mildred, and Lady William Howard. The Spanish ambassador recorded that Margaret’s grief was such “that it was necessary for the Queen to send her doctors to her”.
1592 – The Rose Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse, was opened in London on Bankside.
1598 – Death of Jasper Heywood, Jesuit and poet, in Naples. Heywood had been deported to France in January 1585, after being imprisoned in the Tower of London for treason, and was then summoned to Rome. He never returned to England.
1601 – Death of Thomas Fanshawe, at Warwick Lane. He was buried in the south aisle of Ware church in Hertfordshire. Fanshawe was an Exchequer official during Elizabeth I’s reign.