On this day in Tudor history, Sunday 6th November 1541, Catherine Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth wife, was abandoned by her husband the king at Hampton Court Palace. She would never see him again.
On the same day, Queen Catherine was visited by a delegation of king’s council members and informed of allegations made against her.
What exactly happened on this day in 1541 and what has this to do with Hampton Court Palace’s ‘Haunted Gallery’? Find out in today’s talk.
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, Sunday 21st September 1578, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, married Lettice Dereveux (née Knollys) in a secret marriage at his house. So secret was it that he only told his chaplain and his friends the day before.
Leicester was marrying the woman Elizabeth I had dubbed “the she-wolf”, so he knew that his queen would not be happy.
In today’s talk, I give details of this secret wedding along with some facts about the bride, Lettice Knollys.
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 8th August 1588, Queen Elizabeth I decided to accept Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester’s invitation to visit the troops he had gathered near Tilbury Fort to guard the eastern approach to London from the expected invasion by the Spanish Armada.
In today’s “on this day in Tudor history” talk, I explain why Leicester invited his queen to visit the troops – there was more to it than just boosting morale.
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 16th July 1546, in the reign of King Henry VIII, Protestant martyrs Anne Askew, John Lascelles, John Adams and Nicholas Belenian were burned at the stake at Smithfield in London for heresy.
Poor Anne had been illegally racked, so special provision had to be made for her execution.
In today’s talk, I share an account of the ends of these courageous people, along with some trivia about one of them.
[Read More...]
Things seemed all peachy as King Henry VIII and his fifth wife, Queen Catherine Howard, set off on their progress to the north of England on this day in Tudor history, 30th June 1541. Little did the king know that he’d be stood up by his nephew and that his world would come crashing down on him on his return.
In today’s video, I explain the motives behind this huge undertaking, what happened on the progress, and why Henry’s life changed so dramatically when he got back.
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 17th May 1521, Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, was executed for treason on Tower Hill.
He’d served King Henry VII and King Henry VIII loyally for many years, so what led to this nobleman being condemned for high treason?
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, Queen Mary I wrote her will. She did it because she believed that she was just about to give birth, and, obviously, childbirth was a risky processes.
Find out more about Mary’s will and what happened with this “pregnancy” in today’s “on this day” video.
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 7th March 1530, Pope Clement VII threatened King Henry VIII with excommunication if he married again. Henry, of course, wanted to set aside his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and marry his sweetheart, Anne Boleyn.
In today’s video, I explain the background of this threat and what happened next.
[Read More...]
In today’s “on this day in Tudor history”, I take you back to 1547 and a rather horrible event that was seen as the fulfilment of a prophecy. Friar William Peto had warned King Henry VIII that if he carried on with his behaviour then he would end up like King Ahab. Strong words!
I then move on to a happier topic, Valentine’s Day in the Tudor period. Did the Tudors celebrate Valentine’s Day and what did they do to mark the occasion?
[Read More...]
On this day in Tudor history, 9th February 1542, Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, was rowed to the Tower of London in preparation for her forthcoming execution. In today’s video, I explain why she wasn’t already at the Tower and where she’d been between her arrest in November 1541 and this day in 1542.
[Read More...]
Sir Francis Drake died on this day in Tudor history in 1596, but who was he? I share some Francis Drake facts and two legends that surround this colourful man.
[Read More...]
17th December:
1538 – Pope Paul III announced the excommunication of Henry VIII.
1550 – Birth of Henry Cavendish, soldier, traveller and son of Bess of Hardwick and Sir William Cavendish. He was married to Grace Talbot, daughter of George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury. This match was arranged by his mother who had married the Earl of Shrewsbury.
1559 – Matthew Parker was consecrated as Elizabeth I’s Archbishop of Canterbury. According to “The Correspondence of Matthew Parker”, Anne Boleyn charged him with the care of Elizabeth when she saw him in April 1536, “not six days before her apprehension”. Historian Eric Ives writes that this was a request that Parker never forgot, and something which stayed with him for ever. Parker obviously came to be important to Elizabeth, because she made him her Archbishop of Canterbury in 1559. It was a post which Parker admitted to Lord Burghley, he would not have accepted if he “had not been so much bound to the mother”. Parker was Archbishop until his death in 1575.
3rd December:
1536 – A proclamation was made to the rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace offering them a pardon. The rebellion dispersed, but was followed by another rebellion, Bigod’s Rebellion, in early 1537. Click here to read more.
