On this day in Tudor history, the Bloody Flux hit the port of Portsmouth killing soldiers and sailors; and former minister Robert Samuel, one of the Ipswich Martyrs, was burnt at the stake for his Protestant faith...
- 1545 – A contagious disease known as the 'Bloody flux' hit Portsmouth, killing many men serving on the ships stationed there. It had already been recorded in Plymouth, at the beginning of August - "that there is a great disease fallen amongst the soldiers and mariners almost in every ship" - and Thomas Poynings had written to the king from Boulogne on 15th August, commenting that he was "somewhat diseased with the bloody flux". See video below.
- 1555 - Robert Samuel, former minister of East Bergholt Church in Suffolk, was burnt at the stake in Ipswich, probably at the Cornhill. He was one of the Ipswich Martyrs. Click here to find out more or see video below.
- 1580 – Death of Wiliam Llŷn, the Welsh language poet and elegist, at Oswestry.
- 1613 – Death of Matthew Baker, shipwright and first man to record ship designs on paper. His papers were catalogued by Samuel Pepys as "Fragments of ancient English shipwrightry".
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