On this day in Tudor history, 23rd June 1576, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, painter and miniaturist Levina Teerlinc died at Stepney in London.
Teerlinc was court painter to Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I, and was a prolific artist.
Find out more about her and her work…
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On this day in Tudor history, 17th June 1567, in Scotland, Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned at Loch Leven Castle.
She’d been taken prisoner following her surrender at the Battle of Carberry Hill on 15th June.
At Loch Leven, it was reported that she miscarried twins fathered by her third husband, the Earl of Bothwell, and she was also forced to abdicate. She did, however, escape, but her freedom was very short-lived.
Find out more about this time in Mary, Queen of Scots’ life…
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On this day in Tudor history, 8th June 1492, in the reign of King Henry VII, the king’s mother-in-law, Elizabeth Woodville, died at Bermondsey Abbey.
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On this day in Tudor history, 23rd May 1554, Elizabeth, daughter of King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, arrived at the Palace of Woodstock in Oxfordshire, where she was placed under house arrest.
Elizabeth remained under house arrest there for just under a year, and she didn’t make it easy for her gaoler, Sir Henry Bedingfield, and neither did her servants.
Find out why Elizabeth was under house arrest and what happened…
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On this day in Tudor history, 18th May 1497, Catherine Woodville, Duchess of Buckingham and Bedford, died.
Who was Catherine Woodville and how was she linked to the famous Woodvilles who rose in the reign of King Edward IV?
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On this day in Tudor history, 10th May 1533, the Great Matter, Henry VIII’s quest for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, neared its conclusion.
Find out what happened on this day in 1533, and what happened next…
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On this day in Tudor history, 1st May 1517, foreign traders in London had their shops and property vandalised and damaged by a mob of angry apprentices and labourers.
What sparked off this “Evil May Day Riot”? What happened to the troublemakers? And how did Queen Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII’s sisters, Margaret and Mary, get involved? I explain…
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On this day in Tudor history, 15th March 1532, King Henry VIII used what was described as “foul language” to William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Henry VIII also threatened the poor man, and it is amazing that Warham kept his head as the king was furious.
What happened? Find out what Warham did to upset the king in this talk…
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On this day in Tudor history, 3rd March 1542, Arthur Plantagenet, Lord Lisle, courtier, soldier, diplomat, administrator and illegitimate son of Edward IV, died of a heart attack after being informed of his release from the Tower of London. How very sad!
Find out all about Lord Lisle’s background, his career in Henry VII and Henry VIII’s reign, and how he came to imprisoned in the Tower of London, when he was probably innocent, in this talk…
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Well, ok, perhaps love at second or third sight!
On this day in Tudor history, Saturday 17th February 1565, Mary, Queen of Scots, met and fell in love with Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, at Wemyss Castle in Scotland. Just over 7 months later, the couple got married.
Find out more about the background of this meeting between Mary, Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley, Mary’s thoughts on Darnley, and what happened next, in this talk…
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On this day in Tudor history, 28th January 1598, diplomat Edward Barton died of dysentery on the island of Heybeli Ada, in the Sea of Marmara, off the coast of Istanbul.
Barton and his predecessor, William Harborne, had played key roles in Elizabeth I’s alliance with the Ottoman Empire.
Elizabeth I had a good relationship with the Islamic World and it was something that was very important to her. Find out why Elizabeth reached out to the Ottomans in the 1580s, and just how the relationship worked, in this talk…
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On this day in Tudor history, 22nd January 1554, Thomas Wyatt the Younger met with fellow conspirators at his home of Allington Castle in Kent. The purpose of their meeting was to make final plans for their uprising against Queen Mary I and her decision to marry Philip of Spain.
This rebellion would come to be known as Wyatt’s Rebellion, although the leader at the start appears to have been Sir James Croft.
Find out all about Wyatt’s Rebellion and what happened in this talk…
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On this day in Tudor history, 26th December 1526, Protestant Rose Lok was born.
Rose lived well into her 80s and had an interesting life, being a Protestant exile, a businesswoman, and being the daughter of a man who supplied Anne Boleyn with religious books. She also had a ship named after her!
Find out all about Rose Lok in this talk…
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On this day in Tudor history, 28th November 1565, member of Parliament and political agent Francis Yaxley set sail for Scotland from Antwerp.
Sadly, Yaxley’s ship was wrecked in a storm and he never reached Scotland, and neither did the gold he was carrying to Mary, Queen of Scots.
But why was he carrying gold and who was it from? What happened to the gold?
Find out all about Yaxley, how he came to be traveling from Antwerp to Scotland, and what happened to him and the gold, in this talk…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 15th November 1527, a woman who called herself “the excellent Princess Katherine, Countess of Devon, daughter, sister and aunt of kings”, died at Tiverton Castle in Devon.
Katherine of York, Countess of Devon, daughter of King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, was just forty-nine when she died and had taken a vow of chastity after her husband’s death.
In this talk, I give an overview of Henry VIII’s aunt’s life and I explain why she took her vow of chastity. Find out all about her.
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On this day in Tudor history, 10th November 1556, English explorer and navigator, Richard Chancellor, was killed. Chancellor is known as being the first foreigner to enter the White Sea and to establish relations with Russia and Tsar Ivan IV, or Ivan the Terrible.
