Claire | May 17, 2018
On this day in history, 17th May 1536, Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, William Brereton, Mark Smeaton and George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, were escorted from the Tower of London up to the scaffold on Tower Hill to be executed for high treason. They had all been sentenced to a full traitor’s death, i.e. to […]
Claire | May 17, 2017
On this day in history, Wednesday 17th May 1536, five courtiers were beheaded on Tower Hill. Their names: Mark Smeaton, William Brereton, Sir Francis Weston, Sir Henry Norris and George Boleyn, Lord Rochford. Their crime: high treason; they had been found guilty of having sexual relations with Queen Anne Boleyn and of plotting with her […]
Claire | May 17, 2016
Anne Boleyn is everywhere at the moment. Lots of blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts are sharing the events of her fall in May 1536 and discussing it. It is wonderful that she is getting so much attention 480 years after her execution and that people from all over the world are coming together to […]
Claire | May 17, 2015
The famous Tudor poet Thomas Wyatt the Elder wrote two poems about the executions he witnessed in 1536 from his prison in the Bell Tower of the Tower of London. In one, he wrote of how “These bloody days have broken my heart” and I am always moved by those words and the refrain at […]
