On this day in Tudor history, 16th April 1512, Henry VIII’s warship, The Mary Rose, began her first tour of duty in the English Channel on the hunt for French warships.

Here are some facts about The Mary Rose:

On this day in Tudor history, 14th April 1556, in the reign of Queen Mary I, former Constable of the Tower of London, Sir Anthony Kingston died at Cirencester.

Kingston was on his way to London to London to answer charges of treason when he died.

He’d been sent to the Tower for 2 weeks in December 1555 for “contemptuous behaviour and great disorder” in Parliament, but this time was more serious. He was accused of conspiring to rob the Exchequer for money to support Henry Dudley’s plot for an invasion of English exiles from France to topple Mary I and replace her with Elizabeth.

He was lucky to die a natural death, his fellow conspirators were executed.

On this day in history, 13th April 1630, seventy-three-year-old priest harbourer Anne Howard, Countess of Arundel, died at her home, the manor of Shifnal in Shropshire. She was laid to rest in the Fitzalan Chapel at Arundel Castle.

Here are some facts about this noblewoman…

On this day in history, 11th April 1609, in the reign of King James I, conspirator, patron and collector, John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley, died at his London home.

Lumley made a garden in honour of Elizabeth I, as an apology to her, and is known to have possessed a full-length portrait of Anne Boleyn.

Here are a few more facts about this Tudor baron…

On this day in Tudor history, 10th April 1586, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, sea captain Sir Bernard Drake died in Crediton, Devon, from probable typhus.

It appears that Drake caught the disease from Portuguese prisoners whose ships, laden with Brazilian sugar, he’d captured on his voyage to the West Indies.

But who was Sir Bernard Drake and was he related to the more famous Sir Francis Drake?

On this day in history, 8th April 1608, in the reign of King James I, Magdalen Browne (née Dacre), Viscountess Montagu and patron of Roman Catholics, died at Battle in East Sussex, following a stroke she had suffered in January 1508.

Magdalen was buried at Midhurst.

Here are some facts about this Tudor lady:

On this day in Tudor history, 7th April 1498, King Henry VII’s contemporary, King Charles VIII of France, died.

Charles the Affable, as he was known, died after hitting his head on a lintel at the Chateau d’Amboise while on his way to watch a tennis match. He made it to the match, but after the game, he was taken ill, slipped into a coma and died. He’d been king since 1483.

On this day in Tudor history, 6th April 1523, in the reign of King Henry VIII, nobleman and courtier Henry Stafford, Earl of Wiltshire, died at the age of about 44.

Stafford died without issue so his earldom became extinct until 1529 when Thomas Boleyn, father of Anne Boleyn, was made Earl of Wiltshire.

On this day in Tudor history, 3rd April 1538, Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire, died at Baynard’s Castle in London, the home of Hugh Faringdon, the Abbot of Reading.

Elizabeth was about sixty-two years of age when she died, and her death came just less than two years after the executions of her daughter and son, Queen Anne Boleyn and George Boleyn, Lord Rochford.

On this day in Tudor history, 2nd April 1568, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Ambrose Cave, member of Parliament, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Knight of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, died at the Savoy. He was buried at Stanford after a funeral at the Savoy Chapel.

On this day in Tudor history, 1st April 1604, author and soldier Thomas Churchyard died in Westminster, London.

Churchyard started writing in the reign of Edward VI and some of his poems were published in “Tottel’s Miscellany”.

Churchyard was also an active soldier, serving with the Duke of Somerset in Scotland and fighting as a mercenary for Protestants in Europe.

Let me share with you a few facts about this man…

On this day in Tudor history, 31st March 1509, the dying Henry VII made his last will and testament at Richmond Palace, three weeks before his death.

The will was based on an earlier draft, with some new provisions added, for example, the addition of Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley to the list of executors.

On 27th March 1539, George Talbot, 4th Earl of Shrewsbury, was laid to rest in the Shrewsbury Chapel of St Peter’s Church, Sheffield.

Talbot is known for his loyalty to the king during the Pilgrimage of Grace uprisings, which was seen as crucial to the failure of the rebellion.

But let me tell you a bit more about this Tudor earl…

On 25th March 1584, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, letters patent were granted to Walter Ralegh giving him “free liberty and licence… to discover, search for, fynde out and view… landes, countries and territories”, for the benefit of himself, “his heyres and assignes forever.”

It went on to describe these territories: “such remote heathen and barbarous lands countries and territories not actually possessed of any Christian Prince and inhabited by Christian people”, and as Nancy Bradley Warren points out in her book “Women of God and Arms”, Elizabeth I and her government were not only granting Ralegh the right to colonise lands owned by the indigenous people, they were also giving him the right to take lands held by Spain, as they didn’t view Catholicism as true Christianity.

On this day in Tudor history, 24th March 1582, , Sir James Dyer, judge, law reporter, Member of Parliament and Speaker of the House of Commons, died at the age of 72. His other offices included King’s Sergeant-at-Law, Judge of the Common Pleas and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He was buried at Great Staughton Church in Huntingdonshire, next to his wife.

Dyer was Speaker of the House of Commons during the reign of King Edward VI and served as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas from January 1559 until his death.