Joel Ridgway | March 20, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 20th March 1544, Cuthbert Mayne (Main/Maine) or St Cuthbert Mayne, Roman Catholic priest and martyr, was baptised in Youlston in North Devon. Cuthbert Mayne has gone down in history as the first seminary priest to be martyred. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Launceston on 30th November 1577, […]
Joel Ridgway | March 5, 2022
On this day in Tudor history, 5th March 1558, Spanish physician Francisco Fernandes brought back live tobacco plants and seeds from Mexico to Europe. I talk about the introduction of tobacco in Europe and how it was viewed as a cure-all, and how tobacco smoking became fashionable at Elizabeth I’s court. Also on this day […]
Claire | August 30, 2017
On this day in history, 30th August 1548, Catherine Parr, Queen Dowager and wife of Thomas Seymour, Baron Seymour of Sudeley, gave birth to her first and only child, a daughter, at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. The healthy baby girl was baptised ‘Mary’ after her godmother, the Lady Mary, eldest daughter of King Henry VIII […]
Claire | March 20, 2016
On 20th March 1549, Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron of Sudeley, Lord High Admiral and the fourth husband of the late Dowager Queen Catherine Parr, was executed on Tower Hill. He had been found guilty of thirty-three counts of treason following his arrest at Hampton Court Palace when he had allegedly broken into his nephew Edward […]
Claire | December 11, 2015
A big welcome to historian Elizabeth Norton who joins us today for a guest post on the subject of her latest book The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor. Over to Elizabeth… June 1547. The court of Edward VI was stunned by the news that the queen dowager – Catherine Parr – had married the boy king’s […]
Claire | August 30, 2014
On 30th August 1548, Catherine Parr, Queen Dowager, and wife of Thomas Seymour, Baron Seymour of Sudeley, gave birth to her first child at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. The baby was a little girl and the couple named her Mary after Catherine’s stepdaughter and friend, Mary Tudor (the future Mary I). Unfortunately, little Mary Seymour […]
Claire | August 30, 2013
On this day in 1548, Mary Seymour, daughter and only child of Catherine Parr, Queen Dowager, and Thomas Seymour, Baron Seymour of Sudeley, was born at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. Catherine Parr died of puerperal fever on 5th September 1548, just six days after the birth of Mary, and Thomas Seymour was executed as a […]
Claire | March 20, 2013
On this day in 1549 Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron of Sudeley, Lord High Admiral and the fourth husband of the late Dowager Queen Catherine Parr, was executed on Tower Hill. He had been found guilty of thirty-three counts of treason following his arrest at Hampton Court Palace when he had allegedly broken into his nephew […]
