This week’s Monday Martyr is John Lascelles (Lassells, Lacels), a courtier who was burnt at the stake for his Protestant faith at Smithfield on 16th July 1546 with priest Nicholas Belenian, tailor John Adams, and famous Protestant martyr Anne Askew.
Here are some facts about this Henrician Protestant martyr
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This week’s Monday martyr is a courtier whose fall is shrouded in mystery.
Sir Adrian Fortescue was beheaded at Tower Hill on 9th or 10th July 1539.*
On this day in Tudor history, 13th June 1535, or possibly 14th, Tudor courtier and nobleman, George Neville, 3rd Baron Bergavenny, died at his home at Eridge in Sussex.
He fell from favour after the fall of his father-in-law, the Duke of Buckingham, in 1521, but managed to rise again.
This week’s #MondayMartyr is Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, who was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII as a Catholic martyr.
She was executed in 1541 in what was a truly awful botched execution, and for a crime she did not commit…
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Thank you to Amanda Glover for writing this guest article for us on the question of whether Catherine of Aragon's marriage to Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales, was consummated.
More than 500 years ago two teenagers married. Only four and a half months later the boy sadly died. Since then, historians have hotly debated whether the marriage was ever consummated.
The girl was called Catalina, known in England as Catherine of Aragon, and the boy was Arthur, Prince of Wales, heir to the fledgling dynasty of the Tudors.
But why was the question of the consummation so important?
When Arthur died so tragically young, his ten-year-old brother, Henry became the heir to his father’s crown. In 1509, eight years after Arthur’s demise, the 17-year-old Henry ascended the throne as Henry VIII on the death of his father, Henry VII. One of his first acts was to marry Catherine, having obtained Papal dispensation, a necessity in the eyes of the Church because of Catherine’s first marriage to Arthur, which made the new couple “related”.
On this day in Tudor history, 29th May 1533, the day after Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn had been proclaimed valid, four days of celebrations began for Anne's coronation in London.
The first event, on 29th, was a lavish river procession on the Thames, which must have been a tremendous sight for citizens lining the banks. The procession was made up of over 300 river craft that were beautifully decorated. As well as carrying the queen and her ladies, bishops, noblemen and courtiers, a wherry carried a mechanical fire-breathing dragon surrounded by monsters and wild men. There were also lots of minstrels and musicians.
On this day in Tudor history, 17th May 1536, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford; Sir Henry Norris, groom of the stool; courtier Sir Francis Weston; courtier William Brereton, and musician Mark Smeaton were beheaded on Tower Hill for treason.
The five men had all been condemned to death after being found guilty of sleeping with Queen Anne Boleyn and conspiring with her to kill her husband, King Henry VIII.
Poet Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, who'd also been arrested and imprisoned in May 1536 in Anne's fall, witnessed their executions from his prison in the Bell Tower.
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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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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Thank you to John Roberts for this update - click here for John's original article.
Tudor Society followers from four years ago may remember this historic bench and its many references to Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon.
Many notable historians of ancient furniture, including Jonathan Foyle, have determined that the bench displays woodworked artistry from between the 16th-19th centuries, so the question now remains, why were talented craftsmen adding on to a work of art rather than creating one?
The penny dropped early one morning this week with the theory that it's not the BENCH that is the main study here but the HEADBOARD!
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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This week's Monday Martyr is James Bainham, who, on 30th April 1532, in the reign of King Henry VIII, was burned at Smithfield.
Bainham, who hailed from Westbury-on-Severn, Gloucestershire, was the youngest son of Sir Alexander Bainham and his wife, Elizabeth Langley (née Tracy), became a lawyer after entering London's Inns of Court. Bainham's maternal uncle had been a reformer and perhaps he influenced his nephew. According to John Foxe, Bainham was "an earnest reader of Scriptures, [and] a great maintainer of the godly".
Bainham went on to marry the widow of reformer Simon Fish, a man who had been charged with heresy and was awaiting trial when he died of plague in 1531. Fish was the author of the religious pamphlet The Supplication of Beggars, which Anne Boleyn was said to have shared with Henry VIII. The pamphlet was an attack on the Catholic Church. Fish claimed that the Catholic clergy usurped the power of the state and stated that they were treasonous and corrupt. Fish also attacked the sale of indulgences and the doctrine of purgatory. Bainham came to the notice of Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor, due to his links with Fish, and More had him brought to him for questioning. Bainham stood firm in his evangelical faith so More ordered his imprisonment in the Tower of London, where he was also allegedly tortured.
