The Tudor Society

This Week in History 29 September – 5 October

Robert Dudley

Robert Dudley

29 September

1528 – The papal legate, Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, landed at Dover on the Kent coast. He had arrived in preparation for hearing the case for the annulment of the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon at a special legatine court.
1558 – Death of George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham, soldier and landowner. He was buried at Cobham Church. Cobham acted as Lieutenant-General in spring 1544 when English forces invaded Scotland, and was made Deputy of Calais in June 1544. He was created a Knight of the Garter in 1549, and was on Edward VI's Privy Council. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London temporarily in 1554 after being implicated in Wyatt's Rebellion, but was released and fined.
1564 - Robert Dudley was made Earl of Leicester, an earldom which had been planned earlier in the year to make him more acceptable as a bridegroom to Mary, Queen of Scots. This earldom was an important one, having previously been held by royal princes like John of Gaunt and Henry of Bolingbroke (Henry IV).

30 September

Margaret Tudor

Margaret Tudor

1515 – Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII and former Queen Consort of James IV, fled to England. Margaret was pregnant with the child of her new husband, Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus. John Stewart, 2nd Earl of Albany, was acting as Regent for Margaret's son, the young James V, and had custody of the boy and his brother, Alexander.
1544 – Henry VIII returned to England after his victory in Boulogne. The French forces had surrendered on 13th September after a siege which lasted from 19th July.
1546 – Death of Sir Richard Long, member of Parliament and gentleman of Henry VIII's privy chamber.
1553 - Mary I's coronation procession from the Tower to Whitehall. The pageants and displays on Mary's route from the Tower to Whitehall included a triumphal arch decorated with verses praising her accession, created by the Genoese merchants; an image of Judith, the Israelite heroine, at Cornhill, created by the Florentines; conduits running with wine at Cornhill and Cheap, and the singing of verses in praise of the Queen at Cornhill and Cheap. At St Paul’s, the Queen was addressed by the Recorder of London and presented with a purse containing 1000 marks of gold by the Chamberlain. John Heywood, the playwright, delivered an oration in Latin and English at the school in St Paul’s Churchyard, and then at St Paul’s Gate choristers held burning perfumed tapers.
1585 – Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel and son of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, was received into the Catholic Church by Jesuit William Weston at Arundel Castle.

1 October

Mary I

Mary I

1500 – Death of John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, scholar and Royal Tutor, at Wisbech Castle. He was buried at Ely Cathedral, in the chantry chapel he had designed. Alcock had acted as tutor to Prince Edward, son of Edward IV, and had also been president of the Prince's Council at Ludlow. He was also Henry VII's first Chancellor and opened his first Parliament.
1505 – Death of Sir Henry Colet, merchant and Lord Mayor of London, at Stepney. He was buried there.
1526 – Birth of Dorothy Stafford, Lady Stafford, daughter of Henry Stafford, 10th Baron Stafford, and his wife, Ursula (née Pole). Dorothy married Sir William Stafford, widower of Mary Boleyn, in 1545. She served Elizabeth I as a gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber.
1553 - Mary I was crowned Queen at Westminster Abbey by Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester.