Chancellor was sadly drowned after saving the Russian ambassador, Osip Napeya, when their ship, The Edward Bonaventure, was wrecked just off the Aberdeenshire coast of Scotland.
Find out about Richard Chancellor’s life, career and sad end in this talk…
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On this day in history, 2nd November 1470, the feast of All Souls, King Edward V was born at Westminster Abbey, London. Young Edward was King of England for just 2 months in 1483 before he disappeared.
The events of his short life, his short reign and how it ended, are linked to the Tudors because Henry Tudor returned from exile to challenge King Richard III, who had, of course, taken the throne from Edward V.
Find out about Edward V’s life and how he came to be one of the famous Princes in the Tower, in this talk…
[Read More...]In the programme, which aired in the UK on BBC One, comedian Josh Widdicombe was having his family tree examined and he had an incredibly interesting one.
If you haven’t watched it yet, and plan to, then don’t read on! Although you can tell from the title and the photo that the Boleyns are involved!
Spoiler alert…
Josh found out first that he was related to the Barings of Barings Bank, and then he was told that he was descended from Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland. Holland served as Groom of the Stool to King Charles I and unfortunately ended his life on the scaffold due to being a Royalist in the Second English Civil War.
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On this day in Tudor history, 13th October 1553, Queen Mary I wrote a very interesting letter to the imperial ambassador, Simon Renard. In it, she asked the ambassador to meet with her secretly, and she’d encouraged him previously to come to her secretly and in disguise.
Why? What was going on? And why did Mary seem to trust the emperor and his ambassadors more than her own council?
Find out more about the situation…
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On this day in Tudor history, 11th October 1532, King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, the newly created Marquess of Pembroke, set sail from Dover aboard the king’s ship, The Swallow.
They were off to Calais on a mission involving the Great Matter, Henry VIII’s quest for an annulment. But why? What would they do there? Who would they meet?
Find out more about this trip, what happened and what happened next…
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On this day in Tudor history, 5th October 1549, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector, ordered a gathering of men at Hampton Court Palace, where he was lodged with the young King Edward VI, due to tensions mounting between Somerset and John Dudley, Earl of Warwick.
What was going on and what happened when 4,000 peasants turned up? How did John Dudley react and what did King Edward VI have to say about it all?
Find out what happened, and how this led to Somerset’s undoing…
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On this day in Tudor history, 1st September 1566, Edward Alleyn, a major figure in the Elizabethan theatre, was born in the parish of St Botolph without Bishopsgate, London, and baptised the following day.
In this video, I share some facts about Edward Alleyn, including his personal life, the plays he was involved in, his theatre investments, and his desire to be appointed master of the bears, bulls and mastiff dogs!
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On this day in Tudor history, 28th August 1588, an ailing Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, wrote his final letter to his queen and childhood friend, Elizabeth I. He wrote it while on his way to Buxton, in Derbyshire, to take the waters for his health.
The letter is very special because Elizabeth labelled it “His Last Letter” and kept it close by her until her own death in 1603.
In this video, I share a transcript of Robert Dudley’s last letter, and talk about Elizabeth I’s reaction to his subsequent death.
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On this day in Tudor history, 11th August 1581, Sir Maurice Berkeley, former gentleman usher of Henry VIII’s Privy Chamber, died.
You may not have heard of Sir Maurice Berkeley, but he had a wonderful court career, serving Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth I, and proving his loyalty to Mary I by arresting rebel leader, Thomas Wyatt the Younger.
Find out more about this lesser-known Tudor man…
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On this day in Tudor history, 9th July 1575, Queen Elizabeth I visited Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, home of her favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Her stay would be a long one, 19 days!
Find out a bit more about her stay at Kenilworth Castle in this edition of #TudorHistoryShorts…
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As we’re coming up to the anniversary of King Edward VI’s death on 6th July 1553, I thought I’d test your knowledge of the two men who led his government: Edward Seymour and John Dudley.
How much do you know about these two Tudor men?
Get those little grey cells working with this fun quiz on Edward Seymour and John Dudley.
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On this day in Tudor history, 1st July 1536, less than two months after the execution of Anne Boleyn, Parliament passed legislation that meant that the king had no legitimate heirs. How strange!
Find out more in this edition of #TudorHistoryShorts…
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On 24th June 1604, in the reign of King James I, Elizabethan courtier and poet, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, died.
Find out about this rather colourful Tudor character in this edition of #TudorHistoryShorts…
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On this day in Tudor history, 21st June 1509, King Henry VIII travelled from Greenwich to the Tower of London. Why was England’s new king going to the Tower of London?
Find out in this #TudorHistoryShorts video…
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In this latest edition of Teasel’s Tudor Trivia, Tudor experts, historian Claire Ridgway and her researcher, Teasel the rescue dog, introduce their top picks for non-fiction books on the Tudor kings and queens.
The books featured are all excellent reads and are well-referenced – perfect for those just wanting to know more about the monarch or those who are using them for research.
Please do share in the comments if you have a favourite book on the Tudor monarchs.
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