On the 22nd of February, 1511, Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, experienced a devastating loss. Their infant son – Henry, Duke of Cornwall – died, suddenly and expectedly, at the age of only fifty-two days at Richmond Palace. The cause of his death was not recorded....
Coronation of a Tudor Boy King
A Boy King Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547, leaving his son, Edward Tudor, to inherit the English throne. At first, Henry’s death was a secret even to his only surviving legitimate son, Edward Tudor. His uncle – Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford – and Sir Anthony Browne escorted Edward...
The Shrovetide joust: ‘Declare I dare not’
In 1526, Shrove Tuesday (the 7th of February) was celebrated with a traditional solemn joust at Greenwich Palace. Jousting was one of Henry's favorite sports. The Shrovetide joust was a special event for Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII, as the English monarch’s motto tentatively reflected that he had found...
Henry VIII’s Two Wives: Death Comes Uninvited
Death comes into people’s lives without any rules, inconsiderately and irrationally as a thief. It brings pain and suffering when one we love departs. The end of January 1536 was a tragic time, marked by catastrophic loss and sadness, for both Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon. There is an old...
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey: in favor of the fickle Henry VIII for years
King Henry VIII’s ascension to the English throne was viewed by many people as the dawn of a new glorious era in England. Henry was perceived as a paragon of majesty, extravagance, culture, and Renaissance humanism, or it was how Henry positioned himself despite the fact that the Tudor court...
The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
On the 24th of August 1572, the sanguineous St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was carried out. Under the influence of his homicidal mother, Catherine de’ Medici, King Charles IX of France ordered the murder of the Huguenot Protestant leaders in Paris, which triggered a wave of the shocking violence towards the Huguenots in...
Death of Henry FitzRoy
On the 22nd of July 1536, Henry FitzRoy, the Duke of Richmond and Somerset, who was the only acknowledged illegitimate son of Henry VIII and his mistress, Elizabeth Blount, died at St James’s Palace. Born on the 15th of June 1519, he turned only seventeen over a month before his...
Catherine Parr’s unwanted wedding to Henry VIII
On this day in history, the 12th of July 1543, Henry VIII married Catherine Parr, widow of Sir Edward Burgh and Sir John Neville, Baron Latimer of Snape. The wedding took place in the queen’s closet at Hampton Court Palace. Sometime in the spring of 1543, the aging ruler proposed...
The Pope Urges Henry VIII to abandon Anne Boleyn
On the 11th of July 1533, Pope Clement VII declared that Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon was valid and legal. Effectively, it meant that the King of England’s marriage to Anne Boleyn was declared null and void. This is the excerpt from Letters and Papers (the source is...
A fatal love triangle untangled: Execution of Anne Boleyn, the 19th of May 1536
the links to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5 of the series “A fatal love triangle: King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour After Anne’s trial and her condemnation, events were happening at a breakneck speed. On the 16th of May 1536, Archbishop Cranmer visited the condemned Anne...
Henry FitzRoy: Henry VIII’s “illegitimate” heir to the throne
When King Henry VIII was alive, he might have considered naming Henry FitzRoy, his illegitimate son with Lady Elizabeth Blount, his successor even without legitimizing it. The fact that Henry VIII openly acknowledged his bastard and bestowed two dukedoms upon the boy doesn’t mean that the king wanted to legitimize...
A fatal love triangle: King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour (part 5)
the links to part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 of the series “A fatal love triangle: King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour On the 15th of May 1536, a fatal love triangle was finally untangled. To end Anne Boleyn’s marriage to King Henry quickly, only a legal solution would suffice. Henry...
A fatal love triangle: King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour (part 4)
the links to part 1, part 2, and part 3 of the series “A fatal love triangle: King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour After the arrests of Anne and George Boleyn, and her other alleged paramours, tension was rising in the air, and the royal court froze in anticipation of the appalling...
AU: Queen Elizabeth I marries Robert Dudley
First of all, we need to determine whether Queen Elizabeth I could have married Robert Dudley. Is the alternate history scenario of her marriage to Dudley probable? Robert Dudley married his first wife, Amy Robsart, in 1550, three days before her 18th birthday. At that time, the seventeen-year-old Elizabeth was a...
A fatal love triangle: King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour (part 3)
the link to part 2 of the series “A fatal love triangle: King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour” is here The drama continued on the traditional May Day joust at Greenwich Palace. Queen Anne was aware that something had gone wrong: King Henry attended extended council meetings, their trip...