Claire | June 18, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 18th June 1529, in the reign of King Henry VIII, the king’s wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, made her protest at the Legatine Court in Blackfriars, a court that was examining the king’s case for an annulment of their marriage. What was Catherine protesting about? What were the grounds […]
Claire | June 12, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 12th June 1530, twenty-one years and a day after they got married, Queen Catherine of Aragon got rather angry with her husband, King Henry VIII. Catherine accused the king of leading an evil life and setting a bad example. What led to these accusations? What had Henry VIII done […]
Claire | June 11, 2022
On this in Tudor history, 11 June 1509, two months after his accession to the throne of England, seventeen-year-old King Henry VIII married Spanish princess, Catherine of Aragon (Catalina de Aragón) at a private ceremony at Greenwich. This was twenty-three-year-old Catherine’s second marriage. Her first husband, Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales, Henry VIII’s older brother, […]
Claire | June 5, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 5th June 1516, Spaniard Maria de Salinas married William, 10th Lord Willoughby of Eresby. Maria and William were the parents of Catherine Willoughby, who went on to marry Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Maria was also a good friend of Catherine of Aragon and managed to be with the […]
Claire | April 9, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 9th April, Catherine of Aragon, who’d been banished from the royal court after opposing her husband King Henry VIII’s plans to annul their marriage, received a visit from a delegation of the king’s councillors. They were there to inform her that she was no longer queen. Catherine was a […]
Joel | March 27, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 27th March 1489, the Treaty of Medina del Campo was signed between England and Spain. One part of it was the arrangement of the marriage between Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Catherine (or Catalina) of Aragon. It was signed by Spain on this day and ratified in 1490 by […]
Joel | March 23, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 23rd March 1540, Waltham Abbey, an Augustinian house in Essex, was surrendered to the Crown. It was the last abbey to be dissolved in Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell’s dissolution of the monasteries. Find out more about this historic abbey, its origins and what’s left today, and also who […]
Joel | January 31, 2022
On this day in history, 31st January 1606, Gunpowder Plot conspirators Thomas Winter, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, and Guy Fawkes were executed for treason at the Old Palace Yard, Westminster. Two of them cheated the executioner and crowd by leaping at the gallows, but they still had awful ends. Hear a contemporary account of their […]
