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

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...

Also on this day in Tudor history, 17th December 1538, Pope Paul III announced the excommunication of King Henry VIII.

Henry VIII had been threatened with excommunication several times, but his desecration of one of the holiest shrines in Europe was the final straw for the pope.

Find out how Henry VIII, who had once been "Defender of the Faith", had upset the Pope in this video...