On this day in Tudor history, 9th June 1511, in the reign of Henry VIII, William Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon, died of pleurisy at Greenwich. He was buried at Blackfriars, London, with the honours due an earl, even though he hadn’t been officially invested yet.
Courtenay was Henry VIII’s uncle, having married Katherine of York, daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, and sister of Henry’s mother, Elizabeth of York.
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On this day in Tudor history, 8 June 1536, Henry VIII’s eldest daughter, Mary, wrote to her father in hope of a reconciliation now that her stepmother, Anne Boleyn, was dead.
Mary had been out of favour due to her refusal to accept the annulment of her parents’ marriage, her father’s supremacy and her status as illegitimate. She believed that Anne Boleyn was solely to blame for her troubles, writing that she understood that the king had “forgiven all her offences and withdrawn his displeasure”.
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On this day in Tudor history, 7th June 1594, Elizabeth I’s physician, Roderigo Lopez (Lopes), was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn after being accused by the Earl of Essex of conspiring with Spanish officials to poison the queen.
Portuguese Lopez settled in London in 1559. He was a physician at St Bart’s and then to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, before moving into Elizabeth’s employ.
In 1584, a Catholic tract attacking Leicester accused Lopez of poisoning, but it wasn’t true. However, he made an enemy of Essex after he told Spanish officials details of Essex’s health.
The charges against Lopez appear to be false. He maintained his innocence, and the queen seemed unsure of his guilt. It didn’t save him, though.
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On this day in Tudor history, 6th June 1597, Tudor musician William Hunnis died.
Hunnis died a natural death, although he had been involved in a plot against the Crown in Mary I’s reign.
Here are some facts about William Hunnis:
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his week’s Monday Martyr is Thomas Hawkes who was burnt at the stake on 10th June 1555, in the reign of Queen Mary I, at Coggeshall in Essex.
Hawkes ended up being brought before the Earl of Oxford because he hadn’t had his son baptised, because, as martyrologist John Foxe records, “he would not suffer him to be baptised after the popish manner”. The earl referred Hawkes on to Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, who, with others also questioned Hawkes on his beliefs regarding the mass, the sacrament, the holy creed, holy water and other Catholic practices. These he also rejected, stating that they were contrary to the word of God.
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On this day in Tudor history, 5th June 1600, Elizabeth I’s favourite, thirty-four-year-old Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, was charged with insubordination during his time in Ireland at a special hearing at York House.
Essex had been made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1599, but his campaign against the Irish was unsuccessful. He constantly ignored the Queen’s orders, acted contrary to her wishes and constantly worried about what his enemies were up to back in London. He ended up returning to England without Elizabeth’s permission, which amounted to desertion.
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This week’s Sunday fun is a word search from our archives testing your knowledge of Elizabeth I’s early life, youth and pre-accession days.
Find the answers to the questions in this word search and be warned: the words can go in any direction!
Good luck!
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On this day in Tudor history, 4th June 1550, in the reign of King Edward VI, Robert Dudley married Amy Robsart.
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On this day in Tudor history, 3rd June 1594, John Aylmer, Bishop of London, died at Fulham Palace. He was buried at St Paul’s Cathedral.
I could tell you about his career as bishop, but I thought I’d share a story about him with you.
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On this day in Tudor history, 2nd June 1537, in the reign of King Henry VIII, Sir Francis Bigod, George Lumley and Sir Thomas Percy were executed at Tyburn for their part in Bigod’s Rebellion which followed the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion.
You can find out more about Bigod and his rebellion in the video below, but interestingly he was a reformer and so initially opposed the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion. However, he realised he had common ground with the rebels: his opposition to Henry VIII’s involvement in religious matters.
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On this day in Tudor history, 1st June 1533, Whitsunday, Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, was crowned queen at Westminster Abbey.
You can find out more about Anne Boleyn’s coronation in the video below, but here are a few facts:
Anne was 6 months pregnant.
She wore ermine-trimmed purple velvet coronation robes.
Her train was carried by her step-grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk.
On this day in Tudor history, 31st May 1443, in the reign of King Henry VI, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, and matriarch of the Tudor dynasty, was born at Bletsoe Castle in Bedfordshire.
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On this day in Tudor history, 30th May 1593, the Elizabethan playwright and poet, Christopher Marlowe, was fatally stabbed in a house in Deptford Strand, London.
The coroner ruled that Ingram Frizer, who had stabbed Marlowe, had acted “in the defence and saving of his own life”.
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This week’s Monday Martyr is Elizabeth Barton, who was hanged for treason at Tyburn on 20th April 1534, along with Father Edward Bocking (a monk and Barton’s spiritual adviser), Richard Masters (her parish priest), Richard Risby (warden of the Observant Friary at Canterbury) and Hugh Rich (warden of the Observant Friary at Richmond).
Elizabeth had visions and prophecies, and one particular prophecy got her into trouble with King Henry VIII.
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On this day in Tudor history, 28th May 1533, at Lambeth Palace, Thomas Cranmer, the recently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, proclaimed the validity of the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
This proclamation was the result of a secret enquiry carried out by the archbishop following the ruling of the special court set up at Dunstable Priory to hear the case for the annulment of Henry VIII’s first marriage. That court dissolved the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Convocation had already determined, on 5th April 1533, that the Pope had no power to issue a dispensation for a man to marry his brother’s widow when it was contrary to God’s law.