1577 – Death or burial of William Downham, Bishop of Chester and former
Chaplain of Elizabeth I before her accession. He was buried in the choir of Chester Cathedral.
1600 – Death of Roger North, 2nd Baron North, peer and politician in Elizabeth I’s reign, at his London home in Charterhouse Square. He was given a funeral service at St Paul’s, followed by a burial at Kirtling in Cambridgeshire. North was a friend of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and served Elizabeth I as Privy Councillor and Treasurer of the Household.
Stephen Gardiner’s date of birth is not known, with some saying 1483 and others saying 1493 or 1497, but he was born in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. His father was William Gardiner (some say John Gardiner), a cloth merchant and a mercenary hired during the War of the Roses. According to Welsh accounts of the 1485 Battle of Bosworth, it was “Wyllyam Gardynyr” who killed King Richard III with a poleaxe. Sir William Gardiner later married Helen Tudor, a woman said to have been the illegitimate daughter of Jasper Tudor, uncle of King Henry VII.
As a young man, Gardiner met the famous humanist scholar, Desiderius Erasmus, in Paris and he studied at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He received the degree of Doctor of Civil Law in 1520 and of Canon Law in 1521, and went on to work for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey as secretary. He met Henry VIII for the first time in 1525 at The More in Hertfordshire for the signing of the Treaty of the More between the King and Francis I of France. Two years later, in 1527, Gardiner and Sir Thomas More worked as commissioners in arranging, with the French ambassadors, a treaty to obtain support for an army against the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, in Italy.
[Read More...]
12th November:
1532 – Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn finally left Calais after being delayed by a Channel fog. They landed at Dover on Thursday 14th November. They had been visiting Calais to meet with the French king, Francis I.
1537 – Jane Seymour’s body was taken by chariot from Hampton Court Palace to Windsor Castle.
1554 – The opening of Mary I’s third Parliament. At this Parliament, a bill was passed allowing the exiled Cardinal Reginald Pole to return to England as papal legate.
1555 – Mary I’s Parliament re-established Catholicism in England.
1555 – Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester and Mary I’s Lord Chancellor, died. Gardiner crowned Mary I Queen of England at her coronation at Westminster Abbey on the 1st October 1553, and helped Mary to restore Catholicism and overturn the annulment of her parents’ marriage, making her legitimate. He was also instrumental in the marriage negotiations between Mary and Philip II of Spain, and married the couple at Winchester Cathedral on the 25th July 1554. He was laid to rest at Winchester Cathedral in what is now known as the Bishop Gardiner Chantry Chapel.
1576 – Death of Sir Edward Saunders, judge. He was buried at Weston under Wetherley, Warwickshire. Saunders’ offices included Serjeant-at-Law, Recorder of Coventry, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench and Chief Baron of the Exchequer.
1586 – A delegation of forty MPs and twenty peers presented Elizabeth I with a petition demanding that “a just sentence might be followed by as just an execution” in the case of Mary, Queen of Scots.
1595 – Death of Sir John Hawkins, merchant, shipbuilder, navigator, explorer, slave trader and naval commander, at Puerto Rico on a voyage, with Sir Francis Drake, which aimed to capture Panama. He was buried at sea. Hawkins is known for being the chief architect of Elizabeth I’s navy, and he was knighted for gallantry after serving as Vice-Admiral during the Spanish Armada.
1514 – Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, was crowned Queen of France. She had married King Louis XII at Abbeville on the 9th October 1514. The marriage was rather short-lived, as Louis died on the 1st January 1515, and Mary went on to marry Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
1520 – Death of Sir Robert Poyntz, courtier, landowner and Vice-Chamberlain and Chancellor of the Household to Queen Catherine of Aragon. He was around seventy when he died.
1530 – Death of Sir John More, lawyer, judge and father of Sir Thomas More. More served as Serjeant-at-Law, Justice of Assize, Justice of the Common Pleas, and also served on the King’s Bench from 1520 until his death.
1605 – Guy Fawkes was caught with thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in the cellars beneath Westminster. The idea was to blow up the House of Lords at the opening of Parliament on the 5th November, and to assassinate King James I.
I can’t believe that today was our last full day on the tour and that I will soon be saying goodbye to these lovely lords and ladies. We have gelled so much and I know that we have made friendships that will last a lifetime. It’s wonderful that Tudor history can bring us together like this.
