On this day in Tudor history, 28th August 1588, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Franciscan friar Thomas Felton was hanged near Brentford, Middlesex.
Felton was executed for his beliefs, and for proclaiming that he could not accept a woman as supreme head of the Church.
Here are some facts about Thomas Felton:
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This week’s Monday Martyr is priest James Claxton, who was executed on 28th August 1588, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
He was condemned and executed with fellow priest Thomas Felton at Brentford.
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On this day in history, 27th August 1610, Lady Anne Bacon (née Cooke), mother of Sir Francis Bacon, was laid to rest at St Michael’s Church, near St Albans. She was in her early eighties when she died.
Anne was the second daughter of the humanist scholar Sir Anthony Cooke, and the wife of Sir Nicholas Bacon, who served Elizabeth I as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. The couple had two children together, Tudor spy Anthony Bacon and politician, philosopher, author and scientist Francis Bacon, Viscount St Alban.
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On this day in Tudor history, 26th August 1549, in the reign of King Edward VI, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, received 1,000 mercenaries as reinforcements to fight the rebels of Kett’s Rebellion.
Kett’s Rebellion had begun in East Anglia in early July 1549. The rebels were unhappy with the enclosure of common land.
They attacked and took Norwich on 22nd July 1549 and William Parr, Marquess of Northampton, was sent with crown forces to win back the city. However, he was defeated. The Earl of Warwick was then sent to the area with a large army, which was bolstered with the arrival of the mercenaries on this day in 1549. The next day, Warwick’s forces met the rebels at the Battle of Dussindale. There were heavy losses on both sides, but Warwick was victorious. The rebellion had been brought to an end.
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On this day in Tudor history, 25th August 1526, in the reign of King Henry VIII, Mildred Cecil (née Cooke), Lady Burghley, was born.
Mildred was the daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, a scholar and the man who became Edward VI’s tutor, and his wife, Anne Fitzwilliam. Cooke educated his daughter himself, at home, providing her with the classical education usually reserved for boys.
Mildred is known not only for being the second wife of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley and Elizabeth I’s trusted minister, but for her humanist education, intelligence and fluency in Greek and Latin. Mildred also translated several works, including a Greek sermon by Basil the Great.
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On this day in Tudor history, 24th August 1561, naval officer and administrator Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk, was born.
Howard served Elizabeth I as vice-admiral in the 1596 Cadiz expedition and the 1597 voyage to the Azores, and as Constable of the Tower of London. He went on to have a distinguished career under James I until his fall in 1619.
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On this day in Tudor history, 23rd August 1553, just over a month after Mary I had been proclaimed queen, Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, was made Lord Chancellor.
Here are some facts about Stephen Gardiner, a man known as “Wily Winchester”…
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On this day in Tudor history, 22nd August 1545, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk died at Guildford in Surrey.
The magnate, courtier, soldier and close friend of Henry VIII was making preparations to lead an army to Boulogne when he suddenly died. He was laid to rest in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.
You can find out more about Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, in this video talk and article:
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This week’s #MondayMartyrs are the Canterbury Martyrs of 1555.
Protestants William Coker, William Hopper, Henry Laurence, Richard Colliar (or Collier), Richard Wright, and William Stere were burnt at the stake in Canterbury on 23rd August 1555, in the reign of Queen Mary I.
Martyrologist John Foxe tells the story of these “Kentish men” who were “called forth and examined by Thornton, bishop of Dover, Nicholas Harpsfield, Richard Faucet, and Robert Collins”. Here are some facts about them, as shared in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs:
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On this day in Tudor history, 21st August 1553, in the reign of Queen Mary I, courtier Sir Thomas Heneage died. He was buried in the chancel of the parish church at Hainton, Lincolnshire.
Heneage had served Henry VIII as groom of the stool and chief gentleman of the privy chamber, and went on to serve Edward VI as a gentleman of the privy chamber.
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On this day in Tudor history, 20th August 1580, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, soldier and administrator Sir George Bowes died at Streatlam, County Durham.
