The Tudor Society

  • March 26 – The Vestments Controversy

    1 year ago Author: Claire Ridgway
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    A portrait of Archbishop Matthew Parker by an unknown artist

    On this day in Tudor history, 26th March 1566, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Edmund Grindal, Bishop of London, summoned one hundred and ten ministers to Lambeth Palace to get them to pledge their willingness to wear vestments, as worn by the man in front of them: Robert Cole, a former non-conformist who now complied.

    The outfit consisted of a square cap, gown, tippet, and surplice. They were also asked “to inviolably observe the rubric of the Book of Common Prayer, and the queen’s majesty’s injunctions, and the Book of Convocation” and to commit to these orders on the spot, by writing “volo” or “no volo”.

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  • 17 December – A promise made to Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII’s excommunication

    2 years ago Author: Joel Ridgway
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    On this day in Tudor history, 17th December 1559, fifty-five-year-old Matthew Parker was consecrated as Queen Elizabeth I’s Archbishop of Canterbury. It was an office which Parker did not want and would not have accepted if “he had not been so much bound to the mother”.

    What did he mean by that?

    Well, when he was Anne Boleyn’s chaplain in 1536, the queen had met with him just six days before her arrest and he made her a promise.

    Find out more about Matthew Parker, his life and that meeting with Anne Boleyn, in this talk…

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  • Walter Raleigh’s colonisation, war over vestments, an earl who saved the day, and some burnings

    3 years ago Author: Claire Ridgway
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    In part two of this week in Tudor history, I talk about Walter Raleigh (Ralegh) being given permission to colonise foreign lands in 1584; a disagreement over the wearing of vestments in 1566 which led to a pamphlet war, protests and ministers losing their parishes; a Tudor earl who saved the day for Henry VIII during the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion, and the burnings of three Protestant martyrs in Essex in 1555.

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  • 17 December – A promise made to Anne Boleyn

    3 years ago Author: Claire Ridgway
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    On this day in Tudor history, 17th December 1559, fifty-five-year-old Matthew Parker was consecrated as Queen Elizabeth I’s Archbishop of Canterbury. It was an office which Parker did not want and would not have accepted if “he had not been so much bound to the mother”.

    What did he mean by that?

    Well, when he was Anne Boleyn’s chaplain in 1536, the queen had met with him just six days before her arrest and he made her a promise.

    Find out more about Matthew Parker, his life and that meeting with Anne Boleyn, in today’s talk:

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  • Elizabeth I, clerical marriage and religion

    4 years ago Author: Claire Ridgway
    3 Comments

    On 9th August 1561, while on a visit to Ipswich in Suffolk, Queen Elizabeth I issued injunctions forbidding women to reside in cathedrals and colleges. It was this “on this day” event that made me dig deeper into her injunctions, the reaction to them, and also her religious settlement and “middle way”.

    I hope you enjoy my Claire Chats video talk on this topic.

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