#OTD in Tudor history – 1 March

On this day in Tudor history, 1st March, Scottish evangelical preacher George Wishart was hanged and burnt, conspirator William Stafford was born, Grand Prior Sir Thomas Tresham died, and physician, poet and musician Thomas Campion died...

• 1546 – Hanging and burning of George Wishart, Scottish evangelical preacher and martyr, at St Andrews, Scotland. He went to his death with courage, asking Christ's forgiveness for those who had condemned him to death “ignorantly”. See video below.
• 1553 – Edward VI opened Parliament. The king was ill at the time, so it was a much more low key ceremony than usual.
• 1554 – Birth of William Stafford, son of Sir William Stafford (husband of the late Mary Boleyn) and his second wife Dorothy Stafford. William is known as a conspirator, having concocted a plot, The Stafford Plot, probably on the instructions of William Cecil. This plot was supposedly against Elizabeth I, but its purpose is likely to have been to show Elizabeth that her life was in danger from Mary, Queen of Scots and her followers. Find out more by clicking here.

• 1559 – Death of Sir Thomas Tresham, Catholic politician and Grand Prior of England in the Order of Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, at Rushton in Northamptonshire. He was buried at St Peter's Church, Rushton. Find out more about Tresham in my post here.
• 1562 – The Massacre of Vassy. Sixty-three Huguenot worshippers were killed, and over a hundred injured, when Francis, Duke of Guise, ordered his troops to set fire to the barn being used as a church in Vassy, France. Trouble had started when some of his men had barged their way into the barn, and the Duke was hit by a stone being thrown.
• 1568 – Death of Sir Thomas Throckmorton, son of William Throckmorton. He was buried at Tortworth in Gloucestershire. In the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I, Throckmorton was a Justice of the Peace, and in Elizabeth I's reign he was a sheriff, also serving on the Council in the Marches.
• 1587 – Death of Welsh landowner, lawyer and antiquary Rice Merrick at Cotrel. He was buried at St Nicholas' Church. Merrick was the author of Morganiae archaiographia (“A Book of Glamorganshire's Antiquities”).
• 1602 – Death of Herbert Westfaling, Bishop of Hereford, at Hereford. He was buried in the cathedral there.
• 1620 - Death and burial of physician, poet and musician Thomas Campion. He was laid to rest at St Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet Street. His works included “Poemata, a collection of Latin panegyrics, elegies and epigrams” (1595), the 1601 songbook “A Booke of Ayres” and the 1602 “Observations in the Art of English Poesie”. See video below (I make a mistake in it, I mean 1620!).

Today is also St David's Day, but did the Tudors mark the day? Find out by clicking here.