Claire | November 8, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 8th November 1528, King Henry VIII made a rather strange public oration to “the nobility, judges and councillors and divers other persons” at Bridewell Palace. His speech was regarding his troubled conscience over the lawfulness of his marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. In his speech, he […]
Claire | September 29, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 29th September 1528, in the reign of King Henry VIII, Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio landed at Dover on the south coast of England. Campeggio had been sent as a papal legate to hear Henry VIII’s case for annulment along with Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who’d been made the pope’s vice-regent. The […]
Claire | July 11, 2022
By this day in Tudor history, 11th July 1533, Pope Clement VII had go to the end of his tether with King Henry VIII. But how had Henry VIII gone from being lauded as Defender of the Faith in 1521 to being threatened with excommunication under 12 years later? What on earth had he done […]
Claire | May 23, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 23rd May 1533, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, declared the sentence of the special court that had met at Dunstable Priory in Bedfordshire. The Dunstable Priory court had convened to hear the case for the annulment of King Henry VIII’s marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Predictably, the court […]
Claire | April 5, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 5th April 1531, Richard Roose, the cook of Bishop John Fisher’s household, was boiled to death for high treason at Smithfield. He was found guilty of high treason by an act of Parliament, but why? What happened and why did King Henry VIII take a personal interest in this […]
Claire | June 21, 2016
On this day in history, 21st June 1529, just over twenty years after their marriage, King Henry VIII and his first wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, appeared before Cardinals Wolsey and Campeggio at the Legatine Court at Blackfriars. Cardinal Wolsey had been authorised by papal bull in April 1528 “to take cognisance of all matters […]
Claire | May 10, 2016
Yes, for this “on this day in history” post we are taking a break from the 1536 countdown of Anne Boleyn’s fall to go back to 1533, the year that Anne Boleyn was crowned queen. On 5th April 1533, Convocation gave its ruling on Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, stating that the Pope […]
Claire | April 5, 2016
On 5th April 1533, Convocation gave its ruling on Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, stating that the Pope had no power to dispense in the case of a man marrying his brother’s widow, and that it was contrary to God’s law. Here is the record from Letters and Papers: “Notarial attestation of the […]
