26th February:

1548 – Birth of courtier George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, son of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, and his wife, Anne. George was the grandson of Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne Boleyn.
1552 – Executions of conspirators Sir Thomas Arundell, Sir Michael Stanhope, Sir Miles Partridge and Sir Ralph Fane. Arundell and Stanhope were beheaded on Tower Hill, while Partridge and Fane were hanged. They were condemned as traitors after being accused of conspiring with Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, against John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.
1564 – Christopher Marlowe, poet, translator and playwright, was baptised at St George’s Canterbury. Marlowe was the second child of John Marlowe, shoemaker, and his wife, Katherine. Marlowe’s works included “Tamburlaine”, “Dr Faustus”, “The Jew of Malta” and “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love”. Click here to see a Claire Chats video on Christopher Marlowe.
1608 – Death of John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells, in the palace at Wells. He was buried in Wells Cathedral.
1619 – Death of Edmund Bunny, clergyman, preacher and theological writer, at Cawood, Yorkshire. He was buried in York Minster. His works included “The Whole Summe of Christian Religion” (1576), “A Book of Christian Exercise, Appertaining to Resolution” (1584) and “A Briefe Answer, unto those Idle and Frivolous Quarrels of R.P.” (1589), a response to Jesuit Robert Person.

19th 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.
1547 – King Edward VI rode from the Tower of London to Westminster in preparation for his coronation the next day. Click here to read more.
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 playhouse, 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.

12th February:

1554 – Executions of Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley for treason. They were buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula at the Tower of London.
1567 – Death of Sir Thomas White, founder of St John’s College, Oxford, and former Lord Mayor of London, at his property in Size Lane, London. He was buried in St John’s College Chapel.
1584 – Executions of five Catholic priests, including James Fenn. They were hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. Fenn was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929.
1590 – Death of Blanche Parry, chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, at the age of eighty-two. She was buried in St Margaret’s, Westminster, with funeral rites which were usually reserved for a baroness. She has a monument in St Margaret’s and also one in Bacton Church, her home village in Herefordshire, which bears an inscription of twenty-eight lines of verse recording Blanche’s service to her beloved Queen.
1611 – Probable date of death of Sir Henry Lee, Queen’s Champion from c.1580 to November 1590. He was buried at Quarrendon in Buckinghamshire.

5th February:

1537 – Birth of diplomat Sir Henry Brooke, son of George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham, and his wife Anne Bray. Anne Bray was a lady in waiting to Anne Boleyn, and there is controversy over whether she was the “Nan Cobham” who was one of the Queen’s accusers in 1536. In Elizabeth I’s reign, Brooke was made a gentleman pensioner and carried out embassies to Spain, the Low Countries and France for her. In October 1579, Elizabeth appointed him as her resident ambassador in France, until he was replaced by Sir Edward Stafford in 1583.
1556 – Treaty of Vaucelles between Philip II of Spain and Henry II of France. By the terms of this treaty, Henry II had to relinquish Franche-Comté to Philip, but the treaty was quickly broken.
1557 – Death of Sir William Portman, Judge and Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales from 1555. He was buried at St Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet Street, London.
1576 – Henry of Navarre, the future Henry IV of France, abjured Catholicism at Tours, rejoining the Protestant forces, following his escape from Paris on 3rd February.
1605 – Death of Sir Edward Stafford, son of Sir William Stafford (Mary Boleyn’s second husband) and his second wife Dorothy Stafford. Edward was an MP and diplomat, and there is controversy over his “spying” activities during the Armada and exactly how much information he passed to Mendoza. He was buried in St Margaret’s, Westminster.