On this day in Tudor history, 24th June 1532, the feast of St John the Baptist, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and favourite of Elizabeth I, was born.
Elizabeth I called Leicester her “eyes” and “sweet Robin” and there was gossip over their relationship, but there was far more to Robert Dudley than his closeness to the queen. Find out all about his life and career in today’s talk:
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Hello, Claire here! I’m celebrating reaching 25,000 YouTube subscribers today by having a bit of fun at Tim’s expense, although I am allowing Henry VIII and William Shakespeare to help him a bit.
Play along with us and see whether you can do better than Tim with these Tudor history questions (surely you can!). Get 1 point for each correct answer and question 16 is worth a possible 3 points. The questions are below, and then the answers below that, so please don’t look ahead! Good luck!
I would just like to say a big thank you for following this channel. I feel so blessed to be able to talk Tudor with you.
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16th April:
1512 – The Mary Rose began her first tour of duty in the English Channel on the hunt for French warships.
1521 – German Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, appeared in front of Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms. He had been summoned to the diet to either recant or reaffirm his religious views.
1550 – Birth of Francis Anthony, alchemist, apothecary and physician. He was probably born in London and was the son of Derrick Anthony, a goldsmith. Anthony was imprisoned twice for practising as a physician without a licence, and is known for his aurum potabile (drinkable gold), made from gold and mercury, which he claimed had amazing curative powers. His works included Medicinae chymicae et veri potabilis auri assertio (1610).
1570 – Baptism of Guy Fawkes, conspirator, at the Church of St Michael le Belfrey in York.
1578 – Burial of Thomas Drant, Church of England clergyman and poet. He was part of the “Areopagus” intellectual circle at court, but also had an ecclesiastical career and was chaplain to Edmund Grindal, Bishop of London. He is known for his work on prosody (metre), and actually drew up some rules concerning it, which were mentioned by Edmund Spenser, Gabriel Harvey, Philip Sidney, Edward Dyer and Fulke Greville.
1587 – Death of Anne Seymour (née Stanhope), Duchess of Somerset and wife of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector during part of Edward VI’s reign. Anne was a reformer and a literary patron. She died at Hanworth Place and was buried at Westminster Abbey.
1595 – Death of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby and literary patron. His sudden death caused rumours of poisoning and witchcraft, but nothing was ever proved. Stanley was patron of the Strange’s Men company of players, which probably included William Shakespeare, and he was also a patron of poets. It is thought that he also was a poet.
A recent BBC Four documentary examined the tragic life of England’s Forgotten Queen, Lady Jane Grey, who was proclaimed queen in July 1553 and beheaded seven months later for unlawfully usurping the throne from Mary I. The circumstances in which Jane succeeded her cousin Edward VI derived in part from Henry VIII’s Acts of Succession (1536 and 1544) and his last will and testament, which was finalised a month before his death. After stipulating that his crown should pass to Edward, Henry intended that his daughters Mary and Elizabeth would successively reign in the event of Edward dying childless. Henry also instructed that the descendants of his younger sister Mary should inherit the throne if all three of his children died without heirs: thus Mary’s daughters Frances and Eleanor and their offspring. Lady Jane Grey was, of course, the eldest daughter of Frances. Her two sisters Katherine and Mary would represent a rival succession in Elizabeth I’s reign, and the Tudor queen imprisoned both women on account of what she perceived as their dynastic pretensions. As a result of his Acts and his will, Henry made it possible for the monarch to appoint their successor based on personal preferences. Edward took this one step further in 1553 by disregarding the claims of his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth, and instead nominating the Grey line.
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Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland, was born on 28th November 1489 at Westminster Palace. Her parents were King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, and she was the couple’s second child and eldest daughter. The couple named her Margaret after her paternal grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, and she was baptised at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, on 30th November.