On this day in Tudor history, 29th April 1500, William Dacre, 3rd Baron Dacre of Gilsland and 7th Baron Greystoke was born.
Here are some facts about this Tudor baron:
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Acton Court isn’t open all year around, but this year it will be open to the public from 31 May to 2 July 2023 with many special events happening in 2023
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A few weeks ago, my father and I were able to get away for a morning to visit Hever Castle in Kent. It’s somewhere that you may have been to before, and it’s a castle that is very close to our hearts – we LOVE the way the grounds are kept and how the castle evokes the history of the Boleyn family, the time Anne of Cleves spent there AND, more recently, how the Astor family lived and renovated the whole area.
For a long time, Hever castle was quite static in its displays – not much changed, which was fine if you’d never visited before, but since we had visited so many times, it was rare to see anything new. That’s no longer the case.
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On this day in Tudor history, 18th April 1540, King Henry VIII granted the earldom of Essex to Thomas Cromwell.
The previous earl, Henry Bourchier, had died that March after a horse riding accident. He died childless so the earldom had become extinct until its new creation for Cromwell.
Cromwell, the man who’d helped the king get rid of Anne Boleyn and dissolve the monasteries, was also made Lord Great Chamberlain.
He’d failed to get the king out of his marriage to Anne of Cleves, but it looked like he was still in favour.
However, it wasn't long before Cromwell’s enemies rose up against him. He was arrested at a council meeting on 10th June 1540 and ended up being executed on 28th July for treason, heresy, corruption and more.
On this day in history, 15th April 1623, Sir John Scudamore was buried at his home, Holme Lacy, following his death the previous day.
Scudamore served Elizabeth I as standard-bearer of the gentleman pensioners and his second wife, Mary Shelton, was related to the queen and was one of her ladies of the privy chamber.
Here are some facts about Sir John Scudamore:
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On this day in history, 11th April 1609, in the reign of King James I, conspirator, patron and collector, John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley, died at his London home.
Lumley made a garden in honour of Elizabeth I, as an apology to her, and is known to have possessed a full-length portrait of Anne Boleyn.
Here are a few more facts about this Tudor baron…
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On this day in Tudor history, 2nd April 1568, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Ambrose Cave, member of Parliament, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Knight of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, died at the Savoy. He was buried at Stanford after a funeral at the Savoy Chapel.
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On this day in Tudor history, 30th March 1587, in the reign of Elizabeth I, Sir Ralph Sadler died. He was in his 80th year.
Sadler was a diplomat and administrator who worked as Thomas Cromwell's secretary before being noticed by Henry VIII.
At his death, he was one of the richest men in England.
Here are a few more facts about him…
On 27th March 1539, George Talbot, 4th Earl of Shrewsbury, was laid to rest in the Shrewsbury Chapel of St Peter’s Church, Sheffield.
Talbot is known for his loyalty to the king during the Pilgrimage of Grace uprisings, which was seen as crucial to the failure of the rebellion.
But let me tell you a bit more about this Tudor earl…
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On this day in Tudor history, 17th March 1570, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, soldier, courtier and landowner, died at Hampton Court, aged sixty-three.
Here are some facts about this Tudor earl, who was known as Black Will Herbert and had a queen as a sister-in-law…
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On this day in Tudor history, 13th March 1619, actor and star of Shakespeare’s Lord Chamberlain’s Men and the King’s Men, Richard Burbage, died aged fifty.
Burbage performed with William Shakespeare and is named in Shakespeare’s will of 1616 as a “fellow”, meaning a close friend or colleague.
Let me give you a few facts about this Elizabethan actor…
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On this day in Tudor history, 11th March 1513, Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici was proclaimed Pope Leo X after being elected on 9th March. He was crowned pope on 19th March and held the office until his death by pneumonia on 1st December 1521. He was one of the leading Renaissance popes.
Giovanni was the second son of Lorenzo de’ Medici, or Lorenzo the Magnificent, a member of the prominent political banking and political Medici family, and ruler of the Republic of Florence.
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Support for the needy in England through Tudor poor laws was based upon a carrot-and-stick approach. Specific policies were designed to provide relief for the poor, while others were designed to penalise. Tony Morgan writes about some of the approaches used in the Tudor period.
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On this day in Tudor history, 20th February 1552, Anne Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, died at Baynard’s Castle in London.
