On this day in Tudor history, 15th December, Cardinal Reginald Pole, Mary I’s Archbishop of Canterbury and her chief advisor, was buried at Canterbury Cathedral (1558), and Thomas Parry, Elizabeth I’s comptroller of the household and loyal servant, died of “sheer grief” (1560)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 14th December, the six-day-old daughter of James V of Scotland became Mary, Queen of Scots, on her father’s death (1542), and Queen Mary I was buried at Westminster Abbey (1558)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 11th December, Henry VIII’s bride-to-be, Anne of Cleves, was received in a lavish ceremony at Gravelines (1539), and Lady Douglas Sheffield, one-time lover (and perhaps wife!) of Robert Dudley, and the mother of his illegitimate son, was buried (1608)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 8th December, Sir William Coffin, Master of the Horse to Queens Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour, died (1538), and Mary, Queen of Scots, was born at Linlithgow Palace (1542)…
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On This day in Tudor history, 7th December, Mary, Queen of Scots’ second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was born (1545), and rebel leader Robert Kett was hanged from the walls of Norwich Castle (1549)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 5th December, Anne de Vere (née Cecil), wife of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and daughter of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, was born (1556), and King Francis II of France, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, died of an ear infection (1560)…
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On this in Tudor history, 2nd December, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was arrested after being accused of improper heraldry (1546), and Elizabeth I finally agreed to a public proclamation of sentence against Mary, Queen of Scots: death (1586)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 28th November, claimant Edward Plantagenet, son of the late Duke of Clarence, was executed for treason on Tower Hill (1499), and MP and political agent Francis Yaxley drowned while bringing gold to Mary, Queen of Scots (1565)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 24th November, Elizabeth of York’s coronation procession took place in London (1487), and Scottish Reformer, clergyman and founder of Presbyterianism, John Knox, died at his home in Edinburgh (1572)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 20th November, Elizabeth I’s Lord Chancellor and favourite, Sir Christopher Hatton, a man she called her “mouton”, died (1591); and her godson, author, courtier and a man who invented a flush toilet, Sir John Harington, died (1612)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 17th November, Queen Mary I died at St James’s Palace, London, and her half-sister, Elizabeth, became Queen Elizabeth I. Elizabeth would reign for over forty-four years (1558)…
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On this day in history, 16th November, Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland, a man who’d been involved in the Rising of the North against Elizabeth I, died in exile (1601); and William Stafford, who’d allegedly plotted the Stafford Plot against Elizabeth I, died (1612)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 15th November, Katherine of York, Countess of Devon, died at Tiverton Castle (1527); and Pope Clement VII threatened Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn with excommunication because Henry VIII had defied the pope’s instructions (1532)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 12th November, Queen Jane Seymour’s remains were taken from Hampton Court Palace to Windsor Castle for burial (1537); and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, “Wily Winchester”, died (1555)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 9th November, Queen Catherine of Aragon suffered a stillbirth (1518); and the Rising of the North against Queen Elizabeth I began (1569)…
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On this day in history, 29th October, Henry VIII bid farewell to his “loving brother”, his French counterpart, Francis I (1532); and courtier, explorer, author and soldier Sir Walter Ralegh was executed (1618)…
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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, 9th October, Henry VIII’s sister, Mary Tudor, married Louis XII of France at Abbeville; and Miguel de Cervante, author of Don Quixote, was baptised in Alcalá de Henares…
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On this day in Tudor history, 29th September, Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, papal legate, arrived in England ready to hear the case for Henry VIII’s annulment; and Elizabeth I made her favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester so that he could marry Mary, Queen of Scots…
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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, 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, 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, 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, 15th September, John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, cardinal and Henry VII’s Lord Chancellor, died; and in the French Wars of Religion, the Battle of Arques began…
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On this day in Tudor history, 12th September, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s trial started in Oxford – he was in big trouble! And Protestant reformer and leading politician in the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, Archibald Campbell, 5th Earl of Argyll, died suddenly at Barbreck…
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On this day in Tudor history, 11th September, Mary, Queen of Scots, began a rather eventful first royal progress in Scotland; and Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 2nd Baron of Upper Ossory, a good friend of Edward VI, died in Dublin…
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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, 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, 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, 23rd August, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn visited Acton Court on their royal progress, and Francis Talbot, 5th Earl of Shrewsbury, arrived at the Siege of Haddington, in East Lothian, Scotland, with a large army of Crown forces…
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