Margaret spent her childhood at Sheen and at Eltham Palace but was sent to Scotland at the age of thirteen to marry King James IV following the 1502 Treaty of Perpetual Peace between England and Scotland. Margaret and James were married by proxy on 25th January 1503 at Richmond Palace and Margaret set off from Richmond Palace to travel to Scotland on 27th June 1503, spending eleven days with her grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, at Collyweston in Northamptonshire on the way. Stops included Grantham, York, Durham, Newcastle and Berwick, which was, at the time, held by England. Margaret arrived in Scotland on 1st August and the wedding took place took place in the chapel of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, on 8th August 1503. The marriage ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Glasgow and the papal bulls were read by the Archbishop of York.
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It used to be thought that Robert Dudley, fifth son of the thirteen children of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and Jane Guildford, daughter of Sir Edward Guildford, was born on the same day as Queen Elizabeth I, i.e. 7th September 1533, but it is now believed that he was born on 24th June 1532 or 1533, with 1532 being the most likely.1
Robert received a humanist education and his tutors included the likes of John Dee, Thomas Wilson, Roger Ascham, and Robert’s uncle, Sir Francis Jobson, and he was brought up as a Protestant. He could write and speak Italian fluently, had knowledge of French and Latin, and had a keen interest in navigation, engineering and mathematics. He married Amy Robsart, his sweetheart, on the 4th June 1550 in the presence of King Edward VI.
In July 1553, on the death of Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, wife of Robert’s brother, Guildford Dudley, became queen but her reign lasted just thirteen days because Mary I seized the throne. Guildford, Jane and Robert’s father, John Dudley, were later executed. Robert was imprisoned and condemned to death but was released in autumn 1554. He served the queen fighting in the Battle of St Quentin in August 1557.
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Lettice Knollys was born on 8 November 1543 at Rotherfield Greys in Oxfordshire. She was the eldest of sixteen children born to Sir Francis Knollys and his wife, Katherine Carey. Lettice’s mother was the daughter of Mary Boleyn, meaning that Lettice was the great niece of Anne Boleyn. She was also a kinswoman of Elizabeth I. Francis and Katherine Knollys departed for the Continent in the mid-1550s to escape the religious persecution during Mary I’s reign, but it is possible that Lettice remained with Elizabeth Tudor at Hatfield. When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558, Francis was appointed vice-chamberlain and Katherine, who was close to the queen, was appointed a lady of the bedchamber. Lettice, now in her teens, served as a gentlewoman of the privy chamber.
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17th April:
1534 – Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor, was sent to the Tower of London after refusing to swear the “Oath of Succession”.
1554 – Sir Nicholas Throckmorton was acquitted of treason for being involved in Wyatt’s Rebellion. The jurors were arrested straight after the trial and Throckmorton remained in prison until January 1555.
1554 – Thomas Wyatt the Younger’s head was stolen in the rejoicing after Throckmorton’s acquittal.
On this day in 1543, the Treaties of Greenwich were signed. In these treaties between England and Scotland, it was agreed that Prince Edward, the future Edward VI, would marry Mary, Queen of Scots.
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Henry VIII’s six wives are as popular as ever. In the 2016 History Hot 100 recently compiled by BBC History Magazine, no less than four of the notorious Tudor king’s consorts featured. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, wife number two Anne Boleyn finished highest, at number 4. Katherine Parr came in at number 31, Katherine of Aragon at 36, and Anne of Cleves at 38.
Tudormania, as coined by a Guardian article, is pervasive. The general public and historians alike cannot get enough of the Tudors. But our obsession with this colourful dynasty, by and large, centres on a handful of characters that dominate films, novels and articles. This confinement of our focus is starkly revealed in the Hot 100: the top Tudor figures are, unsurprisingly, Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell.
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Today is the anniversary of the death of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, at his home in London in 1598. Here is a bio of this extraordinary Tudor man:
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On 20th June 1567, a few days after Scottish rebels apprehended Mary, Queen of Scots, servants of James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, allegedly found a silver casket of eight letters, two marriage contracts (which apparently proved that Mary had agreed to marry Bothwell before his divorce) and twelve sonnets. The casket was found in the possession of James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell and third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.
