January 7, 1536: Death of Infanta Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England

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Anne Boleyn, Archbishop of Canterbury, Arthur Tudor, Infanta Catherine of Aragon, King Fernando II of Aragon, King Henry VIII of England and Scotland, Pope Clement VII, Prince of Wales, Queen Catherine of England, Queen Isabella I of Castile, Queen Mary I of England and Ireland, Thomas Cranmer

Infanta Catherine of Aragon (December 16, 1485 – January 7, 1536) was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on June 11, 1509 until their annulment on May 23, 1533. She was previously Princess of Wales as the wife of Henry’s elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales.

The daughter of Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Fernando II of Aragon. Infanta Catherine was three years old when she was betrothed to Prince Arthur, heir apparent to the English throne.

Infanta Catherine of Aragon

They married in 1501, but Arthur died five months later. Catherine spent years in limbo, and during this time, she held the position of ambassador of the Aragonese crown to England in 1507, the first known female ambassador in European history.

She married Arthur’s younger brother, the recently ascended Henry VIII, in 1509. For six months in 1513, she served as regent of England while Henry VIII was in France. During that time the English crushed and defeated a Scottish invasion at the Battle of Flodden, an event in which Catherine played an important part with an emotional speech about English courage and patriotism.

By 1525, Henry VIII was infatuated with Anne Boleyn and dissatisfied that his marriage to Catherine had produced no surviving sons, leaving their daughter Mary as heir presumptive at a time when there was no established precedent for a woman on the throne.

He sought to have their marriage annulled, setting in motion a chain of events that led to England’s schism with the Catholic Church. When Pope Clement VII refused to annul the marriage, Henry defied him by assuming supremacy over religious matters.

Portrait of a noblewoman, possibly Mary Tudor c. 1514 or Catherine of Aragon c. 1502, by Michael Sittow. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

On May 23, 1533 Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, sitting in judgement at a special court convened at Dunstable Priory to rule on the validity of Henry’s marriage to Catherine, declared the marriage unlawful, even though Catherine had testified that she and Arthur had never had physical relations. Five days later, on May 28, 1533, Cranmer ruled that Henry VIII and Anne’s marriage was valid.

Until the end of her life, Catherine would refer to herself as Henry’s only lawful wedded wife and England’s only rightful Queen, and her servants continued to address her as such. Henry refused her the right to any title but “Dowager Princess of Wales” in recognition of her position as his brother’s widow.

Catherine went to live at The More Castle, Hertfordshire, late in 1531. After that, she was successively moved to the Royal Palace of Hatfield, Hertfordshire (May to September, 1532), Elsyng Palace, Enfield (September 1532 to February 1533), Ampthill Castle, Bedfordshire (February to July, 1533) and Buckden Towers, Cambridgeshire (July 1533 to May 1534).

She was then finally transferred to Kimbolton Castle, Cambridgeshire where she confined herself to one room, which she left only to attend Mass, dressed only in the hair shirt of the Order of St. Francis, and fasted continuously.

King Henry VIII of England and Ireland

While she was permitted to receive occasional visitors, she was forbidden to see her daughter Mary. They were also forbidden to communicate in writing, but sympathisers discreetly conveyed letters between the two.

Henry offered both mother and daughter better quarters and permission to see each other if they would acknowledge Anne Boleyn as the new Queen; both refused.

In late December 1535, sensing her death was near, Catherine made her will, and wrote to her nephew, the Emperor Charles V, asking him to protect her daughter.

Catherine died at Kimbolton Castle on January 7, 1536. The following day, news of her death reached the king. At the time there were rumours that she was poisoned, possibly by Gregory di Casale.

Queen Catherine of England

According to the chronicler Edward Hall, Anne Boleyn wore yellow for the mourning, which has been interpreted in various ways; Polydore Vergil interpreted this to mean that Anne did not mourn. Chapuys reported that it was King Henry who decked himself in yellow, celebrating the news and making a great show of his and Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth, to his courtiers.

This was seen as distasteful and vulgar by many. Another theory is that the dressing in yellow was out of respect for Catherine as yellow was said to be the Spanish colour of mourning. Certainly, later in the day it is reported that Henry and Anne both individually and privately wept for her death. On the day of Catherine’s funeral, Anne Boleyn miscarried a male child.

Queen Mary I of England and Ireland

Rumours then circulated that Catherine had been poisoned by Anne or Henry, or both. The rumours were born after the apparent discovery during her embalming that there was a black growth on her heart that might have been caused by poisoning. Modern medical experts are in agreement that her heart’s discolouration was not due to poisoning, but to cancer, something which was not understood at the time.

