
On this day in Tudor history, 14th August, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury and daughter of George, Duke of Clarence, was born, and William Parr, Marquis of Northampton and brother of Queen Catherine Parr, was born…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 14th August, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury and daughter of George, Duke of Clarence, was born, and William Parr, Marquis of Northampton and brother of Queen Catherine Parr, was born…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, was granted a licence to found a college at his manor of Thornbury; an English Protestant was burned in Rome; and Spanish forces landed on the Cornish coast…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 1st August, apothecary, alchemist and medium Sir Edward Kelley was born; Joan Waste, a blind woman, was burnt for heresy; and courtier John Astley (Ashley) died…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 30th July, both Catholics and Reformers were executed at Smithfield; Henry VIII’s youngest daughter, Elizabeth, left Somerset House to greet her half-sister, Mary I, the new queen; and writer and diarist Robert Parry was born…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 28th July, Thomas Cromwell suffered a rather botched execution; Walter Hungerford, Baron Hungerford, was executed for magic and “detestable vice and sin”; and Henry VIII married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, soldier and royal councillor John Scrope, 5th Baron Scrope, was born; Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, died; and playwright Edward Sharpham was baptised…
[Read More...]In the late summer of 1483, two princes, aged twelve and nine, vanished from the Tower of London where they had been imprisoned by their uncle, Richard III. Murder was suspected, but without bodies no one could be certain even that they were dead. Their fate remains one of history’s enduring mysteries, but the solution lies hidden in plain sight in stories we have chosen to forget, of English anti-Semitism, the cult of saints, and in two small, broken and incomplete skeletons.
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 13th July, the famous multi-talented John Dee was born; members of the new Queen Jane’s council were meeting with the imperial ambassadors; and poet and courtier Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester, died at Penshurst…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 3rd July, pretender Perkin Warbeck landed on the Kent coast; Catherine of Aragon was ordered to call herself “Princess Dowager” and not queen; and Mary I bid farewell to Philip of Spain…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, Henry VIII and Catherine Howard set off on their ill-fated progress to the North; and keen sportsman, King Henry II of France, suffered a mortal head wound while jousting…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 29th June, Lady Margaret Beaufort, matriarch of the Tudor dynasty, died; Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, died; and the Globe Theatre burned to the ground after catching fire during a performance of “Henry VIII”…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 26th June, soldier Sir Edmund Carew died; a commission of oyer and terminer was appointed to try Sir Thomas More; and Sir John Wingfield, who was shot in the head in an attack on Cadiz, was buried…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 24th June, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon were crowned king and queen in a joint coronation ceremony; Elizabeth I’s favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was born; and courtier and poet Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, died…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, Elizabeth Woodville, queen consort of Edward IV and mother of the Princes in the Tower, died; and Henry VIII’s Parliament passed the Second Act of Succession, removing Elizabeth, as well as Mary, from the line of succession…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 6th June, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V made a grand entry into London with Henry VIII; the Prayer Book rebels assembled at Bodmin; and musician and conspirator William Hunnis died…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 5th June, Catherine of Aragon’s lady and good friend, Maria de Salinas, married William, 10th Lord Willoughby of Eresby; Elizabeth I’s favourite, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, was charged with insubordination; and physician and naturalist Thomas Moffet died…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 2nd June, Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour, made her first appearance as queen; rebels including Sir Francis Bigod were executed in the aftermath of the Pilgrimage of Grace; and Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, was executed…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 28th May, Archbishop Cranmer, proclaimed the validity of Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn; three Catholic priests were executed for a plot that may not have been real; and the Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon in Portugal bound for the Spanish Netherlands…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, an earthquake shook Croydon and neighbouring villages, and Lady Jane Grey married Lord Guildford Dudley, son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, in a triple wedding at Durham Place…
[Read More...]On This day in Tudor history, 22nd May, Edward Seymour, brother of Queen Jane Seymour, was sworn in as a privy councillor; Franciscan friar John Forest was burnt at the stake; and four men, including the Earls of Hertford and Surrey, were installed as Knights of the Garter…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 18th May, Catherine Woodville, Duchess of Buckingham and Bedford, sister of Elizabeth Woodville, died, and scholar William Thomas was executed for treason after being implicated in Wyatt’s Rebellion…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 17th May, Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, was executed for treason; five men were executed as traitors for their involvement with Queen Anne Boleyn; and Elizabethan spy Anthony Bacon was buried…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 11th May, Henry VIII flung accusations at the clergy; the Grand Jury of Kent met in the fall of Anne Boleyn; two Carthusian monks were hanged in chains; and royal physician Dr Thomas Wendy died…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 8th May, herald and chronicler Charles Wriothesley was born; there was war panic in London; and Elizabeth I gave her approval to the Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy…
[Read More...]On this day in history, Edmund Beaufort was executed, bringing the male Beaufort line to an end; Sir James Tyrell, a man who allegedly confessed to murdering the Princes in the Tower, was executed; Anne Boleyn allegedly wrote a letter from the Tower; and Henry VIII ordered The Great Bible “to be had in every churche”…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 4th May, claimant Edmund de la Pole was executed; four monks and a priest were executed for rejecting royal supremacy; an imprisoned George Boleyn received a letter and two more men joined him in the Tower; and Bess of Hardwick was buried…
[Read More...]On this day in history, 3rd May, Cecily Neville, Duchess of York and mother of Edward IV and Richard III, was born; Archbishop Cranmer wrote of his shock about the investigation into Anne Boleyn; Sir Edward Rogers, a man who served three Tudor monarchs, died; and poet and farmer Thomas Tusser died…
[Read More...]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…
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 27th April, writs were issued summoning Parliament and a bishop consulted about Henry VIII abandoning Anne Boleyn; Elizabethan lawyer and judge David Lewis died; and adventurer Sir Edward Michelborne died…
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