The Tudor Society
  • 29 December -Elizabeth I’s rogue and champion and Japanese Pirates

    On this day in history, 29th December 1605, in the reign of King James I, forty-seven-year-old Tudor nobleman George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland was buried at Holy Trinity Church, Skipton, Yorkshire.

    Clifford was a courtier, naval commander, privateer, Elizabeth I’s champion and a man she called her “rogue”.

    Find out all about this Earl of Cumberland, his unhappy marriage, his voyages and what it meant to be the queen’s champion, in this talk…

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  • John Davis, navigator and explorer

    On this day in history, 29th December 1605, John Davis (Davys), navigator and explorer, died near Bintang, off the coast of Borneo. His ship, The Tiger, was attacked by Japanese pirates who killed Davis in hand-to-hand combat.

    Davis was one of the main Elizabethan navigators and explorers, and the Davis Strait in the Northwest Passage is named after him. He is also known for being the first Englishman to document a sighting of the Falkland Islands. Davis also wrote the 1594 The Seaman’s Secrets and The World’s Hydrographical Description (1595).

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