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On this day in Tudor history, 27th May 1536, Cardinal Reginald Pole wrote to King Henry VIII from Venice.
He wrote “Was informed by letters, first of your chaplain Mr. Starkey, and afterwards of Mr. Secretary, of your Grace’s pleasure that I should declare to you my opinion touching the superiority of the Pope, with other articles, and state my reasons. I have done so, accordingly, in a book which I send by the bearer. How it will satisfy you, He only knows in whose hand are the hearts of kings. If you wish further information of my purpose, I refer you to the bearer.”
The cardinal attached a copy of his treatise, in which he criticised the king’s annulment and denied the royal supremacy. He was making an enemy and the king would take revenge.
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On this day in history, 26th May 1621, Barbara Sidney, Countess of Leicester, first wife of poet Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester, was buried at Penshurst.
Barbara was born in around 1559 and was the daughter of John Gamage of Coety Manor, Glamorgan,and his wife Gwenllian. After her father’s death in 1584, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, as master of the wards, her uncles Sir Walter Ralegh and Lord Howard of Effingham, and her guardian Sir Edward Stradling all got involved in trying to arrange a marriage match for her. She married Robert Sidney, son of Sir Henry Sidney, Lord President of the Council, and brother of the famous Elizabethan poet Sir Philip Sidney. Robert was also a gifted poet.
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On this day in Tudor history, 25th May 1553, in the reign of King Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey married Lord Guildford Dudley at Durham Place, the Dudley family’s London residence.
Jane was the daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, and Frances Brandon, and granddaughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and Mary Tudor, Queen of France, and Guildford was the son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and Jane Guildford, and the grandson of Edmund Dudley, one of Henry VII’s chief advisors.
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On this day in history, 24th May 1612, courtier and statesman, Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, died at Marlborough in Wiltshire. He had been diagnosed with two large tumours in August 1611 and was on his way home from taking the waters at Bath when he died.
Robert Cecil served Queen Elizabeth I as Secretary of State from 1596 and was retained in that office by James I. He also served James as Lord High Treasurer from 1608. He was still serving in both those offices at his death.
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On this day in Tudor history, 23rd May 1547, in the reign of King Edward VI, Henry Grey, 3rd Marquis of Dorset was installed as a Knight of the Garter.
Grey had longed to be a garter knight for years, but even though his father-in-law, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, nominated him annually, he was not elected. Things changed in Grey’s favour when Edward VI became king.
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On this day in Tudor history, 22nd May 1537, Edward Seymour, brother of Queen Jane Seymour, was sworn in as a privy councillor.
Edward, who was born in around 1500, had been at court since early adolescence, and he’d risen to become an esquire of the body by 1531.
In 1536, when the king was wooing his sister, Jane, Edward was appointed to the king’s privy chamber. Following Henry and Jane’s marriage, the rewards came thick and fast…
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This week’s Monday Martyr is Lollard Thomas Harding.
Harding was in his sixties when he was sent to be burnt at the stake for heresy at Chesham, in Buckinghamshire, on 30th May 1532, in the reign of King Henry VIII. Thankfully, his suffering was cut short when he was killed by a blow to the head when a bystander threw a billet of wood at him.
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On this day in Tudor history, 21st May 1527, King Philip II of Spain was born at Valladolid in Spain.
Philip was the eldest son of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and his wife Isabella of Portugal. His titles included King of Spain, King of Portugal, King of Naples and Sicily, Duke of Milan, and Lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands. He was also joint sovereign of England following his marriage to his second wife, Mary I, in 1554.
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On this day in Tudor history, 20th May 1536, just 24 hours after Anne Boleyn’s execution, Henry VIII became betrothed to Jane Seymour, Anne’s former maid of honour.
The imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys wasn’t impressed by Jane, describing her as medium height, “no great beauty”, “rather pale”, inclined to be “proud and haughty” and lacking wit. Her age and length of time at court also made him doubt whether she was a virgin! He did like the fact that she was sympathetic to Mary’s cause though – phew!.
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As today is the anniversary of Queen Anne Boleyn’s execution on 19th May 1536, I thought I’d share with you this talk I did a few years ago on Anne Boleyn’s fall.
In it, I examine the roles of Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII in those bloody events. Did Thomas Cromwell plot all by himself or was he simply his master’s servant? Was Henry VIII ultimately responsible? Why did Anne Boleyn have to die?
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On this day in Tudor history, 19th May 1536, Henry VIII’s second wife, Queen Anne Boleyn, was executed at the Tower of London.
Anne had been found guilty of treason for seducing five courtiers, including her brother, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, and the king’s friend and groom of the stool, Henry Norris, and plotting with them to kill the king. The men were executed on Tower Hill on 17th May 1536.
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On this day in Tudor history, 18th May 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn, who was all prepared for her execution that day, was informed by Sir William Kingston, the Constable of the Tower, that her execution had been postponed until the following day.
After Kingston told her, Anne replied, “I thought to be dead by this time, and past my pain”.
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