On this day in Tudor history, 21st July 1586, explorer, navigator and privateer, Thomas Cavendish, set sail from Plymouth on his South Sea voyage. He set off with three ships and 123 men.

On this day in Tudor history, 18th July 1565, Katherine Ashley, or Astley, close friend and loyal servant of Queen Elizabeth I, died in London.

Katherine was the daughter of Sir Philip Champernowne of Modbury in Devon, and through him and her mother’s Carew family, was related to all the leading gentry in the West Country.

She joined Princess Elizabeth’s household in 1536 and served as governess. She married courtier John Ashley in around 1545. Their marriage was childless.

On this day in history, 17th July 1537, Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis, was burnt to death for treason on the castle hill at Edinburgh.

Janet had been charged with plotting to poison King James V, nephew of King Henry VIII, and assisting and corresponding with her brothers, Sir George Douglas and Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus.

On this day in Tudor history, 16th July 1517, the feast of St Francis, Frances Brandon was born at Hatfield. She was the eldest daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and Mary Tudor, widow of King Louis XII of France and sister of Henry VIII.

Frances married Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset (later Duke of Suffolk). They had three children: Jane, Katherine, and Mary.

On this day in Tudor history, 15th July 1573, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, architect and theatre designer Inigo Jones was born in London.

Jones is known for founding, what the Encyclopaedia Britannica describes as the English classical tradition of architecture. He is mainly known for his design of the Banqueting House, which was begun in 1619, the Queen’s House at Greenwich, which was begun in 1616 and was built for Queen Anne, wife of James I, and his stage design work, some of it in collaboration with Ben Jonson.

On this day in Tudor history, 14th July 1514, in the reign of King Henry VIII, Cardinal Christopher Bainbridge died in Rome of alleged poisoning. He was about 51 years old.

Bainbridge started his church career in Henry VII’s reign and became Archbishop of York in 1508. He was chosen as an executor of the king’s will.

On this day in Tudor history, 10th July 1561, Queen Elizabeth I visited the Tower of London mint to check on the progress of her new coins.

Debasement of coins had happened between 1544 and 1551, in the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, when the government was looking to fund foreign wars. The ratio of precious metal to alloy was reduced, so more coinage could be produced more cheaply, with the government pocketing the profit.

On 4th July 1623, Elizabethan composer, William Byrd died at Stondon Massey in Essex.

Byrd served as a gentleman of the Chapel Royal from 1572, and in 1575 he and fellow composer Thomas Tallis were granted a patent for the importing, printing, publishing, and sale of music, and the printing of music paper for a period of twenty-one years. They published a collection of 34 motets – 16 written by Tallis and 18 by Byrd, in 1575 as their first work.

On this day in Tudor history, 2nd July 1594, in the reign of Elizabeth I, Robert Scarlett (Old Scarlett), sexton at Peterborough Cathedral, was buried at the cathedral, apparently aged 98, although another source states that he was a bit younger.

A verse accompanying his portrait in the cathedral states that Scarlett buried two queens, Catherine of Aragon and Mary, Queen of Scots , but it is not known whether this is true. He is also said to have buried a court fool known as Edward the Fool.

On this day in Tudor history, 1st July 1536, Parliament gave the Second Act of Succession its first reading.

This act superseded the 1534 Act of Succession, which had made Mary, Henry VIII’s daughter by Catherine of Aragon, illegitimate and had appointed Elizabeth, his daughter by Anne Boleyn, as heir to the throne.

The new act declared the illegitimacy of both of Henry’s daughters. Both girls were now barred from the line of succession and, Elizabeth, like Mary, now lost her title of “princess”.

On this day in Tudor history, 30th June 1541, Henry VIII and his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, set off on their royal progress to the North.

The main aims of the progress were to meet Henry’s nephew, King James V of Scotland, at York in September, and to show the king’s authority in the north, following the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion, and to humiliate his subjects with displays of submission from them.

Here is my detailed video on this progress, which lasted from this day until the end of October, and was a huge undertaking with the whole royal court travelling from London as far north as York. It was on this progress that Catherine Howard had secret meetings with a member of her husband’s privy chamber, a certain Thomas Culpeper.

On this day in Tudor history, 27th June 1578, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, seventy-one-year-old William Bradbridge, Bishop of Exeter, died at Newton Ferrers in Devon. He was buried on the north side of Exeter Cathedral choir.

Bradbridge was about sixty-three when he was appointed, making him one of the oldest men to be made a bishop in Elizabeth’s reign.

As well as his religious work, Bradbridge enjoyed farming.

On this day in Tudor history, 26th June 1513, in the reign of King Henry VIII, landowner, administrator and soldier Sir Edmund Carew was buried in the church of St Nicholas in Calais.

Carew, who was about 49, was killed while serving as master of the ordnance in Henry VIII’s 1513 French campaign. The English force had pitched their tents a mile outside the town of Therouanne and chronicler Edward Hall records what happened next…