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Lacey Baldwin Smith has written that “Tudor portraits bear about as much resemblance to their subjects as elephants to prunes.” A slight exaggeration, maybe. But it is true that the historical accuracy of the depictions in Tudor portraits, particularly of royalty, was often at war with “symbolic iconizing”—the use of imagery to represent the person’s character, position or role.
The symbolism could include inscriptions, emblems, mottos, relationships with other people, animals, or objects, and it could also be written into the body itself. A famous example is Hans Holbein’s sketch of Henry VIII—the painting itself was destroyed in a fire—with the king posed to emphasize his power, authority, and resoluteness: legs spread and firmly planted, broad shoulders, one hand on his dagger, and a very visible codpiece (larger, art historians have noted, than portraits of other men at the time.) His stance, as Suzanne Lipscomb points out, “mimics the stance of a man standing in full armour…sparking associations with martial glory.” Lipscomb also points out an interesting detail: in the draft sketch, Henry’s face is turned to a ¾ angle. But in the final painting, as we know from 16th century copies done within Henry’s lifetime, Holbein has Henry looking straight ahead, confronting the spectator with an unblinking stare that is still symbolic of masculinity today.
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Elizabeth I is one of England’s most well-known monarchs. She was the daughter of the infamous King Henry VIII and his second wife the illustrious Queen Anne Boleyn, who was executed when Elizabeth was just two years old.
Elizabeth reigned for almost forty-five years and was the last monarch of the Tudor Dynasty, having died childless. Her reign is famous as ‘The Golden Age’, for its blooming of the arts with the origins of Renaissance drama and for producing the most famous playwrights of the era, such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe.
[Read More...]On this day in Tudor history, 3rd March 1528, Margaret Tudor, sister of King Henry VIII and widow of King James IV of Scotland, married for the third time.
Margaret, 38 years old, had already been twice married. Her first husband, King James IV of Scotland, had died at the Battle of Flodden in 1513, leaving her as regent for their young son, James V. However, her controversial second marriage to Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, led to political turmoil. The Scottish nobility opposed the match, and she lost her position as regent. When she returned to Scotland after a brief stay in England, she discovered that Angus had been living openly with a former lover, Lady Jane Stewart. Determined not to remain in an unhappy marriage, Margaret fought for an annulment, despite opposition from none other than her own brother, Henry VIII, who at the time did not believe in divorce.
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Murder, political betrayal, royal intrigue… The life of Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, had it all. He was a survivor in a dangerous world, navigating the courts of Elizabeth I and James I, escaping imprisonment five times, and playing a shadowy role in one of the most scandalous murder cases of the 17th century.
But who was he? And how did he go from being a suspected traitor to one of the most powerful men in England? Stick around as we uncover the secrets of this Tudor earl—his rise, his rivalries, and his connection to a deadly conspiracy…
Birthday boy Henry Howard was born into one of England’s most prestigious families on 24th February 1540. But that didn’t mean his life was destined to be easy… because his family was already marked by treason.
His father? None other than Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey—the poet and courtier executed by Henry VIII in 1547 for alleged treason. His brother? Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk—executed by Elizabeth I for plotting to marry Mary, Queen of Scots. With this kind of family history, you’d think Henry would learn to stay away from treasonous schemes… but you’d be wrong.
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On this day in Tudor history, 19th February 1567, while imprisoned in the Tower of London, Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, received devastating news – her son, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, King of Scotland, had been brutally murdered at Kirk o’ Field in Edinburgh.
But this wasn’t just the loss of a son, it was the destruction of her dynastic ambitions, the shattering of her hopes for the future, and yet another chapter of heartbreak in Margaret’s turbulent life.
So, who was Margaret Douglas, why was she in the Tower, and what did this moment mean for her—and for the tangled web of Tudor and Stuart politics?
Margaret Douglas was no ordinary noblewoman, she was a granddaughter of Henry VII, and the daughter of Margaret Tudor (Henry VIII’s sister) and her second husband, Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus. This made her a first cousin to Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I, and a serious contender for the English throne in the eyes of many.