Her daughter Mary would become the first undisputed English queen regnant in 1553.

December 17, 1538: Henry VIII of England is Excommunicated for a second time.

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Alessandro Farnese, Anne Boleyn, Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop of Rome, Church of England, Emperor Charles V, Excommunication, Giulio de' Medici, King François I of France, King Henry VIII of England, Papal Bull, Pope Clement VII, Pope Paul III, Protestant Reformation, Thomas Cranmer

When Pope Paul III excommunicated King Henry VIII of England on December 17 this was the second time the King had been excommunicated. I will begin by giving some background information on Pope Clement VII and the first excommunication of the King.

King Henry VIII of England and Lord of Ireland

Pope Clement VII (May 26, 1478 – September 25, 1534) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from November 19, 1523 to his death on September 25, 1534.

Born Giulio de’ Medici, his life began under tragic circumstances. On April 26, 1478—exactly one month before his birth—his father, Giuliano de Medici (brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent) was murdered in the Florence Cathedral by enemies of his family, in what is now known as “The Pazzi Conspiracy”.

The future Pope was born illegitimately on May 26, 1478, in Florence; the exact identity of his mother remains unknown, although a plurality of scholars contend that it was Fioretta Gorini, the daughter of a university professor. Giulio spent the first seven years of life with his godfather, the architect Antonio da Sangallo the Elder.

Thereafter, Lorenzo the Magnificent raised him as one of his own sons, alongside his children Giovanni (the future Pope Leo X), Piero, and Giuliano. Educated at the Palazzo Medici in Florence by humanists like Angelo Poliziano, and alongside prodigies like Michelangelo, Giulio became an accomplished musician. In personality he was reputed to be shy, and in physical appearance, handsome

Following Adrian VI’s death on September 14, 1523, Cardinal Giulio overcame the opposition of the French King and finally succeeded in being elected Pope Clement VII in the next conclave (November 19, 1523).

Elected in 1523 at the end of the Italian Renaissance. Pope Clement VII was deemed “the most unfortunate of the popes”, Clement VII’s reign was marked by a rapid succession of political, military, and religious struggles—many long in the making—which had far-reaching consequences for Christianity and world politics.

Pope Clement VII came to the papacy with a high reputation as a statesman. He had served with distinction as chief advisor to Pope Leo X (1513–1521), Pope Adrian VI (1522–1523), and commendably as gran maestro of Florence (1519–1523).

Pope Clement VII, Bishop of Rome

Assuming leadership at a time of crisis, with the Protestant Reformation spreading; the Church nearing bankruptcy; and large, foreign armies invading Italy, Clement VII initially tried to unite Christendom by making peace among the many Christian leaders then at odds. He later attempted to liberate Italy from foreign occupation, believing that it threatened the Church’s freedom.

The complex political situation of the 1520s thwarted Clement’s efforts. Inheriting unprecedented challenges, including Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation in Northern Europe; a vast power struggle in Italy between Europe’s two most powerful kings, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and King François I of France, each of whom demanded that the Pope choose a side; and Turkish invasions of Eastern Europe led by Suleiman the Magnificent.

Clement’s problems were exacerbated by King Henry VIII of England’s contentious divorce, resulting in England breaking away from the Catholic Church; and in 1527, souring relations with Emperor Charles V, leading to the violent Sack of Rome, during which Clement was imprisoned.

After escaping confinement in the Castel Sant’Angelo, Clement—with few economic, military, or political options remaining—compromised the Church’s and Italy’s independence by allying with his former jailer, Charles V.

First Excommunication

King Henry VIII himself, at least in the early part of his reign, was a devout and well-informed Catholic to the extent that his 1521 publication Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (“Defence of the Seven Sacraments”) earned him the title of Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith) from Pope Leo X. The work represented a staunch defence of papal supremacy, albeit one couched in somewhat contingent terms.

It is not clear exactly when Henry changed his mind on the issue of papal supremacy as he grew more intent on a second marriage. Certainly, by 1527, he had convinced himself that Catherine had produced no male heir because their union was “blighted in the eyes of God”.

Indeed, in marrying Catherine, his brother’s wife, he had acted contrary to Leviticus 20:21, a justification Thomas Cranmer used to declare the marriage null. Martin Luther, on the other hand, had initially argued against the annulment, stating that Henry VIII could take a second wife in accordance with his teaching that the Bible allowed for polygamy but not divorce.

Henry VIII now believed the Pope had lacked the authority to grant a dispensation from this impediment. It was this argument Henry VIII took to Pope Clement VII in the hope of having his marriage to Catherine annulled, forgoing at least one less openly defiant line of attack.