2 October

Richard III

Richard III

1452 - Richard III, the last Plantagenet king, was born at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire.
Richard was the youngest surviving child of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville. Richard claimed the English throne in June 1483, claiming that his brother Edward IV’s sons were illegitimate because Edward had been pre-contracted to another woman when he married Elizabeth Woodville. Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth on 22nd August 1485, and Henry Tudor claimed the throne as Henry VII.
1501 – Catherine of Aragon arrived in England, landing at Plymouth in Devon. She had come to England to marry Prince Arthur, the heir to the throne of England.
1514 – Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, set off from Dover to sail to France to marry King Louis XII. She was eighteen and he was fifty-two, and not in the best of health. They married on 9th October 1514, but the marriage was short-lived as Louis died in January 1515. Mary went on to marry Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, on the 3rd March 1515.
1518 – Treaty of London – Cardinal Wolsey’s treaty of “Universal” peace between France and England was signed.
1521 – Pope Leo X was given Henry VIII’s Assertio septem sacramentorum or “Defence of the Seven Sacraments” in Rome. This work led to Henry VIII being proclaimed Fidei Defensor or “Defender of the Faith”.
1528 – Publication of William Tyndale’s “The Obedience of the Christian Man and How Christian Rulers Ought to Govern” published by William Tyndale. This book said that rulers were accountable to God, not the Pope. Anne Boleyn owned a copy of this book, as well as Tyndale’s “New Testament”, and it is this book which she intended to show Henry VIII, marking key passages for his attention. The book got into his hands when it was confiscated from George Zouche, suitor of Anne Gainsford who had borrowed it from her mistress, Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII read it and declared “This book is for me and all kings to read.”
1536 – Start of the Lincolnshire Rising, the beginning of the Pilgrimage of Grace. It was sparked off by a sermon at evensong on the 1st October at St James’s Church, Louth, and by a visitation from a registrar on 2nd October. Mary Polito, author of “Governmental Arts in Tudor England” describes how Nicholas Melton, a local shoemaker who came to be known as “Captain Cobbler”, seized the registrar, burned his papers and then forced him and the priests to swear an oath of loyalty to the rebel cause. The rebels then marched to the nunnery at Legbourne where they took the royal commissioners hostage. The nunnery had been formally suppressed a few weeks earlier.

3 October

Cardinal Wolsey

Cardinal Wolsey

1518 - Cardinal Wolsey sang a mass to Henry VIII and the French ambassadors at St Paul's Cathedral in celebration of the treaty agreed between the two countries the previous day. The King and ambassadors also took oaths to the treaty.
1559 – Death of Sir William Fitzwilliam, Gentleman of Edward VI's Privy Chamber. He was buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
1584 – Death of Sir Gilbert Dethick, herald, Garter Principal King of Arms and diplomat, in London. He was laid to rest in the church of St Benet Paul's Wharf. Dethick's offices included Hampnes Pursuivant of Arms Extraordinary (1536), Rouge Croix Pursuivant of Arms in Ordinary (1540), Richmond Herald of Arms in Ordinary (1540), Norroy King of Arms (1547) and Garter Principal King of Arms (1550).

4 October

John Cheke

John Cheke

1507 – Birth of Sir Francis Bigod, leader of Bigod's Rebellion, at Seaton, Hinderwell, Yorkshire. Bigod led an uprising in Beverley, Yorkshire, in January 1537, following the Pilgrimage of Grace, and was executed in June 1537.
1531 – Baptism of Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby, at Lathom House, Lancashire. He was the eldest son of Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl of Derby, and his wife, Dorothy (née Howard). Derby served Elizabeth I as an Ambassador, Privy Councillor and Lord High Steward at the trial of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey.
1536 - There was trouble in Horncastle, Lincolnshire. This was part of what we know as the Lincolnshire Rising which, in turn, was part of the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion.
1539 – Signing of the marriage treaty between Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves.
1556 – John Cheke made a public recantation of his Protestant faith in front of Queen Mary I.
1581 – Death of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, at Itchel in Hampshire. He was buried at Titchfield.

5 October

Edward Seymour, Lord Protector

Edward Seymour, Lord Protector

1518 – Formal betrothal of Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, and the Dauphin of France.
1528 – Death of Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and Lord Privy Seal in the reign of Henry VII and at the beginning of Henry VIII's.
1549 – Edward Seymour, Protector Somerset, ordered a gathering of men at Hampton Court Palace, where he was lodged with the young Edward VI due to tensions mounting between Somerset and John Dudley, Earl of Warwick.
1553 – Parliament met in Mary I’s reign – It repealed the “treason act” of Edward VI’s reign, passed an act declaring the legitimacy of Mary I, reinstated the Mass in Latin, celibacy of the clergy and ritual worship. It was as if the reformation of Edward’s reign had never happened.
1555 – Death of Edward Wotton, physician and naturalist. He was buried in St Alban Church, Cheapside, London. Wotton is known for starting the study of zoology and his works included De differentiis animalium libri decem which he dedicated to Edward VI.
1598 – Burial of Thomas Crooke, Church of England clergyman, at St Mary Woolchurch in the chancel.
1605 – Death of Sir Edward Lewkenor, politician and Puritan patron, at Denham Hall from smallpox. He was laid to rest at Denham church.

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This Week in History 29 September – 5 October