On this day in Tudor history, 30th April, lawyer and Protestant James Bainham was burnt at the stake; court musician Mark Smeaton was arrested in the fall of Anne Boleyn; Lord Chancellor Thomas Audley died; and Sir John Puckering died...
- 1532 - James Bainham, lawyer and Protestant martyr, was burned at Smithfield. See video below.
- 1536 - Scottish theologian Alexander Alesius witnessed an argument between Queen Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, and court musician Mark Smeaton, was taken to Thomas Cromwell's house in Stepney and interrogated.See video below.
- 1544 – Death of Thomas Audley, Baron Audley of Walden and Lord Chancellor, at his home in Aldgate, London. Audley was Cromwell's right-hand man in 1536, during the fall of Anne Boleyn, and became even more important after Cromwell's fall. See video below.
- 1547 – Sir Anthony Denny was made Henry VIII's Groom of the Stool.
- 1563 – Death of Henry Stafford, 10th Baron Stafford, at Caus Castle, Shropshire. Stafford was the only legitimate son of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, and his wife, Eleanor, daughter of Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland.
- 1595 – Death of Thomas Bedwell, mathematician, engineer and keeper of the ordnance store at the Tower of London. He was buried at the Tower, in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Bedwell's engineering projects included him supervising the building of Dover harbour, giving advice on the fortification of Portsmouth and working on the River Thames' defences at Tilbury and Gravesend in 1588, at the time of the Spanish Armada.
- 1596 – Death of Sir John Puckering, administrator and Speaker of the House of Commons, from apoplexy. See video below.
- 1596 – Death of Thomas Bickley, Bishop of Chichester, at the bishop's palace in Aldingbourne. He was buried in his cathedral.
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