On this day in Tudor history, 28th November, claimant Edward Plantagenet, son of the late Duke of Clarence, was executed for treason on Tower Hill (1499), and MP and political agent Francis Yaxley drowned while bringing gold to Mary, Queen of Scots (1565)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 27th November, a former Benedictine monk was burnt at Smithfield for heresy for importing Lutheran books (1531); and 18-year-old William Shakespeare got married to 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, who was pregnant at the time (1582)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 26th November, Henry VIII’s 14-year-old illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, married Lady Mary Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk (1533); and the first men to be executed under the new treason laws against Jesuits in Elizabeth I’s reign were hanged at York (1585)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 25th November, Elizabeth of York, Henry VII’s queen consort, was crowned queen at Westminster Abbey (1487), and lawyer, MP, diplomat and ecclesiastical administrator Sir Thomas Legh died (1545)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 24th November, Elizabeth of York’s coronation procession took place in London (1487), and Scottish Reformer, clergyman and founder of Presbyterianism, John Knox, died at his home in Edinburgh (1572)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 23rd November, Pretender Perkin Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn (1499), and scrivener and sailor Edward Squire was hanged, drawn and quartered for plotting to poison Elizabeth I and the Earl of Essex (1598)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 22nd November, Henry VIII’s trusted physician and confidant Sir William Butts died at Fulham Manor (1545); and naval commander, privateer and explorer Sir Martin Frobisher died of gangrene (1594) after suffering an injury in hand-to-hand combat…
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On this day in Tudor history, 21st November, John Bale, Protestant playwright, historian and bishop, was born (1495); and Frances Grey (née Brandon), Duchess of Suffolk and mother of Lady Jane Grey, died (1559)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 20th November, Elizabeth I’s Lord Chancellor and favourite, Sir Christopher Hatton, a man she called her “mouton”, died (1591); and her godson, author, courtier and a man who invented a flush toilet, Sir John Harington, died (1612)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 19th November, Lord John Grey, youngest son of Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset, died naturally even though he’d once been condemned to death (1564); and poet, Catholic recusant and priest harbourer Henry Vaux died of consumption (1587)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 18th November, Ralph Baynes, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, died while imprisoned in the Bishop of London’s home, and his fellow clergyman, Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London, died in prison at Lambeth Palace (1559)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 17th November, Queen Mary I died at St James’s Palace, London, and her half-sister, Elizabeth, became Queen Elizabeth I. Elizabeth would reign for over forty-four years (1558)…
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On this day in history, 16th November, Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland, a man who’d been involved in the Rising of the North against Elizabeth I, died in exile (1601); and William Stafford, who’d allegedly plotted the Stafford Plot against Elizabeth I, died (1612)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 15th November, Katherine of York, Countess of Devon, died at Tiverton Castle (1527); and Pope Clement VII threatened Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn with excommunication because Henry VIII had defied the pope’s instructions (1532)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 14th November, Catherine of Aragon married Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales (1501); Henry VIII may have married Anne Boleyn (1532); and an inventory was taken of Thomas Culpeper’s “goods and chattels, lands and fees” (1541)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 13th November, mercer and member of Parliament Robert Packington was shot to death by an unknown assailant (1536); and Lady Jane Grey and her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, two of his brothers, and Archbishop Cranmer were tried for treason…
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On this day in Tudor history, 12th November, Queen Jane Seymour’s remains were taken from Hampton Court Palace to Windsor Castle for burial (1537); and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, “Wily Winchester”, died (1555)…
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#OTD in Tudor history, 11th November, the Admiral of France landed on English soil, a visit that was going to cause George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, a lot of stress (1534); and Archbishop Cranmer was instructed to move Queen Catherine Howard from Hampton Court Palace to Syon House (1541)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 10th November, privy councillor Sir Henry Wyatt, father of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, died (1536); and explorer and navigator Richard Chancellor was drowned after saving the Russian ambassador after their ship was wrecked (1556)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 9th November, Queen Catherine of Aragon suffered a stillbirth (1518); and the Rising of the North against Queen Elizabeth I began (1569)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 8th November, Henry VIII made a rather strange speech explaining his troubled conscience about his marriage to Catherine of Aragon (1528); and scholar, literary patron and chamberlain to Catherine of Aragon, William Blount, 4th Baron Mountjoy, died at Sutton on the Hill (1534)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 7th November, Henry VII’s first Parliament attainted Richard III and his supporters (1485); and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer visited a confined Queen Catherine Howard, seeking a confession (1541)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 6th November, Catherine of Aragon met Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales, for the first time (1501); and Catherine Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth wife, was abandoned by her husband the king at Hampton Court Palace. She would never see him again (1541)…
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On this day in history, 5th November, Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, was crowned Queen of France at Saint-Denis (1514); and Gunpowder Plot conspirator, Guy Fawkes, was discovered with 36 barrels of gunpowder in a cellar beneath Westminster (1605)…
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On this day in history, 29th October, Henry VIII bid farewell to his “loving brother”, his French counterpart, Francis I (1532); and courtier, explorer, author and soldier Sir Walter Ralegh was executed (1618)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 28th October, celebrations included wrestling and bear baiting on the last day of Henry VIII’s meeting with Francis I (1532); and Ivan IV of Russia, known commonly as Ivan the Terrible, wrote a rather rude letter to Queen Elizabeth I…
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On this day in Tudor history, 27th October, Anne Boleyn, Marquess of Pembroke, made a dramatic entrance to the great banquet held by Henry VIII in Calais in honour of Francis I of France; and the extremely talented Mary Herbert (née Sidney), Countess of Pembroke, writer and literary patron, was born at Tickenhall, near Bewdley in Worcestershire…
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On this day in Tudor history, 26th October, Sir Thomas More was sworn in as Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor, replacing the fallen Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1529); and the Pilgrimage of Grace rebels, who outnumbered the Crown’s forces, chose to negotiate rather than fight (1536)…
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On this day in Tudor history, 25th October, Henry VIII returned to Calais following his visit to the French court at Boulogne, taking Francis I with him; and today is the the feast of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, martyrs of the Early Church and the patron saints of cobblers…
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On this day in Tudor history, 24th October, Queen Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third wife, died at Hampton Court Palace; and John White, governor of the Roanoke Colony, returned to England after failing to find the lost colonists…
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