Claire | June 18, 2016
On this day in history, 18th June 1546, Anne Askew, estranged wife of Thomas Kyme, was found guilty of heresy at London’s Guildhall along with Nicholas Shaxton (former Bishop of Salisbury), Nicholas White and John Hadlam. All four of them were condemned to be burnt, but Shaxton and White were saved by recanting their heretical […]
Claire | April 20, 2016
On 20th April 1534, prominent citizens of London were required to swear the “Oath of the Act of Succession”. Chronicler and Windsor Herald Charles Wriothesley recorded: “all the craftes in London were called to their halls, and there were sworne on a booke to be true to Queene Anne and to beleeve and take her […]
Claire | April 17, 2016
On 17th April 1534, Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor, was sent to the Tower of London. He had been summoned to Lambeth on 13th April 1534 to swear his allegiance to the “Act of Succession” but had refused to do so and “thereupon was he delivered to the abbot of Westminster to be […]
Claire | March 21, 2016
If you have been following this website for a while, you will have gathered that I am a practising Christian. My faith is real and true, but it’s far from perfect. I doubt, I question, I rant and I rave, and I often wonder when I’m writing about martyrs of the 16th century what I […]
Claire | January 15, 2016
On this day in history, 15th January 1535, King Henry VIII proclaimed that he was now Supreme Head of the Church of England. Here is the record from Letters and Papers: “Memorandum that the King in his privy chamber, 15 January 26 Hen. VIII., in presence of Sir Thos. Audley, lord Chancellor, Thos. duke of […]
Claire | October 16, 2015
On this day in history, 16th October 1555, during the reign of Mary I, Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, and Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, were burnt at the stake for heresy in Oxford. Ridley and Latimer, along with Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who was burnt at the stake on 21st March 1556, are known as […]
Claire | September 12, 2015
On Thursday12th September 1555, the trial of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, began in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin at Oxford. He was accused of two offences, or doctrinal errors: repudiating papal authority and denying transubstantiation. Cranmer had served Kings Henry VIII and Edward VI as archbishop, but now it was the […]
Claire | August 11, 2015
Sometime around 11th August 1534, the Friars Observant (Observant Friars of Greenwich) were expelled from their monasteries due to their support of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife, and their refusal to accept Henry VIII as the supreme head of the Church. Eustace Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, recorded their expulsion in a letter to […]