In 1527 Henry VIII asked Clement to annul the marriage, but the Pope, possibly acting under pressure from Catherine’s nephew, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, whose effective prisoner he was, refused.

According to Catholic teaching, a validly contracted marriage is indivisible until death, and thus the pope cannot annul a marriage on the basis of an impediment previously dispensed.

Many people close to Henry VIII wished simply to ignore Clement, but in October 1530 a meeting of clergy and lawyers advised that the English Parliament could not empower the Archbishop of Canterbury to act against the Pope’s prohibition. In Parliament, Bishop John Fisher was the Pope’s champion

In response, to Clement VII ‘s refusal to grant the anulment the Reformation Parliament (1532–1534) passed laws abolishing papal authority in England and declared Henry VIII to be head of the Church of England. Final authority in doctrinal disputes now rested with the monarch. Though a religious traditionalist himself, Henry relied on Protestants to support and implement his religious agenda.

Henry subsequently underwent a marriage ceremony with Anne Boleyn, in either late 1532 or early 1533. The marriage was made easier by the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham, a stalwart friend of the Pope, after which Henry VIII persuaded Clement VII to appoint Thomas Cranmer, a friend of the Boleyn family, as his successor.

Pope Clement VII granted the papal bulls necessary for Cranmer’s promotion to Archbishop of Canterbury, and also demanded that Cranmer take the customary oath of allegiance to the pope before his consecration.

However, as mentioned, laws made under Henry VIII already declared that bishops would be consecrated even without papal approval. Cranmer was consecrated, while declaring beforehand that he did not agree with the oath he would take. Cranmer was prepared to grant the annulment of the marriage to Catherine as Henry VIII required. The Pope responded to the marriage by excommunicating both Henry VIII and Cranmer from the Catholic Church.

Second Excommunication

I will begin this section with some background information on Pope Paul III.

Pope Paul III, Bishop of Rome

Pope Paul III (February 28, 1468 – November 10, 1549), born Alessandro Farnese, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from October 13, 1534 to his death in November 1549.

Born in 1468 at Canino, Latium (then part of the Papal States), Alessandro Farnese was the oldest son of Pier Luigi I Farnese, Signore di Montalto (1435–1487) and his wife Giovanna Caetani, a member of the Caetani family which had also produced Pope Gelasius II and Pope Boniface VIII.

The Farnese family had prospered over the centuries but it was Alessandro’s ascendency to the papacy and his dedication to family interests which brought about the most significant increase in the family’s wealth and power.

As a young cleric, Alessandro lived a notably dissolute life, taking a mistress, Silvia Ruffini. Between about 1500 and 1510 she gave birth to at least four children: Costanza, Pier Luigi (who was later created Duke of Parma), Paolo, and Ranuccio. In July 1505, Pope Julius II legitimated the two eldest sons so that they could inherit the Farnese family estates. On June 23, 1513, Pope Leo X published a second legitimation of Pier Luigi, and also legitimated Ranuccio (the second son Paolo had already died).

On March 28, 1509 Alessandro was named Bishop of Parma – although he was not ordained a priest until June 26, 1519 and not consecrated a bishop until 2 July 2,1519. As Bishop of Parma, he came under the influence of his vicar-general, Bartolomeo Guidiccioni. This led to Alessandro breaking off the relationship with his mistress and committing himself to reform in his diocese. Under Pope Clement VII (1523–34) he was named Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and Dean of the College of Cardinals.

Pontificate

On the death of Clement VII in 1534, he was elected as Pope Paul III on October 13, 1534. Farnese, who did not fall within any of the factions, was considered a very good choice by the cardinals since his age (66) and state of health denoted a short papacy which would give those cardinals time to select a proper candidate for a future conclave. On November 3rd Paul III was formally crowned by the protodeacon Innocenzo Cybo.

Pope Paul III came to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Protestant Reformation. His pontificate initiated the Counter-Reformation with the Council of Trent in 1545, as well as the wars of religion with Emperor Charles V’s military campaigns against the Protestants in Germany.

Pope Paul III recognized new Catholic religious orders and societies such as the Jesuits, the Barnabites, and the Congregation of the Oratory. His efforts were distracted by nepotism to advance the power and fortunes of his family, including his illegitimate son Pier Luigi Farnese.

In 1538, the chief minister Thomas Cromwell pursued an extensive campaign against what the government termed “idolatry” practised under the old religion, culminating in September with the dismantling of the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.

Paul III proved unable to suppress the Protestant Reformation, although it was during his pontificate that the foundation was laid for the Counter-Reformation.

