20 December – Edward Arden was hanged and Agnes Tilney begged King Henry VIII for forgiveness

On this day in Tudor history, 20th December 1583, the day after his son-in-law, John Somerville, had been found dead in his cell, Warwickshire gentleman Edward Arden was hanged, drawn and quartered at Smithfield.

Arden, who was related to William Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, and married to a member of the Throckmorton family, had been found guilty of treason, after being implicated in Somerville's plot to kill the queen.

But was Arden actually guilty? Why didn't others involved end up being executed too?

Find out more about Edward Arden and what happened in 1583, in this talk...

Also on this day in Tudor history, 20th December 1541, a “very sickly” Agnes Tilney, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, begged King Henry VIII for forgiveness.

The dowager duchess had been arrested and taken to the Tower accused of misprision of treason for hiding her stepgranddaughter Catherine Howard's past relationship with Francis Dereham.

Find out what she wrote to the king, and what happened to her, in this video...