After another delicious breakfast, this time at the Doubletree by Hilton near the Tower of London, we headed out for the day. Although it was raining – well, we did have to give our group the true British experience! – we decided to stop off at the Tower Hill scaffold site to explain its relevance, as many people miss this entirely. So many important Tudor personalities lost their lives there, so it was good to visit and remember them. We then made our way down to the River Thames, at Tower Wharf, right where Anne Boleyn disembarked on 2nd May 1536 when she was taken to the Tower to be imprisoned, to catch the Clipper, the river bus service that would take us to Bankside, where Shakespeare’s Globe is located. It was wonderful seeing lots of London sights from the river and in just a few short minutes we were at Bankside.
[Read More...]
17th September:
1558 – Death of Walter Devereux, 1st Viscount Hereford, at the Devereux seat at Chartley in Staffordshire. He was buried in Stowe church. Devereux served Henry VIII as joint Constable of Warwick Castle, as a member of the jury at the trial of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, in 1521, in the government of the Welsh Marches, as Steward in Princess Mary’s household at Ludlow and Chamberlain of the Court of General Surveyors. He also served Edward VI as a Privy Councillor.
1563 – Death of Henry Manners, 2nd Earl of Rutland, courtier and soldier, during an outbreak of the plague. He was buried at Bottesford parish church in Leicestershire. Manners served Edward VI as Warden of the East and Middle Marches on the Scottish borders, joint Lord Lieutenant of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, and Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire. He was imprisoned when Mary I came to the throne for his support of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, but was released into house arrest and then pardoned. He served Mary I as Captain-General of Horsemen and Lieutenant and Captain-General in Calais. During Elizabeth I’s reign, he served as Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire and Rutland, and President of the Council of the North.
1575 – Death of Heinrich (Henry) Bullinger, the Swiss reformer and theologian, in Zurich. Bullinger succeeded Huldrych Zwingli as pastor at Grossmünster and head of the church in Zurich. His main work was “The Decades”, a theological work, but his sermons were also translated and published, and he wrote historical works.
1577 – The Edict of Poitiers ratified the Treaty of Bergerac, which had been signed between Henry III of France and the Huguenot princes.
10th September:
1515 – Thomas Wolsey was made Cardinal.
1533 – Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was christened at the Church of Observant Friars in Greenwich.
1543 – Death of Sir Edward Chamberlayne, Oxfordshire gentleman and soldier. He was buried at Woodstock.
1547 – The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, part of the War of the Rough Wooing between England and Scotland. Click here to read more.
1549 – Death of Sir Anthony Denny, Henry VIII’s great friend and groom of the stool, at Cheshunt. He was buried in St Mary’s Church, Cheshunt.
1557 – Execution of Joyce Lewis (née Curson and other married name Appleby, Lady Appleby), Protestant martyr, at Lichfield. She was burned at the stake for her Protestant beliefs.
1569 – Death of Gilbert Bourne, Bishop of Bath and Wells, at Silverton in Devon. Bourne was deprived of his see in Elizabeth I’s reign after refusing to take the “Oath of Supremacy”. He was buried in Silverton Church.
1604 – Death of William Morgan, Bishop of St Asaph and Bible translator, at the Bishop’s Palace at St Asaph. He was buried there in the cathedral church.
Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London (c. 1500-1569)
Birth: c. 1500
Place of birth: probably Hanley, Worcestershire
Parents: Elizabeth Frodsham, wife of Edmund Bonner, sawyer. However, it was alleged that his father was actually George Savage, rector of Davenham, Cheshire.
Education: Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College), Oxford, where he studied civil and canon law. In 1526, he received a doctorate in civil law and was admitted to the College of Advocates, London.
6 August:
1504 – Birth of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the parish of St Saviour, Norwich. Parker was the son of worsted weaver William Parker and his wife Alice Monings [Monins] from Kent.
1514 – Marriage of Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII and widow of James IV of Scotland, and Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, at Kinnoull in Perthshire.
1549 – Battle of Clyst Heath during the Prayer Book Rebellion.
1623 – Death of Anne Hathaway, wife of William Shakespeare. Anne was buried next to her husband in the Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon.
25th June:
1503 – Catherine of Aragon was formally betrothed to Prince Henry, the future Henry VIII, and second son of Henry VII. She had been married to Arthur, Prince of Wales, Henry VII’s eldest son, but he died in 1501 after only six months of marriage.
