On this day in Tudor history, Queen Catherine of Aragon suffered a stillbirth, Henry VIII’s death was announced and Edward VI proclaimed king, and some more Gunpowder Plotters were executed…
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#OTD in Tudor History – 31 January
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31 January – The great devil of all and Catherine of Aragon loses a baby girl
On this day in history, 31st January 1606, Gunpowder Plot conspirators Thomas Winter, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, and Guy Fawkes were executed for treason at the Old Palace Yard, Westminster.
Two of them cheated the executioner and crowd by leaping at the gallows, but they still had awful ends.
Hear a contemporary account of their executions, including what they did and said, in this talk…
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31 January 1510 – Queen Catherine of Aragon gives birth to a stillborn daughter
On this day in history, 31st January 1510, Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII, gave birth to a stillborn daughter. It was her first pregnancy and she had been married to Henry for just over 7 months.
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The Pregnancies of Katherine of Aragon by Sarah Bryson
Sadly, on this day in history, on the 9th of November 1518, Katherine of Aragon, first wife of King Henry VIII, gave birth to a stillborn girl.
There are very few surviving details of Katherine’s pregnancy but Venetian Ambassador Sebastian Giustinian wrote that “This night the Queen was delivered of a daughter, to the vexation of as many as know it;—the entire nation looked for a prince.” A later report in the Venetian archives stated that: “The Queen had been delivered in her eighth month of a stillborn daughter, to the great sorrow of the nation at large”.
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Catherine of Aragon’s Stillbirth on 31 January 1510 – The Primary Source
On this day in history, 31st January 1510, Queen Catherine of Aragon gave birth to a still-born daughter. Although she had lost her baby, Catherine’s abdomen stayed rounded and actually began to increase in size, leading her physicians to conclude that she was still pregnant with the twin of the baby she’d lost. This was not true.
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I thought it would be interesting to share the primary source account of this event here.