Bowes was buried in the family vault at Barnard Castle Church.
Bowes had served Elizabeth I as a member of the Council of the North and the Ecclesiastical High Commission for York, a Justice of the Peace and sheriff, and as the Earl of Sussex’s Deputy in Co. Durham and Richmondshire, and Provost Marshal.
Bowes had also been chosen to escort Mary, Queen of Scots from Carlisle to Bolton Castle in 1568.
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On this day in Tudor history, 19th August 1531, in the reign of King Henry VIII, Reformer Thomas Bilney was burnt at the stake at Lollard’s Pit, just outside Bishopsgate, Norwich.
Although Bilney was burnt as a heretic, he actually denied his reformist views and affirmed his Catholic faith at his execution.
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On this day in Tudor history, 18th August 1572, the marriage of Henry III, King of Navarre (the future Henry IV of France), the leading Huguenot, and the Catholic Margaret of Valois took place at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The aim of this marriage was to unite the Bourbon and Valois families, and also to bring peace between the Catholics and Huguenots in France. However, the awful St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of the Huguenots took place just six days after the wedding.
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On this day in Tudor history, 17th August 1498, soldier and royal councillor John Scrope, 5th Baron Scrope of Bolton, died.
the Yorkist Scrope was lucky to die a natural death. It is likely that he fought on King Richard III’s side at the Battle of Bosworth against Henry Tudor in 1485, but escaped punishment by Henry, who won the battle and was crowned King Henry VII. Scrope was imprisoned two years later after supporting the pretender Lambert Simnel. However, he was released and went on to prove his loyalty to Henry VII.
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On this day in Tudor history, 16th August 1549, in the reign of King Edward VI, landowner and administrator Sir Christopher More died. He was buried in St Nicholas’s Church, Guildford, in the Loseley Chapel.
More was a Justice of the Peace and sheriff during the reign of Henry VIII and was appointed to the guard of honour prepared for Anne of Cleves in late 1539.
Here are some facts about Sir Christopher More:
Sir Christopher More was born in around 1483 and was the son of fishmonger John More and his wife, Elizabeth.
By 1504, More was married to Margaret Mugge, who came from Guildford, and the couple had 12 children together. By 1535, Margaret had died and More had married Constance Sackville, widow of William Heneage.
In 1505, in the reign of King Henry VII, More was made a clerk of the exchequer, and More also purchased the office of alnager, i.e. an inspector of the quality and measurement of woollen cloth, in Surrey and Sussex.
On this day in Tudor history, 15th August 1594, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, playwright Thomas Kyd was buried at St Mary Colechurch in London.
Kyd is known for his play “The Spanish Tragedy” (c1537), which was performed twenty-nine times between 1592 and 1597, and some scholars believe that he wrote a “Hamlet” play before that of William Shakespeare.
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This week’s #MondayMartyr is Protestant Agnes Prest, who was burnt at the stake at Southernhay, just outside of Exeter’s city walls on 15th August 1557, in the reign of Queen Mary I. Agnes was outspoken in her views of the Catholic Church, viewing the Eucharist as “that foul idol” and the Church as the “Whore of Babylon”.
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14th August 1479 is the traditional birthdate of Katherine of York, Countess of Devon.
Katherine was the second youngest daughter of King Edward IV and his wife, Elizabeth Woodville, and so was the sister of the Princes in the Tower and Elizabeth of York, wife of King Henry VII. Katherine was also the wife of Sir William Courtenay, Earl of Devon.
Here are some facts about Katherine of York…
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On this day in Tudor history, 13th August 1566, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Humphrey Radcliffe died at his manor of Elstow. He was buried at Elstow Abbey.
Radcliffe served as a Member of Parliament during the reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I, and then as a Justice of the Peace and Sheriff in Elizabeth I’s reign.
Here are some more facts about Sir Humphrey Radcliffe…
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On this day in Tudor history, 12th August 1577, humanist scholar and diplomat Sir Thomas Smith died at Hill Hall in Essex. He was buried in St Michael’s Church, Theydon Mount.
