On this day in Tudor history, 20th October, Lord Darcy yielded Pontefract Castle to the rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace, but all was not how it seemed (1536), and courtier Mary Arundell, a countess twice over, died at Bath Place in London (1557)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 18th October, Margaret Tudor, former Queen of Scotland and Henry VII’s eldest daughter, died at Methven Castle; and Elizabeth (future Elizabeth I) finally received permission from her half-sister Mary I to leave court and travel to Hatfield, rather than return to house arrest…
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On this day in Tudor history, 15th October, the infant Prince Edward (Edward VI) was christened in the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace (1537); and teacher and Welsh language poet Richard Gwyn (White) was hanged, drawn and quartered for his Catholic faith (1584)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 14th October, statesman, diplomat and poet Thomas Chaloner died (1563); and the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots began at Fotheringhay Castle (1586)…
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On this day in Tudor history, rebel leader Sir Francis Bigod was born; and the Lincolnshire Rising, the beginnings of the Pilgrimage of Grace, continued as trouble erupted in Horncastle…
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On this day in Tudor history, 28th September, Mary I and her half-sister, Elizabeth, travelled to the Tower of London to prepare for Mary’s coronation; and Elizabeth I’s favourite, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, strode into the queen’s bedchamber unannounced and saw her without her “mask of youth”…
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On this day in Tudor history, 26th September, Sir Francis Drake returned from his 3-year circumnavigation of the Globe; and Sir Amias Paulet, who had served as Mary, Queen of Scots’ gaoler, died…
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On this day in Tudor history, 21st September, theologian and chaplain Henry Pendleton, a man known for changing his faith, was buried; and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, married Lettice Devereux in secret…
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On this day in Tudor history, 20th September, Henry VII’s eldest son and heir, Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales, was born at Winchester; and Anthony Babington and his fellow Babington Plot conspirators were executed…
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On this day in Tudor history, Walter Devereux, 1st Viscount Hereford and a man with a distinguished court career, died at Chartley; and loyal courtier and soldier Henry Manners, 2nd Earl of Rutland, died during an outbreak of the plague…
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On this day in Tudor history, 13th September, famous Tudor poet and antiquary John Leland was born; and Elizabeth I’s chief advisor and “spirit”, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, was born…
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On this day in Tudor history, the English force defeated the Scots at the Battle of Flodden while Catherine of Aragon was regent (1513); and the infant Mary, Queen of Scots, was crowned queen at Stirling Castle (1543)…
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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, 7th September, Queen Anne Boleyn gave birth at Greenwich Palace to a daughter who would become Queen Elizabeth I; and forty-nine-year-old Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, married his fourteen-year-old ward, Catherine Willoughby…
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On this day in Tudor history, 6th September, famous reformer Martin Luther sent his treatise to Pope Leo X; Sir Francis Drake entered the Pacific Ocean; and physician, clergyman and inventor of modern shorthand, Timothy Bright, was buried…
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On this day in Tudor history, 5th September, Catherine Parr, Queen Dowager, died a few days after giving birth to her first child at Sudeley Castle; and Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London and a man known as “Bloody Bonner”, died in prison…
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On this day in Tudor history, 28th August, Edward VI’s half-sister, Mary, was ordered to stop celebrating the Catholic mass, and an ailing Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, wrote his final letter to his queen and childhood friend, Elizabeth I…
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On this day in Tudor history, 25th August, the rebels of Kett’s Rebellion launched at an attack on the city of Norwich, and Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, magnate, soldier and uncle of Queens Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, died at Kenninghall…
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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, the forces of Henry Tudor defeated those of King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, and John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, was executed for his part in putting his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, on the throne…
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On this day in Tudor history, 21st August, a bishop whose career spanned the reigns of three kings was forced to resign, and Humphrey Llwyd, the man behind the very first printed map of Wales, died…
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On this day in Tudor history, 18th August, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and former Lord President of the king’s council, was tried for treason and found guilty, and Virginia Dare, the first child born to English settlers in the New World, was born in the Roanoke colony…
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On this day in Tudor history, 15th August, Catholics Robert Wilcox, Edward Campion, Christopher Buxton and Robert Widmerpool, who’d become the Oaten Hill martyrs, were examined, and Lady Mary Scudamore (née Shelton), one of Elizabeth I’s favourite sleeping companions, was buried…
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On this day in Tudor history, 10th August, the English fleet’s flagship, the Mary Rose, saw battle for the first time in the Battle of Saint-Mathieu; the friars observant were expelled from their houses; Mary I held a requiem mass for Edward VI; and seven men died of drowning at London Bridge…
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On this day in Tudor history, Henry Tudor dropped anchor at Mill Bay in readiness to claim the throne of England; five-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots, set sail for France; and mariner and cartographer Sir Robert Dudley, illegitimate son of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was born…
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On this day in Tudor history, 4th August, thirteen men were executed at Tyburn, including Brother William Horne of the London Charterhouse and Giles Heron, a former ward of Sir Thomas More; the Battle of Woodbury Common took place; and William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley and chief advisor to Elizabeth I, died…
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On this day in Tudor history, 3rd August, Lord Russell marched his troops towards the Prayer Book rebels; the new queen, Mary I, processed with her half-sister Elizabeth through the streets of London; and notorious rake John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford, died…
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On this day in Tudor history, 26th July, courtier and solder George Talbot, 4th Earl of Shrewsbury, died; and 4,000 men gathered at Tilbury Fort to defend England against the Spanish Armada. It’s also the feast day of St Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary…
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