The Tudor Society

#OTD in Tudor History – 29 January

On this day in Tudor history, Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was laid to rest as Dowager Princess of Wales, and, on the very same day, his second wife, Anne Boleyn, experienced a tragic miscarriage...

  • 1536 - Catherine of Aragon was laid to rest in Peterborough Abbey, now Peterborough Cathedral. She had requested that she should be buried in a Chapel of her beloved order, The Observant Friars, but Henry’s dissolution of the monasteries meant that there were none left. She was buried as Dowager Princess of Wales, not queen. See video below.
  • 1536 - Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII, suffered a miscarriage at around 15 weeks. See video below.
  • 1547 – Edward Seymour and Anthony Denny informed the young Edward VI that his father, Henry VIII, had died the day before.
  • 1559 – Death of Sir Thomas Pope, founder of Trinity College, Oxford, member of Parliament and Privy Councillor in Mary I's reign, at Clerkenwell. He was buried at St Stephen's Church, Walbrook. In 1556, Pope acted as a guardian for Princess Elizabeth at Hatfield House, and handled the correspondence when Eric of Sweden was interested in marrying Elizabeth.

  • 1577 – Death of Richard Harpur, Law Reporter and Judge of the Common Pleas. He was buried at Swarkestone Church in Derbyshire.
  • 1613 – Death of Sir Thomas Bodley, scholar, diplomat and founder of Oxford's Bodleian Library at his house next to St Bartholomew's Hospital in London. He was buried in Merton College chapel on 29th March.

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#OTD in Tudor History – 29 January