1533 – Death of Mary Tudor, Queen of France, the thirty-seven-year-old sister of Henry VIII and wife of his friend Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. She died at her home, Westhorpe Hall in Suffolk, and was buried at the local abbey in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. When the abbey was dissolved, however, her remains were moved to St Mary’s Church, Bury St Edmunds. Click here to read more.
1539 – Baptism of courtier Gregory Fiennes, 10th Baron Dacre, the younger son of Thomas Fiennes, 9th Baron Dacre, and Mary, the daughter of George Neville, Baron Bergavenny.
1601 – Death of Peregrine Bertie, 13th Baron Willoughby, Beck and Eresby, at Berwick upon Tweed. He died of a fever. Bertie was the only son of Richard Bertie and Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk, 12th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby and the well known Protestant patron. Bertie was a soldier, nobleman, ambassador, Governor of Berwick upon Tweed and Warden of the East March.
14 May:
1511 – Death of Walter Fitzsimmons, Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Deputy of Ireland, at Finglas, Dublin. He was buried in the nave of St Patrick’s Cathedral.
1523 – Death of Nicholas Vaux, 1st Baron Vaux, courtier and soldier, at the Hospital of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem in Clerkenwell.
1571 – Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox and regent to James VI, held the “Creeping Parliament”.
1595 – Death of Anne Fiennes (née Sackville), Lady Dacre, at Chelsea. She was buried in the More Chapel, Chelsea, next to her husband, Gregory Fiennes, 10th Baron Dacre.
1629 – Death of Jean Gordon, Countess of Bothwell and Sutherland. She is known for having been married, albeit briefly, to James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, who went on to marry Mary, Queen of Scots. In 1573 she married Alexander Gordon, 12th Earl of Sutherland, and after his death she married Alexander Ogilvy of Boyne, the man she had been in love with before she married Bothwell.
1635 – Burial of Helena Gorges (née Snakenborg), Lady Gorges, in Salisbury Cathedral. Helena was married twice, firstly to William Parr, Marquis of Northampton (brother of Catherine Parr), and secondly to Sir Thomas Gorges, courtier.
Sir John Gage was born on 28th October 1479 and was the only son of William Gage of Burstow and his wife, Agnes, daughter of Bartholomew Bolney of Bolney in Sussex. Gage was baptised in Burstow, where he was born, but the family later moved to Firle, near Lewes.
In 1499, Gage became a ward of Robert Tate, alderman of London, and in 1502 Gage married Philippa, daughter of Sir Richard Guildford of Cranbrook who was comptroller of the royal household. This marriage match was good for Gage in that it helped him to join the royal household, which he did by becoming an esquire of the body to King Henry VII. He continued in this role after the accession of 17-year-old Henry VIII in 1509.
Gage served as a Justice of the Peace for the counties of Sussex (1514) and Surrey (1528) and by 1522 he had been appointed as deputy to Sir Nicholas Vaux, who was serving as captain of Guînes. This was due to the patronage of Sir William Sandys who was serving as treasurer of Calais. In August 1522, Gage was granted survivorship of the office of comptroller of Calais, because the comptroller, Sir Robert Wotton was ill, and he became comptroller in 1524 on Wotton’s death. He served in the campaigns in France in the 1510s and 1520s and was rewarded with a knighthood in 1525.
[Read More...]
1532 – James Bainham, lawyer and Protestant martyr, was burned at Smithfield.
1536 – Scottish theologian Alexander Alesius witnessed an argument between Queen Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, and at 11 o’clock that night, the King and Queen’s upcoming visit to Calais was cancelled and arrangements made for the King to journey alone a week later. Also 30th April, court musician and member of the Boleyn circle, Mark Smeaton, was taken to Thomas Cromwell’s house in Stepney and interrogated. Within twenty-four hours, he had confessed to making love three times to the Queen.
1544 – Death of Thomas Audley, Baron Audley of Walden and Lord Chancellor, at his home in Aldgate, London. Audley was Cromwell’s right-hand man in 1536, during the fall of Anne Boleyn, and became even more important after Cromwell’s fall.
1547 – Sir Anthony Denny was made Henry VIII’s Groom of the Stool.
1563 – Death of Henry Stafford, 10th Baron Stafford, at Caus Castle, Shropshire. Stafford was the only legitimate son of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, and his wife, Eleanor, daughter of Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland.
