The Tudor Society
  • #OTD in Tudor history – 7 April

    A still of Robert Aske from The Tudors series, a portrait of Charles VIII of France and a still of Elizabeth Boleyn from The other Boleyn Girl

    On this day in Tudor history, 7th April, Charles VIII of France died after hitting his head on a lintel; Robert Aske and Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy, were sent to the Tower of London for their parts in the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion; and Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire, was buried…

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  • #OTD in Tudor history – 3 April

    Miniature of Margaret Douglas by Nicholas Hilliard

    On this day in Tudor history, 3rd April, Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire and Ormond and Anne Boleyn’s mother, died; the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis was signed; and Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox and daughter of Margaret Tudor, was buried…

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  • April 3 – Death of Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire

    Kristin Scott Thomas as Elizabeth Boleyn in The Other Boleyn Girl

    On this day in Tudor history, 3rd April 1538, Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire, died at Baynard’s Castle in London, the home of Hugh Faringdon, the Abbot of Reading.

    Elizabeth was about sixty-two years of age when she died, and her death came just less than two years after the executions of her daughter and son, Queen Anne Boleyn and George Boleyn, Lord Rochford.

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  • April 7 – Robert Aske and Elizabeth Boleyn

    On this day in Tudor history, 7th April 1537, Robert Aske and Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy, were sent to the Tower of London.

    Both Aske and Darcy had been involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion of 1536, with Aske being “chief captain” of the rebels.

    Even though Henry VIII pardoned the rebels after negotiations in 1536, Darcy and Aske were arrested, imprisoned and executed as traitors.

    Find out more about what happened and more about Robert Aske, the rebel leader…

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  • Poet Thomas Churchyard, Sir Ambrose Cave, Elizabeth Boleyn and the knighting of Francis Drake

    In this second part of This Week in Tudor history, which covers 1st to 4th April, historian and author Claire Ridgway talks about Thomas Churchyard, a poet and soldier who kept being imprisoned; Sir Ambrose Cave, a man who joined the Order of St John as early as he possibly could, but survived its dissolution and ended his days serving Elizabeth I; before moving on to the death of Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire, mother of Queen Anne Boleyn and grandmother of Queen Elizabeth I, and finishing with the knighting of explorer Francis Drake.

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