Anne was the younger sister of Queen Catherine Parr and served Queens Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard.
Let me give you a few facts about this Tudor countess…
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Lucy Wooding is the Langford fellow and tutor in history at Lincoln College, Oxford. She is an expert on Reformation England and its politics, religion, and culture and the author of Henry VIII. She has asked us to share this section from her book "Tudor England: A History".
You can get the book at THIS LINK
As the tensions of the later sixteenth century, both religious and political, became more acute, Tudor drama itself became more sophisticated, and more heavily freighted with meaning. Elizabethan plays might have a dangerously polemical edge, or a blunt propaganda purpose. Where fifteenth-century plays had often conveyed a religious message, later Tudor drama continued to explore moral dilemmas, albeit with a level of self-conscious wariness that earlier dramas had lacked. Solely religious plays became a thing of the past in the fraught confessional climate of the 1580s and 1590s, but drama became, if anything, more pervasive1. Plays, or ‘playings’, took place at Court, in private households, in the universities and Inns of Court, in taverns and inns, in the market square or through the streets of a city on May Day or to celebrate midsummer. By the end of the sixteenth century, there were also commercial theatrical spaces akin to the modern theatre; the first of these was built by James Burbage in Shoreditch in 1576, and called simply the Theatre2. South of the river, Philip Henslowe built the Rose on Bankside in 1587, and it was joined in 1595 by the Swan and in 1599 by the Globe. Yet even in the age of Shakespeare, theatre still belonged as much in the street or the household as upon a stage.
Drama was not just a source of entertainment or moral commentary: it was proactive in the shaping of affairs and attitudes. In an age when institutions were still flimsy, and politics were intensely personal, power could be confirmed or qualified through magnificence and display. The commonwealth, or state, was something imagined, but still it elicited an emotional investment given immediacy through symbolism3. Each display of power required a response, and each enactment of authority called for an answer, so drama was also a site for negotiation and the exchange of ideas in this ‘theatre state’4. Royal processions, progresses and tournaments encapsulated important transactions between ruler and ruled; in council meetings, parliaments and royal audiences, confrontations were enacted in which policy was shaped by participants on both sides. Deaths on the scaffold required the speeches of those about to die to reinforce codes of honour and obedience, while subtle alterations to the formulaic expressions of penitence and obedience might equally convey protestations of innocence, or even defiance. The drive for religious conformity made martyrs of many whose extraordinary commitment led them willingly to play their parts in a terrible drama of death. In their sufferings could be seen either the moral might of a government staunchly opposing heresy, or conversely, a testimony to religious truth serving as a powerful reproach to a persecutory regime; it was for the audience to choose.
This was an age in which men and women often found it easiest to express their own identity by acting a part. Elizabeth I in her lifetime was cast by both herself and others in roles as various as the Old Testament heroine Deborah or the goddess Diana; as the mythical King Arthur or the historical Emperor Constantine. When she famously remarked to William Lambarde, keeper of the Tower, ‘know ye not I am Richard II?’, she was acknowledging her own questionable reputation as ruler in her twilight years; she was also signalling the broader principle that political meaning could be readily conveyed by mimesis5. Badgered by parliament to execute Mary Queen of Scots, she reminded them of the dangers of public scrutiny: ‘Princes, you know, stand upon stages so that their actions are viewed and beheld of all men; and I am sure my doings will come to the scanning of many fine wits, not only within the realm, but in foreign countries.’6 Henry VII, in just a single royal progress in 1486, had been variously depicted as Solomon, Noah, Jason, Isaac, Jacob, David, Scipio and Arthur – legendary figures, invoked at a time of dangerous political instability, when the sanction of past rulers, generals and prophets was badly needed.7
On this day in Tudor history, 4th February 1495, in the reign of King Henry VII, a wedding took place at Westminster Abbey in London. It was the wedding of Anne of York and Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey.
Let me tell you a bit more about the bridge and groom...
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On this day in Tudor history, 15th January 1555, in the reign of Queen Mary I, Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland and wife of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, died in Chelsea, London.
Forty-six-year-old Jane had outlived her husband, who was executed in 1553 after Mary I had successfully seized the throne from the couple’s daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey.
Here are some facts about this Duchess of Northumberland…
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On 11th January 1584, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Blessed William Carter was executed for treason.
Printer William Carter, who was about thirty-six years of age at his death, had been found guilty of treason for printing a book which allegedly contained a passage inciting the queen’s assassination. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn.
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