1595 – Death of Thomas Bedwell, mathematician, engineer and keeper of the ordnance store at the Tower of London. He was buried at the Tower, in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Bedwell’s engineering projects included him supervising the building of Dover harbour, giving advice on the fortification of Portsmouth and working on the River Thames’ defences at Tilbury and Gravesend in 1588, at the time of the Spanish Armada.
1596 – Death of Sir John Puckering, administrator and Speaker of the House of Commons, from apoplexy. Puckering’s other offices included Serjeant-at-Law, Recorder of Warwick, Privy Councillor and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. In 1587, he was involved in the trial of Elizabeth I’s secretary William Davison, appearing for the Crown. He was buried at Westminster Abbey, in St Paul’s Chapel.
1596 – Death of Thomas Bickley, Bishop of Chichester, at the bishop’s palace in Aldingbourne. He was buried in his cathedral.
1500 – Birth of Alexander Ales (Alesius, Aless), Scottish theologian and reformer, at Edinburgh. His mother was Christina Bigholm, and his actual surname seems to have been Alan or Allane. He changed his name when he went into exile, choosing “Alesius”, meaning “bird”, or in this case, “exile”.
1512 – Birth of Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel, son of William Fitzalan, 11th Earl of Arundel, and Anne (née Percy), daughter of Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland. At his baptism, Henry VIII stood as his godfather. He served Henry VIII as Deputy of Calais, Privy Councillor and Lord Chamberlain.
1536 – Sir Nicholas Carew was elected to the Order of the Garter at the annual chapter meeting at Greenwich, rather than George Boleyn, brother of Queen Anne Boleyn.
1564 – Traditional birthdate of William Shakespeare, the Bard. It is not known on what date Shakespeare was actually born but he was baptised at Stratford-upon-Avon on 26th April 1564, and baptism usually took place around three days after birth.
William Shakespeare also died on this day in 1616. He was buried at the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, in the chancel.
23 April, St George’s Day, was the traditional day for announcing new appointments to the Order of the Garter, the highest order of chivalry in England.
Sir Anthony Browne was born in c.1500 and was the son of Sir Anthony Browne and his wife Lucy. Browne’s father was a member of the Browne family of Betchworth, in Surrey, and his mother was a widow of Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam of Aldwark, Yorkshire. She was also the daughter and coheir of John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu and son of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury. Browne’s great uncle was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the famous “Kingmaker”. From his mother’s first marriage, Browne had a half-brother, William Fitzwilliam, 1st Earl of Southampton, whose later career resembled his in many ways.
[Read More...]
26th March:
1533 – Convocation was asked to pronounce on the validity of a papal dispensation allowing a man to marry his brother’s widow, the man and widow in question being Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.
1546 – Death of Sir Thomas Elyot, humanist scholar and diplomat. He was buried at Carleton Parish Church in Cambridgeshire. Elyot’s offices included Clerk of the Privy Council, High Sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire, High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, and a commissioner in the inquiry into the monasteries before their dissolution. He also acted as a diplomat, visiting the court of Charles V in 1531, and was one of the men chosen to receive Anne of Cleves in 1540. Elyot’s works include the 1531 treatise “The Boke named the Governour”, the 1536 medical treatise “The Castell of Helth”, his 1538 “Latin Dictionary” and a number of translations.
1556 – Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Edmund Grindal, Bishop of London, summoned one hundred and ten ministers to Lambeth Palace to get them to pledge their willingness to wear vestments, as worn by the man in front of them: Robert Cole, a former non-conformist who now complied. The outfit consisted of a square cap, gown, tippet, and surplice. They were also asked “to inviolably observe the rubric of the Book of Common Prayer, and the queen’s majesty’s injunctions, and the Book of Convocation” and to commit to these orders on the spot, by writing “volo” or “no volo”. 37 refused and were suspended.
1609 – Date of death for John Dee, astrologer, mathematician, alchemist, antiquary, spy, philosopher, geographer and adviser to Elizabeth I, given by John Pontois, a merchant who inherited some of Dee’s books. This date was backed up by Anthony Wood, who told Elias Ashmole that Dee had died at Pontois’ house in Bishopsgate Street. Dee was buried in Mortlake Church. The traditional date for Dee’s death is December 1608.
1618 – Death of John Bridges, Dean of Salisbury in Elizabeth I’s reign and Bishop of Oxford in James I’s reign, at Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire. He was buried there.