27 October – Anne Boleyn makes an entrance

On this day in Tudor history, Sunday 27th October 1532, Anne Boleyn, Marquess of Pembroke, made a dramatic entrance to the great banquet held by King Henry VIII in Calais in honour of King Francis I of France.

I share details from contemporary sources regarding the banquet and the masque that followed. Anne Boleyn definitely knew how to make and entrance and the English ladies must have looked spectacular. You'll recognise some of the names of Anne's ladies and those present in Calais.

Also on this day in history:

• c.1467 – Desiderius Erasmus, humanist, Catholic priest, classical scholar and theologian, was born on the night of the 27th/28th October in Rotterdam. His works included Enchiridion militis Christiani, or the "Handbook of the Christian Soldier" (1503), “The Praise of Folly” (1511), Institutio principis Christiani (1516) and Sileni Alcibiadis (1515).
• 1526 – Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall presided over the burning of Lutheran books, such as William Tyndale’s New Testament, at St Paul’s. He had issued an edict commanding that copies of the English New Testament should be found and delivered to him because members of Luther’s sect had “translated the new Testament into our English tongue, entermedling there with many heretical articles and erroneous opinions… seducing the simple people.”
• 1538 – Baptism of Sir John Brograve, lawyer and member of Parliament, at St Mildred Poultry, London.
• 1561 – Birth of Mary Herbert (née Sidney), Countess of Pembroke, writer and literary patron, at Tickenhall, near Bewdley in Worcestershire. She was the daughter of Sir Henry Sidney and his wife, Mary (née Dudley), daughter of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and sister of the poet Sir Philip Sidney. She married Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, in 1577. Her known works include her “Psalmes”, her translations “A Discourse of Life and Death” and “Antonius”, and “A dialogue between two shepherds, Thenot and Piers, in praise of Astrea”, which was a pastoral dialogue written in praise of Elizabeth I.