Today's on this day in Tudor history events include Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, being sentenced to death, the death of famous Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser, and the death of a groom of Sir Henry Neville...
- 1547 - Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, poet and soldier, was sentenced to death. He was tried in front of a common inquest at Guildhall, and despite pleading 'not guilty' and defending himself vigorously, he was found guilty. See video below.
- 1563 – Birth of Mark Alexander Boyd, poet and humanist scholar, in Ayrshire, Scotland. His works included the collections Epistolae quindecim and Epistolae heroides et hymni, and his famous Scots sonnet “Fra banc to banc”.
- 1584- Death of Thomas Wentworth, 2nd Baron Wentworth and de jure 7th Baron Le Despenser, soldier and administrator, at Stepney. Wentworth served Mary I as Lord Deputy of Calais, and was the one in charge when Calais fell to the French in January 1558.
- 1592 – Death of Sir Henry Brooke, courtier and diplomat, at Sutton-at-Hone. Although he was not Baron Cobham himself - that title belonged to his father then brother - he used Cobham as his surname. He served Elizabeth I as an ambassador in Spain, the Low Countries and France, and was the resident ambassador in France from October 1579 to September 1583.
- 1593 – Death of Sir Henry Neville, Groom of Henry VIII's Privy Chamber. He was buried at Waltham St Lawrence in Berkshire. Find out more about him here.
- 1599 – Death of Edmund Spenser, poet and administrator in Ireland. He died in Westminster and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Spenser is best known for his allegorical poem “The Faerie Queene”, which was dedicated to Elizabeth I. See video below.
- 1602 – Death of Sir John Forster, soldier and Warden of the Middle Marches, at Spindlestone, Northumberland. He was buried at Bamburgh parish church.
- 1612 – Death of Jane Suárez de Figueroa (née Dormer), Duchess of Feria. She was buried in the monastery of Santa Clara at Zafra, Spain.
- 1613 – Death of Edward Gresham, astrologer, astronomer, mathematician, magician and writer of the treatise “Astrostereon”. He died in London and was buried at All Saints-the-Less.
- 1628 – Death of Sir Anthony Ashley, Baronet, translator and politician, at Holborn House. He was buried at Wimborne St Giles in Dorset. Ashley published an English edition of Lucas Waghenaer's nautical charts, which he adapted and added to with accounts of Sir Francis Drake's 1587 raid on Cadiz and, of course, the 1588 Spanish Armada. It was published as “The Mariners Mirrour”.
