This week in history 9 – 15 February

9 February

1554 – Original date set for the execution of Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford Dudley. Extra time was given for Dr John Feckenham, Mary I's Chaplain and Confessor, to try and save Jane's soul by persuading her to recant her Protestant faith and return to the Catholic fold.
1555 – Protestant martyr John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester was burned at the stake in Gloucester. He had been deprived of his bishopric in March 1554, due to his marriage, and was executed for heresy as part of Mary I's persecution of Protestants.
1555 – Burning of Rowland Taylor, Protestant martyr, Rector of Hadleigh in Suffolk, Canon of Rochester Cathedral, Archdeacon of Bury St Edmunds, Archdeacon of Cornwall and former chaplain to Thomas Cranmer. He was burned for heresy on Aldham Common, near Hadleigh.
1604 – Death of Anne Dudley (née Russell), former maid-of-honour to Elizabeth I, Countess of Warwick and third wife of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick. She died at North Hall in Northaw, Hertfordshire, the property left to her by her husband on his death in 1590. Anne served Elizabeth I as an extraordinary Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber until Elizabeth's death. Anne chose to be buried with her family, the Russells, at Chenies in Buckinghamshire, rather than with her husband at Warwick.

10 February

1542 – Catherine Howard was taken to the Tower of London by barge.
1550 – Death of Sir Edmund Walsingham, soldier and Lieutenant of the Tower of London. He was buried at Chislehurst. Walsingham was Lieutenant of the Tower when Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were imprisoned there.
1554 – Death of Sir William Sidney, courtier and former Steward to Prince Edward (future Edward VI), at Penshurst. He was buried at Penshurst parish church.
1557 – Death of Sir Edward Montagu, lawyer and Judge, at his manor of Boughton, Northamptonshire, and buried in the church of St Mary, Weekley. Montagu served Henry VIII as Lord Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench from 1539 to 1545 when he became Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He was also a Privy Councillor and acted as one of the executors of the King's will in 1547.
1564 – Death of Henry Neville, 5th Earl of Westmorland, at Kelvedon, Essex. He was buried at Staindrop. The teenage Neville was taken hostage during the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace to ensure his father's co-operation with the rebels. He served Henry VIII as privy councillor and, when Edward VI was dying, signed the letters patent naming Lady Jane Grey as his successor. He swapped sides shortly after Edward's death, declaring for Mary I and bore the Second Sword and Cap of Maintenance at her coronation in October 1553.
1567 - Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was murdered at Kirk o’ Field, Edinburgh, in the Royal Mile, just a few hundred yards from Holyrood House where his wife, Mary, Queen of Scots, and baby son, the future James VI/I, were staying.
1612 – Death of Jodocus Hondius (Joost de Hondt), artist, engraver and cartographer, at Amsterdam. Hondius worked with De Bry and Augustin Ryther in 1589 on engravings for the English version of “The Mariner's Mirror”, and was also responsible for a world map. Other works included portraits of Elizabeth I, illustrations for the voyages of Sir Francis Drake, a celestial globe and terrestrial globe.

11 February

1466 - Birth of Elizabeth of York, daughter and eldest child of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, and queen consort of Henry VII.
1503 – Death of Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII, from a post-partum infection.
1531 – Convocation granted Henry VIII the title of “singular protector, supreme lord, and even, so far as the law of Christ allows, supreme head of the English church and clergy”.

12 February

1554 - Executions of Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley for treason. They were buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula at the Tower of London.
1567 – Death of Sir Thomas White, founder of St John's College, Oxford, and former Lord Mayor of London, at his property in Size Lane, London. He was buried in St John's College Chapel.
1584 – Executions of five Catholic priests, including James Fenn. They were hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. Fenn was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929.
1590 – Death of Blanche Parry, chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, at the age of eighty-two. She was buried in St Margaret's, Westminster, with funeral rites which were usually reserved for a baroness. She has a monument in St Margaret’s and also one in Bacton Church, her home village in Herefordshire, which bears an inscription of twenty-eight lines of verse recording Blanche’s service to her beloved Queen.
1611 – Probable date of death of Sir Henry Lee, Queen's Champion from c.1580 to November 1590. He was buried at Quarrendon in Buckinghamshire.

