The Tudor Society

#OTD in Tudor history – 2 May

On this day in Tudor history, 2nd May, Queen Anne Boleyn and her brother, Lord Rochford, were arrested; Anabaptist Joan Bocher was burnt in Edward VI's reign; and Mary, Queen of Scots escaped from Lochleven Castle...

  • 1536 - Sir Henry Norris, Henry VIII’s Groom of the Stool and great friend, was taken to the Tower of London. See video below.
  • 1536 - Arrests of Queen Anne Boleyn at Greenwich and George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, at Whitehall. See video below.
  • 1542 – Burial of Henry Clifford, 1st Earl of Cumberland and close friend of Henry VIII, at Skipton Church in Yorkshire. Cumberland served the King as Warden of the West Marches, and was rewarded for his service and loyalty during the Pilgrimage of Grace by being elected as a Knight of the Order of the Garter.
  • 1550 – Burning of Joan Bocher, an Anabaptist, at Smithfield. Bocher believed that Christ's flesh was “not incarnate of the Virgin Mary” and was convicted of heresy and condemned to death. See video below.

  • 1551 – Birth of William Camden, historian, headmaster and herald, at the Old Bailey, London. Camden is known for his “Britannia”, the first chorographical survey of Great Britain and Ireland, and his Annales Rerum Gestarum Angliae et Hiberniae Regnate Elizabetha, his history of Elizabeth I's reign, but he also wrote a Greek grammar and “Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine”, which was a collection of historical essays.
  • 1568 – Mary, Queen of Scots escaped from Lochleven Castle. As a May Day masque took place at the castle, Mary was smuggled out and taken to a waiting boat. See video below.
  • 1587 – Burial of Sir Thomas Bromley, Lord Chancellor, in Westminster Abbey.
  • 1620 – Burial of Edward More, poet and grandson of Sir Thomas More. He was buried at Barnborough, Yorkshire.

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#OTD in Tudor history – 2 May