30 December – Roger Ascham, Elizabeth I’s tutor

On this day in Tudor history, 30th December 1568, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Roger Ascham, scholar and royal tutor, died. He was laid to rest in the St Stephen’s chapel of St Sepulchre without Newgate, London.

Ascham served as tutor to Princess Elizabeth, the future Elizabeth I, and is also responsible for the idea that Lady Jane Grey had abusive parents.

Find out more about Roger Ascham, his life and career, in today's talk.

Also on this day in history:

• 1494 – Death of John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, Keeper of the Privy Seal, Lord Chancellor under Edward IV and Richard III, and Chancellor of Oxford University. He died at his episcopal manor in Nettleham, Lincolnshire, and was buried in Lincoln Cathedral.
• 1546 – Henry VIII signed his last will and testament, authorising the changes which he had ordered to be made by William Paget on 26th December.
• 1552 – Death of Francisco de Enzinas (humanist name Francis Dryander), Spanish humanist scholar, translator, author and Protestant apologist, at Strasbourg from the plague. He was buried there the next day. He had been a member of the household of Katherine Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, for a time, possibly teaching her son Charles, and Archbishop Cranmer paid him as a Greek Reader. While he was at Cambridge, in the late 1540s, Enzinas translated various ancient texts into Spanish before travelling to the Continent in 1549 to set up a publishing house in Strasbourg. There, he published at least nine classical and Biblical translations.
• 1553 – Death of Roger Barlow, Vice-Admiral of the Pembrokeshire coast and brother of William Barlow, Bishop of Chichester, at Slebech.
• 1594 – Death of Sir Thomas Scott, member of Parliament and deputy lieutenant of Kent. He was buried at Brabourne Church in Kent, but moved to the chapel of Scot's Hall, the family home in Smeeth, after the Civil War. Scott was also a Justice of the Peace, Commissioner of Piracy, Commissioner of Coastal Defence, Commissioner of Grain and Colonel-General of his county's forces during the Spanish Armada. He was also a keen horse breeder.
• 1600 – Death of Michael Heneage, member of Parliament, devout Protestant, archivist and antiquary, at Hoxton in Essex. He and his brother Thomas served as Joint Keepers of the Records in the Tower of London from 1576, and he also helped Robert Hare, Compiler of Cambridge University's records. Heneage delivered two papers, “of the Antiquity of Arms in England” and “of Sterling Money”, while he was a member of the Society of Antiquaries, and he also compiled “Collections out of various Charters, &c., relating to the Noble Families in England”.