#OTD in Tudor history – 6 April

On this day in Tudor history, 6th April, Henry Stafford, Earl of Wiltshire and a favourite of Henry VIII, died; Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's principal secretary and spymaster, died; and Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford and son of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, died...

• 1523 – Death of Henry Stafford, Earl of Wiltshire. Stafford had served Henry VII and was made a Knight of the Garter in his reign, and although he was imprisoned for a time due to his brother's plotting, he was a favourite of Henry VIII. Click here to read more about him.
• 1523 – Death of Edward Stanley, 1st Baron Monteagle, soldier, peer and Knight of the Garter, at Hornby Castle.
• 1593 – Hanging of Henry Barrow and John Greenwood, religious separatists, after being condemned to death on 23rd March, for writing and publishing seditious literature.

• 1582 – Hanging of Nicholas Nugent, Solicitor General for Ireland, Baron of the Irish Court of Exchequer, and Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, for treason after being implicated in the rebellion of his nephew, William Nugent.
• 1590 - Death of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's principal secretary, advisor and spymaster, at the age of about fifty-eight. Although he had served the Queen for many years, he died in debt, as he had underwritten the debts of Sir Philip Sidney, his son-in-law. See video below.
• 1605 (5th or 6th) – Death of John Stow, historian and antiquary, in London at the age of eighty. He was buried in St Andrew Undershaft Church. Stow's works included his 1561 “The woorkes of Geffrey Chaucer, newly printed with divers additions whiche were never in printe before”, the 1565 “Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles” and his famous “Annales, or a Generale Chronicle of England from Brute until the present yeare of Christ 1580”.
• 1621 – Death of Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, son of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and Anne Stanhope, and husband of Lady Katherine Grey (Lady Jane Grey's sister). He was aged eighty-one at his death, and had been married three times. All three of his marriages were secret ones. See video below.