31 October
Martin Luther
1494 – Henry VII's son, Henry (the future Henry VIII), was created Duke of York.
1517 – Martin Luther wrote to Albert, Archbishop of Mainz, and the Bishop of Brandenburg protesting against the sale of indulgences and sending them a copy of The Ninety-Five Theses (proper title: Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences).
According to Philipp Melancthon, “Luther, burning with passion and just devoutness, posted the Ninety-Five Theses at the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany at All Saints Eve, October 31”, rather than sending them in a letter, but no other contemporary source supports this.
1537 – Death of Lord Thomas Howard, second son of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, and his second wife, Agnes Tilney, in the Tower of London. He was buried at Thetford Abbey. Howard had been imprisoned in 1536 after becoming betrothed to Lady Margaret Douglas, the King's niece, without the King's permission.
1557 – Death of Sir Nicholas Hare, lawyer, Speaker of the House of Commons and Master of the Rolls. He was buried in Temple Church, London. Hare is known for presiding over the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, after Wyatt's Rebellion, and actually arguing with the accused. Throckmorton stated that it was Hare who had influenced his dislike of the proposed marriage between Mary I and Philip of Spain, and Hare reacted by refusing to examine one of the witnesses. Throckmorton was acquitted.
1612 – Death of Sir Christopher Yelverton, judge and Speaker of the House of Commons, at the age of seventy-five. He was buried at Easton Maudit Church.
1 November
Edmund Tudor
1456 - Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, died from the plague at Carmarthen Castle. Edmund was the son of Owen Tudor and Catherine of Valois, and the father of Henry VII. He was buried at the monastery of Greyfriars in Carmarthen, but was moved to St Davids Cathedral on the orders of his grandson, Henry VIII, after the dissolution of the monastery.
1527 – Birth of William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham, courtier and diplomat. He was the son of George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham, and his wife, Anne (née Bray). Cobham was a close friend of William Cecil, and so became powerful in Elizabeth I's reign. He served as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Privy Councillor and Lord Chamberlain. Cobham also undertook diplomatic missions.
1530 – Henry VIII sent Sir Walter Walsh (some say William Walsh) with Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, to Cawood Castle to arrest Cardinal Thomas Wolsey for high treason. They arrived on 4th November and took him into custody.
1558 – Death of Michael Throckmorton, agent for Cardinal Reginald Pole, probably at Mantua in Italy. He studied law in Italy, in Padua, in 1533 before becoming Pole's secretary. It is thought that he may well have been the agent who took Pole's Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione to Henry VIII in 1536.
2 November
Edward V
All Souls' Day - a day to remember and pray for the dead.
1470 – Birth of Edward V, son of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, in Westminster Abbey sanctuary during his father's exile. He was baptised there. In June 1471, his father made him Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. His father died in April 1483, making Edward King Edward V, but his uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, claimed the throne as Richard III. Edward and his brother, Richard, Duke of York, disappeared and their fate is unknown. They became known as the Princes in the Tower, and there is still controversy today over what happened to them.
1541 - Henry VIII attended All Souls' mass and found a letter left for him by Archbishop Cranmer. It detailed Catherine Howard’s colourful past, and how she had “lived most corruptly and sensually”.
1581 – Death of Gilbert Berkeley, Bishop of Bath and Wells, at Wells. He was buried at the cathedral and his tomb chest can still be seen today, in the aisle of the north chancel.
3 November
1568 – Death of Nicholas Carr, physician, classical scholar and Pegius professor of Greek at Cambridge. He was laid to rest in St Michael's Church, Cambridge, and a monument was erected in his memory at St Giles's Church. His works included De Scriptorum Britannicorum Paucitate et Studiorum Impedimentis Oratio, Epistola de morte Buceri ad Johannem Checum, Eusebii Pamphili de vita Constantini and Demosthenis Graecorum Oratorum Principis Olynthiacae orationes tres, et Philippicae quatuor, e Greco in Latinum conversae.
1592 - Death of Sir John Perrot, Privy Councillor and former Lord Deputy of Ireland, at the Tower of London. He died a destitute, convicted traitor. Some believe him to have been the illegitimate son of Henry VIII. He was buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula at the Tower.
4 November
1501 – Catherine of Aragon met Arthur, Prince of Wales, for the first time at Dogmersfield in Hampshire. They married ten days later at St Paul's.
1530 – William (some say Walter) Walsh and Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, arrived at Cawood Castle and arrested Cardinal Thomas Wolsey for high treason.
1538 - Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu, was arrested for treason along with his brother-in-law, Sir Edward Neville; Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, and Courtenay's family (wife Gertrude Blount and son Edward Courtenay). The three men were accused of conspiring against the King, seeking to deprive the King of his title of supreme head of the church and plotting with Cardinal Reginald Pole, the exiled brother of Montagu.
1551 – Date given in the epitaph of John Redman, theologian and first Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He died of consumption and was buried at Westminster Abbey, in the north transept. Redman's works included De justificatione, which he presented to Henry VIII in 1543, and “A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man”.
5 November
Guy Fawkes
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.
6 November
1514 - Mary Tudor, Queen of France, processed into Paris following her coronation the day before at St Denis.
1541 – Henry VIII abandoned his Catherine Howard, his fifth wife, at Hampton Court Palace. The investigation into John Lassell’s claims that Catherine had two sexual relationships during her time in the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk’s household had proved them true.
1558 – Baptism of Thomas Kyd, translator and playwright, at St Mary Woolnoth in London. Kyd is known for his play “The Spanish Tragedy”.
1612 – Death of Nicholas Fitzherbert, author and former secretary of Cardinal William Allen, near Florence in Italy. Fitzherbert drowned while trying to ford a stream en route to Rome. Fitzherbert left England in the 1570s because of his Catholic faith and to study law at Bologna. In 1580, while he was in Italy, he was attainted of treason back in England due to his Catholic faith. He was buried at Florence, in the Benedictine abbey.
1617 – Death of William Harborne, merchant and diplomat, at Mundham in Norfolk, Harborne served Elizabeth I as the English ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople. He was buried at Mundham.
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