13 February

1542 - Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, and Lady Jane Rochford were executed at the Tower of London. They had been found guilty of treason by Act of Attainder. They were both buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula at the Tower of London.
1564 – Baptism of John Harvey, astrologer and physician, at Saffron Walden in Essex. Harvey was the third son of John Harvey, farmer and rope-maker, and his wife, Alice. His published works included “An Astrologicall Addition” (1583), a series of almanacs and “A Discoursive Probleme Concerning Prophesies” (1588).
1579 – Death of John Fowler, the English Catholic printer and publisher, in Namur, during his exile in the reign of Elizabeth I. He was buried there in the church of St John the Evangelist. He is known as one of the most important English Catholic publishers of the 1560s and 70s.
1585 – Death of Nicholas Robinson, Bishop of Bangor. He was buried in Bangor Cathedral with a memorial brass marking his resting place.
1608 – Death of Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, known as Bess of Hardwick, at Hardwick. Her body lay in state at Hardwick until her funeral at All Hallows, Derby (now All Saints' Cathedral), on 4th May 1608. Bess was married four times - Robert Barlow (c. 1543), Sir William Cavendish (1547), Sir William St Loe (c. 1557/8) and finally to George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury (1567). Bess is known for her building projects, which included Chatsworth and Hardwick Hall, her beautiful needlework and the fact that she and Shrewsbury were guardians of the captive Mary, Queen of Scots between 1569 and 1584.

14 February

1492 – Death of William Berkeley, Marquis of Berkeley and a man known as “William Waste-all”. He was buried in the Augustinian friary in London with his second wife, Joan.
1539 – Trial of Sr Nicholas Carew. He was found guilty of treason, after being implicated in the Exeter Conspiracy, and sentenced to death. Carew was executed on 3rd March 1539 at Tyburn.
1547 - Henry VIII’s coffin was taken to Windsor for burial after resting overnight at Syon Abbey. Apparently, some liquid leaked out of it on to the floor at Syon, and this was thought to fulfil the prophecy made by Franciscan friar William Peto in 1535. He had preached in front of the King at Greenwich that “God’s judgements were ready to fall upon his head and that dogs would lick his blood, as they had done to Ahab.”
1556 – Thomas Cranmer was degraded from his office of Archbishop of Canterbury for heresy.
1601 – Execution of Thomas Lee, soldier, at Tyburn. He was hanged, drawn and quartered after being implicated in the failed rebellion of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.

15 February

1499 – Death of James Goldwell, Bishop of Norwich, at the bishop's palace in Hoxne, Suffolk. He was buried in Norwich Cathedral, in the chantry chapel.
1503 – Death of Henry Deane, administrator and Archbishop of Canterbury. As well as serving Henry VII as Archbishop, Deane also served as Chancellor of Ireland, Deputy Governor for Prince Henry and Keeper of the Great Seal. He died at Lambeth Palace and was buried at Canterbury Cathedral at a lavish funeral.
1536 – Death of Richard Rawlins, Bishop of St David's and former warden of Merton College.
1551 - Thomas Arden, businessman and inspiration for the 1592 Elizabethan play, “The Tragedie of Arden of Feversham and Blackwill”, was murdered by his wife, Alice, and her lover, Thomas Morsby, and conspirators.
1564 – Birth of Galileo Galilei, the Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, in Pisa, Italy. He was one of the central figures of the Scientific Revolution and supported Copernicanism (the heliocentric model). He has been referred to as “the Father of Modern Science”, “the Father of Modern Physics” and “the father of modern observational astronomy”. He is also known for his discovery of the Galilean Moons (Jupiter's satellites), his improved military compass and his work on the telescope.
1571 – Death of Sir Adrian Poynings, soldier. He served as a soldier in Boulogne from 1546 to 1550, when he was made Lieutenant of Calais Castle, then in the St Quentin campaign of 1557 and in Le Havre in 1562.
1598 – Death of John May, Bishop of Carlisle, at Rose Castle, his episcopal residence. He was buried in Carlisle Cathedral.
1616 – Death of Sir George Carey, Lord Deputy of Ireland. He was buried at c*ckington, Devon.