On this day in Tudor history, 23rd March, while the pope proclaimed Catherine of Aragon to be England’s true queen and Mary the heir to the throne, Parliament declared Anne Boleyn to be the rightful queen and her daughter, Elizabeth, the heir; Waltham Abbey was dissolved; and soldier, MP and diplomat Sir Henry Unton died…
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 6th March, scholar and humanist Juan Luis Vives, a man who advised Catherine of Aragon on Mary I’s education, was born in Valencia, Spain; the Act for the Suppression of the Lesser Monasteries was introduced into Parliament; and Thomas Wriothesley got into trouble for allegedly abusing his authority…
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 22nd February, little Henry Duke of Cornwall, son of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, died suddenly, and Marie de Guise was crowned Queen of Scotland, rather than England, which had apparently been an option for her…
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 18th February, The future Henry VIII was made Prince of Wales, Catherine of Aragon gave birth to a healthy daughter who’d become Mary I, the Duke of Guise was fatally wounded by a Huguenot assassin, and Ridolfi Plot creator Roberto di Ridolfi died a natural death in Florence…
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, Queen Catherine of Aragon suffered a stillbirth, Henry VIII’s death was announced and Edward VI proclaimed king, and some more Gunpowder Plotters were executed…
[Read More...]
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…
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, Henry VIII secretly married Anne Boleyn even though he was still married to Catherine of Aragon, Catholic martyr St Edmund Campion was born, Wyatt’s Rebellion began, and people celebrated the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul…
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 18th October 1529, in the reign of King Henry VIII, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey surrendered the Great Seal of his office of Lord Chancellor following the writ of praemunire being filed against him on the 9th October.
Cardinal Wolsey had been the king’s chief advisor for many years, but he had fallen in favour after the Legatine Court of summer 1529, over which Wolsey and Cardinal Campeggio presided, had adjourned without ruling on the king’s case for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Then, the pope had approved Catherine’s appeal. Historian Eric Ives, in his book “The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn”, also points out that Wolsey “lost Henry’s confidence from late August onwards by miscalculating the king’s mood and by mishandling the Treaty of Cambrai, in which Francis I totally deceived him and caused him, in turn, to mislead his master.”
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 10th October 1530, Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset, magnate, soldier and courtier, died. He was buried at Astley Collegiate Church in Warwickshire.
Grey’s offices included Constable of Warwick Castle and of Kenilworth Castle, and, as a skilled jouster, he also acted as Chief Answerer at the marriage of Prince Arthur and Catherine of Aragon. Grey was also the grandfather of Lady Jane Grey.
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 30th August 1534 (some sources state 1537), twenty-eight-year-old Observant Franciscan friar Thomas Belchiam died at Newgate Prison. He had starved to death.
Belchiam and his fellow friars at Greenwich had invoked Henry VIII’s wrath by supporting Queen Catherine of Aragon during the king’s Great Matter and by refusing the oath of supremacy. Belchiam had also reportedly called the king a heretic.
It was alleged that there was an earthquake at the time of Belchiam’s death.
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 7th July 1553, the day after the death of King Edward VI, his half-sister, Mary, received news of his death.
Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, had left Hunsdon on 3rd July after hearing that Edward was dying and that there was a plot against her. She set off for her estates in East Anglia, where she had support.
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 2nd July 1594, in the reign of Elizabeth I, Robert Scarlett (Old Scarlett), sexton at Peterborough Cathedral, was buried at the cathedral, apparently aged 98, although another source states that he was a bit younger.
A verse accompanying his portrait in the cathedral states that Scarlett buried two queens, Catherine of Aragon and Mary, Queen of Scots , but it is not known whether this is true. He is also said to have buried a court fool known as Edward the Fool.
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 1st July 1536, Parliament gave the Second Act of Succession its first reading.
This act superseded the 1534 Act of Succession, which had made Mary, Henry VIII’s daughter by Catherine of Aragon, illegitimate and had appointed Elizabeth, his daughter by Anne Boleyn, as heir to the throne.
The new act declared the illegitimacy of both of Henry’s daughters. Both girls were now barred from the line of succession and, Elizabeth, like Mary, now lost her title of “princess”.
[Read More...]
The 15th June 1519 is the traditional birthdate of Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, although the 18th is a more likely date.
Fitzroy’s mother, Elizabeth Blount, known as Bessie Blount, was serving as one of Catherine of Aragon’s maids of honour when she was noticed by the king and became his mistress. After it was found that she was pregnant, she was sent to the Priory of St Lawrence, in Blackmore, Essex, by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey before her pregnancy became visible.
Bessie’s baby boy was baptised at the chapel at Blackmore with Cardinal Wolsey acting as godfather.
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 14th June 1557, William Peto was made cardinal and papal legate, replacing Reginald Pole.
