The Tudor Society
  • April 5 – A pope is declared wrong and a cook is boiled to death

    On this day in 1533, Convocation, ruled that the pope was wrong and that Henry VIII was right, i.e. it ruled that the Pope had no power to dispense in the case of a man marrying his brother’s widow, and that it was contrary to God’s law – Catherine of Aragon should not have been able to marry Henry VIII.

    This was just as well seeing as the king had got married to Anne Boleyn and she was pregnant with his child!

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  • 5 April – A bishop’s cook gets into hot water

    Sorry about the tongue-in-cheek title, but the cook of Bishop Fisher’s household really did get into hot water on this day in 1531 when he was boiled to death for high treason at Smithfield.

    He was found guilty of high treason by an act of Parliament, but why? What happened and why did King Henry VIII take a personal interest in this case?

    Find out all about Richard Roose and the case of poisoning in today’s video

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