Smith served Elizabeth I as Chancellor of the Order of the Garter and as Secretary of State, but is known for his political books “The Discourse of the Commonweal” and “De Republica Anglorum; the Manner of Government or Policie of the Realme of England”.
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On this day in Tudor history, 11th August 1556, politician Sir John Kingsmill, a man who had been close to Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Wriothesley, died.
He served as a sheriff in the reign of Henry VIII and as a commissioner for the dissolution of chantries in 1548 to Edward VI.
Here are some more facts about Sir John Kingsmill:
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On this day in Tudor history, 10th August 1518, in the reign of King Henry VIII, Sir Robert Sheffield, lawyer and Speaker of the House of Commons, died.
Sheffield had been imprisoned in the Tower of London after making an enemy of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, being accused of negligence as a Justice of the Peace and of harbouring a killer. It is not clear whether he was still in the Tower at his death, but he was buried in the nearby church of the Austin friars.
Here are some facts about Sir Robert Sheffield:
On this day in Tudor history, 9th August 1557, composer Nicholas Ludford was buried in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, in a vault with his first wife, Anne..
Ludford is known for his festal masses, which can be found in the Caius and Lambeth choirbooks (1521-27) and the Peterhouse partbooks (1539-40).
His biographer David Skinner described Ludford as “one of the last unsung geniuses of Tudor polyphony”.
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On this day in Tudor history, 8th August 1503, King Henry VII’s eldest daughter, Princess Margaret Tudor, married King James IV of Scotland at Holyrood Abbey.
Margaret was just thirteen years old and James was thirty, and their marriage had been arranged by the 1502 Treaty of Perpetual Peace between England and Scotland.
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This week’s #MondayMartyr is John Denley, who was burnt at the stake in Uxbridge for his Protestant faith on 8th August 1555, in the reign of Queen Mary I.
Protestant poet Thomas Brice recorded Denley’s execution in his 1559 work “A Compendious Regester”*, writing:
“When Denly died at Uxbridge towne,
With constant care to Christe’s cause;”
Martyrologist John Foxe states that Denley was from Maidstone in Kent and that when he was travelling in Essex with his friend, John Newman, in June 1555 to visit “their godly friends” in the county, both men were apprehended by Edmund Tyrrel, a justice of the peace, who searched them and found “the confessions of their faith in writing about them”.
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On this day in Tudor history, 7th August 1574, mariner, cartographer and landowner, Sir Robert Dudley, was born at Sheen House, Richmond.
Dudley was the illegitimate son of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, by his lover Lady Douglas Sheffield, daughter of William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham, and widow of John Sheffield, 2nd Baron Sheffield.
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On this day in history, 6th August 1623, Anne Hathaway, wife of William Shakespeare, died.
Anne married Shakespeare in 1582 when she was pregnant with their first child. They had three children, Susanna, and twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet died young.
Anne was buried next to Shakespeare at Holy Trinity Church.
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On this day in Tudor history, 5th August 1503, in the reign of King Henry VII, administrator Sir Reynold or Reginald Bray died. He was about sixty-three years of age.
Bray started his career in the household of Lady Margaret Beaufort, when she was married to Sir Henry Stafford, and was still serving her 20 years later when her son became king.
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On this day in Tudor history, 4th August 1598, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, died in London aged seventy-six. He had been Elizabeth I’s chief advisor.
Here are a few facts about Burghley:
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On this day in Tudor history, 3rd August 1549, in the reign of King Edward VI, Lord Russell marched his 1000 men from Honiton to Woodbury and set up camp for the night.
Russell was heading towards Clyst St Mary and the rebels of the Prayer Book Rebellion.
In 1549, the Book of Common Prayer was introduced. It was in English and it replaced the Catholic Mass. This change wasn’t embraced by all and there was trouble in Devon and Cornwall. The rebels called for the rebuilding of abbeys, the restoration of the Six Articles, the restoration of prayers for souls in purgatory, the policy of only the bread being given to the laity, and the use of Latin for the mass.
The rebels were defeated by the crown in a series of battles.
