On this day in Tudor history, 20th March, Catholic priest and martyr Cuthbert Mayne was baptised; Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley and Edward VI’s uncle, was executed for treason; and Mary Bassett, translator and granddaughter of Sir Thomas More, died…
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On this day in Tudor history, 20th March 1572, in Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, Mary Bassett (née Roper), translator and granddaughter of Sir Thomas More, died.
Mary’s education was praised by scholars Roger Ascham and Nicholas Harpsfield, and she presented Mary I with a copy of five books of Eusebius’s “Ecclesiastical History” which she had translated from Greek into English.
Mary, born in around 1523, was the daughter of Sir Thomas More’s beloved daughter, Margaret, or Meg, who married William Roper. More, being a humanist, had provided an excellent education for his daughter and Meg did the same with Mary, making sure that she learnt Greek and Latin.
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What I loved about researching my book On This Day in Tudor History was the fact that I kept stumbling across people and events I knew very little about, and people and events I wanted to know more about. One of the people that piqued my interest was Mary Roper Clarke Bassett (or Basset), the 16th-century scholar and translator whose education was praised by the likes of Roger Ascham and Nicholas Harpsfield, and who presented Queen Mary I with a copy of five books of Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History which she had translated from Greek into English.
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