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Today marks the anniversary of the accession of the late Queen Elizabeth II on 6th February 1952. She was the longest reigning monarch in British history, ruling from this day in 1952 until her death in September 2022. As we reflect on her remarkable reign, I thought it would be fitting to explore an intriguing piece of history—the present royal family’s descent from both the Tudors and the Boleyns.
Yes, you heard that right! King Charles III has Tudor blood AND Boleyn blood.
But wait—how is that possible? The last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I, died childless, and as we all know, she was Anne Boleyn’s only surviving child. So where does the royal family’s Tudor-Boleyn connection come from?
Let’s unravel this fascinating royal lineage…
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On 4th February 1495, Anne of York, daughter of Edward IV and sister of Queen Elizabeth of York, married Thomas Howard, the future 3rd Duke of Norfolk, at Westminster Abbey. But this was far more than just a romantic union—it was a strategic marriage with deep political significance.
It was an unlikely match. Anne was the sister-in-law of King Henry VII, and Thomas Howard’s father and grandfather had fought against Henry at the Battle of Bosworth Field just ten years earlier.
So why did Henry VII allow this marriage? And what did it mean for the future of the Howard family?
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England, November 1605. A daring plot is uncovered—a conspiracy to blow up the king, his court, and Parliament itself. It was a scheme so bold, so dangerous, that its failure sent shockwaves across the nation.
But the story doesn’t end with Guy Fawkes in the cellars of Parliament. On this day in history, 30th January 1606, four of his fellow conspirators met their gruesome fate at St Paul’s Churchyard in London, their executions serving as a chilling reminder of what happens to those who dare to betray the crown. Their names were Everard Digby, Robert Wintour, John Grant, and Thomas Bates, and their plot sought to strike at the very heart of England’s monarchy and government. But what led these men to such a grim fate? And why does the Gunpowder Plot still echo through history? Let’s uncover the story.
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Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of England, was the most powerful man in the country during Edward VI’s reign. But how did the king’s uncle go from ruling in all but name to losing his head on Tower Hill on this day in 1552?
His is a story of ambition, betrayal, rebellion, and leadership gone wrong.
Let me tell you more…
Edward Seymour’s rise to power was nothing short of meteoric. As a trusted military commander, a staunch Protestant reformer, and, perhaps most importantly, the uncle of the young King Edward VI, he was perfectly positioned to influence the Tudor court. His closeness to Henry VIII in the king’s final years helped him secure his place among England’s most powerful men.
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On this day in history, in 1613, Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, died in Spain. She was buried in the monastery of Santa Clara at Zafra.
Jane had a fascinating life, going from being one queen’s close confidante to fleeing another queen’s reign, and leading Catholic exiles abroad. Let me tell you more about her.
Jane was born on 6th January 1538, in the reign of King Henry VIII, at Eythrope in Buckinghamshire. She was the daughter of Sir William Dormer and his first wife, Mary Sidney. Following her mother’s death in 1542, Jane was brought up by her paternal grandmother, Jane, Lady Dormer, and was given a Catholic upbringing, and in 1547, when she was just nine years old, she was admitted into the household of Princess Mary.
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On this day in Tudor history, 3rd January 1590, Robert Boyd, 5th Lord Boyd, died at Kilmarnock. This Scottish nobleman played a key role in the turbulent politics of Mary, Queen of Scots’ reign and beyond.
Once a supporter of Mary, Boyd later opposed her marriage to Lord Darnley and participated in a rebellion against the royal couple, only to be pardoned shortly after, and that wasn’t the only trouble he was involved in. Boyd’s complex legacy includes diplomacy, battles, and negotiations with Queen Elizabeth I.
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On this day in Tudor history, magistrate, sheriff and witch-hunter Brian Darcy died (1587), and Lettice Knollys (married names: Devereux, Dudley and Blount) died at the age of ninety one (1634)…
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On this day in Tudor history, Henry VII’s uncle and mentor, Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford and Earl of Pembroke, died (1495), and the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle (or Didymus or Doubting Thomas) was celebrated…
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