This week in history 16 – 22 February

16 February

1495 – Execution of Sir William Stanley by beheading on Tower Hill. He had been found guilty of treason for allegedly supporting the pretender Perkin Warbeck. Stanley is known for his change of sides at the Battle of Bosworth, when he decided to fight with Henry Tudor against Richard III.
1497 – Birth of Philipp Melancthon, German reformer, scholar and friend and colleague of Martin Luther, at Bretten, near Karlsruhe.
1547 - Henry VIII’s body was interred in a vault in St George's Chapel Windsor, alongside that of his third wife, Jane Seymour.
1560 – Death of Jean du Bellay, diplomat and Bishop of Paris, in Rome. He was buried in the church of Trinità dei Monti.
1587 – Funeral of Sir Philip Sidney, courtier and author, at St Paul's Cathedral.
1595 – Probable date of the death of Adam Hill, Church of England clergyman and religious writer. He was buried in Salisbury Cathedral on 19th February. His published works included “The Crie of England” and “The Defence of the Article”.

17 February

1547 - Edward Seymour, uncle of King Edward VI, was made Duke of Somerset.
1557 – Death of Henry Radcliffe, 2nd Earl of Essex, at Cannon Row, Westminster. He was buried firstly at St Laurence Pountney and then moved to Boreham in Essex.
1584 – Burial of John Watson, Bishop of Winchester, at Winchester. He was buried in the cathedral.
1590 – Death of Edward Leeds (Lydes), Rector of Croxton and Master of Clare College, Cambridge from 1560 to 1571. He died at his manor at Croxton in Cambridgeshire, and was buried at Croxton Church. Leeds had served Archbishop Matthew Parker as one of his chaplains.

18 February

1503 – Henry Tudor, the future Henry VIII, was created Prince of Wales.
1516 - Birth of Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, at Greenwich Palace.
1558 – Death of Sir George Barne, former Alderman and Lord Mayor of London. He was buried at St Bartholomew by the Exchange, London.
1561 – Death of Sir Thomas Denys, administrator. His offices included Comptroller to Princess Mary, Chancellor of Anne of Cleves' household, member of Parliament for Devon, Sheriff of Devon and Deputy Lieutenant of Devon and Cornwall.
1563 – Francis, Duke of Guise, was wounded by a Huguenot assassin. He died six days later.
1612 – Death of Roberto di Ridolfi, the merchant and conspirator famed for the Ridolfi Plot to assassinate Elizabeth I. He died in Florence, Italy.

19 February

1473 – Birth of Nicholas Copernicus, the Renaissance mathematician and astronomer, in Thorn, in the province of Royal Prussia, Poland. Copernicus is known for his theory of heliocentric cosmology, or the idea that the sun was stationary in the centre of the universe and that the earth revolved around it.
1546 – William Cavendish was appointed Treasurer of the Privy Chamber. He later claimed that he had paid £1000 for the position.
1567 – The imprisoned Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, was informed of the murder of her son, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, by William Cecil’s wife, Mildred, and Lady William Howard. The Spanish ambassador recorded that Margaret's grief was such “that it was necessary for the Queen to send her doctors to her”.
1592 - The Rose Theatre, an Elizabethan play house, was opened in London on Bankside.
1598 – Death of Jasper Heywood, Jesuit and poet, in Naples. Heywood had been deported to France in January 1585, after being imprisoned in the Tower of London for treason, and was then summoned to Rome. He never returned to England.
1601 – Death of Thomas Fanshawe, at Warwick Lane. He was buried in the south aisle of Ware church in Hertfordshire. Fanshawe was an Exchequer official during Elizabeth I's reign.

20 February

1516 – Baptism of Princess Mary, the future Mary I, in the Church of the Observant Friars at Greenwich. The princess was carried to the font by the Countess of Surrey, and her godparents were Catherine Courtenay, Countess of Devon and daughter of Edward IV; Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury and daughter of George, Duke of Clarence; the Duchess of Norfolk and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.
1523 – Hanging of Agnes Hungerford, Lady Hungerford, at Tyburn. Agnes was hanged, with her servant William Mathewe, after they were found guilty of murdering Agnes's first husband, John Cotell. It was said that Agnes arranged for her servants, William Mathewe and William Ignes, to strangle Cotell in 1518. Mathewe and Ignes were found guilty of murder ‘by the procurement and abetting of Agnes Hungerford’, and Agnes was found guilty of inciting and abetting the murder. Ignes was hanged at a later date. Agnes was buried at Grey Friars, London.
1547 - Edward VI was crowned King at Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. Edward VI was the first monarch to be anointed as Supreme Head of the English Church.
1552 – Death of Anne Herbert, sister of Catherine Parr and wife of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke. Anne died at Baynard’s Castle and was buried in St Paul’s. Anne was a maid of honour to Jane Seymour, keeper of the jewels to Catherine Howard and was serving the Lady Mary (future Mary I) at the time of her death.
1579 – Death of Sir Nicholas Bacon, lawyer, administrator, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and father of Sir Francis Bacon at Old Gorhambury House, the house he had built in Hertfordshire. He lay in state for nearly two weeks at York Place before being buried in St Paul's Cathedral.

21 February

1498 – Birth of Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of Westmorland. He was the second son of Ralph, Baron Neville, and his wife, Edith, daughter of Sir William Sandys of the Vyne. Westmorland served Henry VIII in the North, and was a member of the jury at the trials of George and Anne Boleyn in 1536.
1513 – Death of Pope Julius II from a fever. He was buried in St Peter's in the Vatican.
1549 – Death of Sir Richard Gresham, Mayor of London, mercer and merchant adventurer, at Bethnal Green. He was buried in the church of St Lawrence Jewry in London.
1568 – Burial of Katherine Seymour (née Grey), Countess of Hertford, at Yoxford. Her remains were later re-interred, by her grandson, in the Seymour family tomb at Salisbury Cathedral.
1579 – Death of Thomas Bentham, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, at Eccleshall, Staffordshire. He was buried in the chapel of the Episcopal Palace at Eccleshall.
1589 – Death of William Somerset, 3rd Earl of Worcester, in Clerkenwell, Middlesex. He was buried in Raglan parish church.
1590 - Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick, Master of the Ordnance, Privy Councillor and fourth son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, died at Bedford House on the Strand. He was laid to rest in the Beauchamp Chapel of the Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick.
1595 – The execution of Robert Southwell, Jesuit priest and writer, at Tyburn. He was hanged, drawn and quartered. Southwell was canonized in 1970.

22 February

1511 - Death of Henry, Duke of Cornwall, the fifty-two day-old son of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.
1540 – Marie de Guise, consort of James V of Scotland and mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, was crowned in Holyrood Abbey.
1571 – Death of John Bury, translator. He had never recovered from a fall from his horse in August 1570, which had resulted in him breaking a leg. He is known for his “The Godly Advertisement or Good Counsell of the Famous Orator Isocrates”, an English translation of Isocrates' Greek speech Ad demonicum.