During Henry VIII’s Great Matter, Friar Peto served Catherine of Aragon and Princess Mary as confessor. On Easter Sunday 1531, he angered King Henry VIII when he preached a sermon comparing Henry VIII to King Ahab and Anne Boleyn to Jezebel. He warned the king to act to avoid Ahab’s unhappy end and to avoid the dogs licking up his blood as they had Ahab’s.
In 1547, while Henry VIII’s coffin was resting at Syon, it was said that liquid dripped out of it and that dogs did indeed lick it up.
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 28th May 1533, at Lambeth Palace, Thomas Cranmer, the recently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, proclaimed the validity of the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
This proclamation was the result of a secret enquiry carried out by the archbishop following the ruling of the special court set up at Dunstable Priory to hear the case for the annulment of Henry VIII’s first marriage. That court dissolved the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Convocation had already determined, on 5th April 1533, that the Pope had no power to issue a dispensation for a man to marry his brother’s widow when it was contrary to God’s law.
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 10th May 1533, in the reign of King Henry VIII, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, opened a special court at Dunstable Priory in Bedfordshire.
The court’s job was to rule on the validity of Henry VIII’s marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
[Read More...]
On this day in history, 22nd April 1451, Isabella I of Castile was born.
She may not have been English and her birth was not in the Tudor period, but she is linked to the Tudors because her daughter, Catalina de Aragón, or Catherine of Aragon, married Henry VII’s eldest son, Arthur, in 1501, and his second son, Henry, in 1509.
[Read More...]
This article is part of a blog tour for ‘I am Henry,’ the new novel based on the award-winning short film of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn by Jan Hendrik Verstaten and Massimo Barbato, which is due out tomorrow, 22nd April.
We were delighted that our little short film ‘I am Henry’ was received well. It won, in total, 13 film awards, including a prestigious Gold Remi. The only criticism we had from the viewers that loved it was that it was not long enough. They wanted to see what happened to Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon.
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 14th December 1558, in the reign of her half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Mary I was buried at Westminster Abbey.
Mary had died just under a month earlier, on 17th November 1558. She’d left instructions for her burial, requesting that Catherine of Aragon’s remains be exhumed and brought from Peterborough to London so that mother and daughter could rest in peace together.
Did this happen?
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 17th November 1558, Queen Mary I died at St James’s Palace in London.
The forty-two-year-old daughter of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon passed the throne on to her twenty-five-year-old half-sister, Elizabeth, who became Queen Elizabeth I.
Let me tell you about the accession of Queen Elizabeth I and the traditional story of Elizabeth finding out that she was queen at Hatfield…
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 25 July 1554, on the Feast of St James, Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII by Catherine of Aragon, got married at Winchester Cathedral in a ceremony officiated by Lord Chancellor Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester.
The thirty-eight-year-old Mary married twenty-seven-year-old Philip of Spain, son of her cousin, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
Let me share a contemporary account of Mary and Philip’s wedding ceremony…
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 9th July 1553, Mary (the future Mary I), daughter of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, wrote to her late half-brother’s privy council regarding “some evil” that she had heard.
This was three days after Edward VI’s death and the day after Mary had proclaimed herself queen at at Kenninghall.
But what was going on? What had Mary heard and was she going to do about it?
Find out more about the situation and Mary’s letter…
[Read More...]
Today is the anniversary of the death of sixty-six-year-old Lady Margaret Beaufort. matriarch of the Tudor dynasty, on 29th June 1509.
She died just four days after she had enjoyed the coronation celebrations of her grandson King Henry VIII and his new bride and queen, Catherine of Aragon.
Margaret Beaufort is surrounded by myth and it seems fashionable to see her as a religious zealot. But who was this influential Tudor lady? What did she do?
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 26th May 1520, in the lead-up to King Henry VIII’s meeting with Francis I of France at the Field of Cloth of Gold, the English king met with his nephew Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, at Dover Castle on the south coast of England.
Find out more about this meeting and the rather lavish outfits worn by Henry VIII and his queen consort, Catherine of Aragon…
[Read More...]
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…
[Read More...]
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…
[Read More...]
On this day in 1545, Sir Robert Dymoke, champion at the coronations of Henry VII and Henry VIII, and a man who served in the households of Queens Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, died.
He had an interesting career and survived being suspected of involvement in the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion.
Find out more about Sir Robert Dymoke…
[Read More...]
As yesterday was the anniversary of Catherine’s demotion from queen to dowager princess in 1533, I thought I’d test your knowledge of Henry VIII’s Great Matter, his quest for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
How much do you know about the Great Matter?
Find out with this fun crossword puzzle.
[Read More...]
On this day in 1533, Convocation, ruled that the pope was wrong and that Henry VIII was right, i.e. it ruled that the Pope had no power to dispense in the case of a man marrying his brother’s widow, and that it was contrary to God’s law – Catherine of Aragon should not have been able to marry Henry VIII.
This was just as well seeing as the king had got married to Anne Boleyn and she was pregnant with his child!
[Read More...]