Claire | June 22, 2015
On 22nd June 1528, William Carey, husband of Mary Boleyn and an Esquire of the Body to King Henry VIII, died of sweating sickness. The 1528 outbreak hit London in May 1528, causing the court to be broken up and the king and queen to flee to Waltham Abbey. We know from the reports of […]
Claire | February 14, 2015
If you haven’t noticed (quick, buy a card!), today is Valentine’s Day, the day of love. Contrary to what many people believe, Valentine’s Day was celebrated in Tudor England. Alison Sim, in her excellent book Pleasures & Pastimes in Tudor England writes of how it is mentioned three times in the Paston Letters (a collection […]
Claire | September 9, 2014
Just a quick post to alert you to the publication of my new book, which is a short book on that Tudor mystery disease, sweating sickness. Here are all the details: MadeGlobal’s History in a Nutshell Series aims to give readers a good grounding in a historical topic in a concise, easily digestible and accessible […]
Claire | June 22, 2014
On 22nd June 1528, William Carey, husband of Mary Boleyn and an Esquire of the Body to King Henry VIII, died. He was the victim of the outbreak of sweating sickness which also killed many members of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s household and monks at London’s Charterhouse. Carey was not the only member of the […]
Claire | May 16, 2014
Sweating sickness first reared its ugly head in England in summer 1485 and there were four further outbreaks – in 1508, 1517, 1528 and 1551 – before it completely disappeared in England, never to be seen in that land again. Anne Boleyn, Thomas Boleyn and George Boleyn caught it in summer 1528 and survived, but […]
Claire | December 17, 2013
As you know, I was ill in bed for a few days last week and it got me thinking about disease in Tudor times. I’m not going to go into detail on Tudor medicine, the four humours etc., I just want to touch on diseases that were common in that era. Today, many of these […]
Claire | July 14, 2013
On this day in history, 14th July 1551, the fifteen year-old Henry Brandon, 2nd Duke of Suffolk, and his fourteen year-old brother, Charles, 3rd Duke of Suffolk, died of sweating sickness at the home of the Bishop of Lincoln in Buckden, Huntingdonshire. Charles survived his brother by under an hour, becoming 3rd Duke of Suffolk […]
Claire | November 22, 2011
On this day in history, 22nd November 1545, Henry VIII’s trusted physician, Sir William Butts, died at Fulham Manor, Middlesex, after suffering from a “dooble febre quartanz” – sounds nasty! Sir William Butts acted as a royal physician at the court of Henry VIII from 1528 until his death. His patients included the King himself, […]
