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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On this day in Tudor history, 16th May 1532, Sir Thomas More resigned as King Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor.
More, who had been a real father figure to Henry VIII, had held the office since 25th October 1529, following the fall of his predecessor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. However, More opposed Henry VIII’s quest for an annulment of his first marriage, and the idea of the king being the supreme head of the church. The final straw for More, was the king’s attack on the clergy, on 11th May 1532, when he suggested they were traitors because of their oath to Rome, and the subsequent submission of the clergy to the king’s demands.
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On this day in Tudor history, 15th May 1536, the trials of Queen Anne Boleyn and her brother, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, took place at the Tower of London.
Unsurprisingly, they were both found guilty of committing incest and plotting to kill the king, and sentenced to death – see video below. But there was some humiliation for the king when George was handed a note about his sister talking to his wife, Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, about the king’s lack of sexual prowess.
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This week’s Monday Martyr is Blessed Hugh Faringdon, born Hugh Cook, Abbot of Reading, who was hanged at the gate of his abbey on 14th November 1539 for treason, for allegedly upholding the supremacy of the pope. He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 13th May 1895.
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On this day in Tudor history, 14th May 1571, Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox and regent to the young King James VI of Scotland, held the “Creeping Parliament” in Edinburgh.
It was called the Creeping parliament because members had to crawl on their hands and knees into the Canongate to avoid being shot by the supporters of the abdicated Mary, Queen of Scots, who held Edinburgh Castle.
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On this day in Tudor history, 13th May 1536, in the reign of King Henry VIII, Queen Anne Boleyn’s royal household was broken up and her staff discharged.
The king’s second wife, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London at the time, hadn’t even been tried yet. However, Sir Francis Weston, William Brereton, Sir Henry Norris and Mark Smeaton had been found guilty of high treason, for sleeping with her and conspiring to kill the king with her, so she had no chance of being found innocent.
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This week’s treat from the Tudor Society archives is a fascinating talk from historian Kate Cole on the witches of Elizabethan and Stuart Essex.
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On this day in Tudor England, 12th May 1537, John Hussey, 1st Baron Hussey of Sleaford, Chief Butler of England, was charged with treason.
Hussey, who was born 1465/6 had been appointed Chief Butler of England in 1521 and also served as a Member of Parliament, sheriff of Lincolnshire and steward to the Bishop of Lincoln. He served Henry VIII’s eldest daughter, Mary, as her chamberlain and his second wife, Anne, was one of Mary’s ladies. Anne actually ended up in the Tower of London for a short time after referring to Mary as “Princess” rather than “Lady” after Mary had become illegitimate by Act of Parliament.
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On this day in Tudor history, 11th May 1532, Henry VIII suggested that the English clergy were traitors.
Chronicler Edward Hall records that Henry VIII sent for the Speaker of the House of Commons and 12 members of the House of Commons, “havyng with hym eight Lordes”, and while holding a copy of the bishops’ oath to Rome
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On this day in Tudor history, 10th May 1533, in the reign of King Henry VIII, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, opened a special court at Dunstable Priory in Bedfordshire.
The court’s job was to rule on the validity of Henry VIII’s marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
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On this day in Tudor history, 9th May 1538, King James V of Scotland married Marie de Guise, or Mary of Guise, by proxy.
James V was the son of King James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of King Henry VII, and Marie was the daughter of Claude, Duke of Guise, and Antoinette of Bourbon. They’d both been married before. Marie had been married to Louis II of Orléans, Duke of Longueville, who died after less than 3 years of marriage, and James had been widowed just months after his marriage to Madeleine of France.
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On this day in Tudor history, 8th May 1539, in the reign of King Henry VIII, English troops mustered between Whitechapel and Mile End and then marched through the City and Westminster to St James’s, where the king reviewed them.
This muster was in response to the war panic caused by Francis I and Charles V signing the Peace of Toledo.
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On this day in Tudor history, 7th May 1560, in the reign of Elizabeth I, English troops charged the wall of Leith at the siege of Leith.
In 1548, during the War of the Rough Wooing, which had broken out over Scotland’s refusal to marry Mary Queen of Scots off to Edward VI, Scotland had invited French troops to protect the port of Leith. They set up a garrison and were still there 12 years later. Protestant reformers turned to England to help them remove these French Catholics.
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For today’s “on this day” event, I’m taking you back to the Wars of the Roses. It’s a relevant event because it was a factor in Henry Tudor (Henry VII) becoming the main Lancastrian claimant.
On this day in history, 6th May 1471, Edmund Beaufort, styled 3rd Duke of Somerset, was executed in Tewkesbury marketplace following his army’s defeat at the Battle of Tewkesbury. He was buried at Tewkesbury Abbey
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On this day in Tudor history, 5th May 1586, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, fifty-six-year-old Sir Henry Sidney died. His body was buried in the Sidney Chapel at Penshurst and his heart in Ludlow, where he lived as President of the Council in the Marches of Wales.
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There’s nothing like researching Tudor primary sources for yourself and a lot have been transcribed and digitised, making it possible to access them from the comfort of your own home.
Here on the Tudor Society, we have lists of primary sources for each monarch as well as different topics, such as Tudor Life.
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On this day in history, 4th May 1608, the funeral of Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, took place at All Hallows, Derby.
Bess of Hardwick as she is commonly known, was the daughter of John Hardwick and Elizabeth Leake.
She married four times and each marriage saw her rise in status and wealth. Her husbands were heir to an estate Robert Barley or Barlowe, Treasurer of the King’s Chamber Sir William Cavendish, Captain of the Guard and Chief Butler of England Sir William St Loe, and George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury.
On this day in history, 3rd May 1415, Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, was born on 3rd May 1415 at Raby Castle. Cecily is known as the matriarch of the House of York because her children included King Edward IV and King Richard III.
Here are some facts about Cecily Neville, also known as the Rose of Raby and Proud Cis.
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On this day in Tudor history, 2nd May 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII, received a message informing her that members of the king’s council required her presence in the council chamber of Greenwich Palace. There, Anne was told that she was being accused of having sexual relations with musician Mark Smeaton, groom of the stool Henry Norris and an unnamed man. She was also told that Smeaton and Norris had confessed.
Anne denied the charges but the council ordered her arrest. Later that afternoon, after the tide had turned, she was rowed to the Tower of London. She was imprisoned in the queen’s apartments of the royal palace.
George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, Anne’s brother, was arrested on the same day and also taken to the Tower.
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Happy May Day!
Yes, today, 1st May is May Day in the UK.
May Day was seen as the first day of summer and had its roots in ancient celebrations of fertility. It was celebrated with special processions, plays and pantomimes, pageants, Morris dancing and the crowning of a May Queen. There would also be a Maypole, a tall wooden pole that was painted or decorated with crests, greenery and flowers. Later in history, this Maypole was hung with ribbons and people would dance around it, weaving the ribbons in different patterns.
People would also “bring in the May”, i.e. collect flowers and branches to make garlands and wreaths.
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