On this day in Tudor history, 25th September, explorer, navigator and naval administrator Stephen Borough was born; and Pope Clement VII died in Rome. It was rumoured that he died from eating death cap mushrooms or from fumes from poisoned candles…
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On this day in Tudor history, 24th September, Arthur Tudor, eldest son of Henry VII, was christened at Winchester Cathedral; and Roman Catholic priest William Spenser was executed along at York with layman Robert Hardesty who’d sheltered him…
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On this day in Tudor history, Henry VIII rode triumphantly through the streets of Boulogne after the French surrendered it to him; and Edward Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon, a prospective bridegroom for both of Henry VIII’s daughters, died…
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On this day in Tudor history, 10th September, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was christened at Greenwich; and England defeated the Scots at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh during the War of the Rough Wooing…
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On this day in Tudor history, 8th September, Amy Dudley (née Robsart), wife of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, died after falling down some stairs; and John Shakespeare, father of playwright William Shakespeare, was buried at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon…
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On this day in Tudor history, Elizabethan actor and famous clown Richard Tarlton died; and writer and playwright Robert Greene, who dubbed Shakespeare an “upstart crow”, died…
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On this day in Tudor history, 1st September, Henry VIII elevated Anne Boleyn to the peerage, making her Marquess of Pembroke; and Elizabethan actor and theatre entrepreneur Edward Alleyn was born…
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On this day in Tudor history, 29th August, Geoffrey Pole, son of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, and brother of the out-of-favour Cardinal Reginald Pole, was arrested; and it was the Feast of the beheading of St John the Baptist, a Tudor holy day…
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On this day in Tudor history, 24th August, Cecily, Viscountess Welles, or Cecily of York, third daughter of Edward IV, died, and thousands of French Huguenots were brutally murdered in the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre…
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On this day in Tudor history, 20th August, in Elizabethan London, a thanksgiving service was held for England’s victory over the Spanish Armada, and James VI of Scotland married Anne of Denmark by proxy at at Kronborg Castle, Helsingør, Denmark…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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”…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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