As a consequence of the extensive campaign against “idolatry” in England, and also Pope Paul III upset over the dismantling of the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury, decreed the second and final excommunication of Henry VIII of England on December 17, 1538.

November 17, 1558: Death of Mary I, Queen of England and Ireland. Part IV.

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Archbishop of Canterbury, False Pregnancy, John Foxe, King Felipe II of Spain, Pope Julius III, Queen Mary I of England and Ireland, Reginald Pole, Thomas Cranmer

Mary and her husband Felipe

In September 1554, Mary stopped menstruating. She gained weight, and felt nauseated in the mornings. For these reasons, almost the entirety of her court, including her physicians, believed she was pregnant. Parliament passed an act making Felipe regent in the event of Mary’s death in childbirth.

In the last week of April 1555, Elizabeth was released from house arrest, and called to court as a witness to the birth, which was expected imminently. According to Giovanni Michieli, the Venetian ambassador, Felipe may have planned to marry Elizabeth in the event of Mary’s death in childbirth, but in a letter to his brother-in-law Maximilian of Austria, Felipe expressed uncertainty as to whether Mary was pregnant.

Thanksgiving services in the diocese of London were held at the end of April after false rumours that Mary had given birth to a son spread across Europe. Through May and June, the apparent delay in delivery fed gossip that Mary was not pregnant. Susan Clarencieux revealed her doubts to the French ambassador, Antoine de Noailles.

Mary continued to exhibit signs of pregnancy until July 1555, when her abdomen receded. Michieli dismissively ridiculed the pregnancy as more likely to “end in wind rather than anything else”. It was most likely a false pregnancy, perhaps induced by Mary’s overwhelming desire to have a child.

In August, soon after the disgrace of the false pregnancy, which Mary considered “God’s punishment” for her having “tolerated heretics” in her realm, Felipe left England to command his armies against France in Flanders. Mary was heartbroken and fell into a deep depression. Michieli was touched by the queen’s grief; he wrote she was “extraordinarily in love” with her husband and disconsolate at his departure.

In the month following her accession, Mary issued a proclamation that she would not compel any of her subjects to follow her religion, but by the end of September 1553, leading Protestant churchmen—including Thomas Cranmer, John Bradford, John Rogers, John Hooper, and Hugh Latimer—were imprisoned.

Mary’s first Parliament, which assembled in early October, declared her parents’ marriage valid and abolished Edward’s religious laws. Church doctrine was restored to the form it had taken in the 1539 Six Articles of Henry VIII, which (among other things) reaffirmed clerical celibacy. Married priests were deprived of their benefices.

Mary rejected the break with Rome her father instituted and the establishment of Protestantism by her brother’s regents. Felipe persuaded Parliament to repeal Henry’s religious laws, returning the English church to Roman jurisdiction.

Reaching an agreement took many months and Mary and Pope Julius III had to make a major concession: the confiscated monastery lands were not returned to the church but remained in the hands of their influential new owners. By the end of 1554, the pope had approved the deal, and the Heresy Acts were revived.

Around 800 rich Protestants, including John Foxe, fled into exile. Those who stayed and persisted in publicly proclaiming their beliefs became targets of heresy laws. The first executions occurred over five days in February 1555: John Rogers on February 4, Laurence Saunders on February 8, and Rowland Taylor and John Hooper on February 9.

Thomas Cranmer, the imprisoned archbishop of Canterbury, was forced to watch Bishops Ridley and Latimer being burned at the stake. He recanted, repudiated Protestant theology, and rejoined the Catholic faith. Under the normal process of the law, he should have been absolved as a repentant, but Mary refused to reprieve him.

On the day of his burning, he dramatically withdrew his recantation. In total, 283 were executed, most by burning. The burnings proved so unpopular that even Alfonso de Castro, one of Felipe’s own ecclesiastical staff, condemned them and another adviser, Simon Renard, warned him that such “cruel enforcement” could “cause a revolt”. Mary persevered with the policy, which continued until her death and exacerbated anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish feeling among the English people. The victims became lauded as martyrs.

Reginald Pole, the son of Mary’s executed governess, arrived as papal legate in November 1554. He was ordained a priest and appointed Archbishop of Canterbury immediately after Cranmer’s execution in March 1556.

After Felipe’s visit in 1557, Mary again thought she was pregnant, with a baby due in March 1558. She decreed in her will that her husband would be the regent during the minority of their child. But no child was born, and Mary was forced to accept that her half-sister Elizabeth would be her lawful successor.

Mary was weak and ill from May 1558. In pain, possibly from ovarian cysts or uterine cancer, she died on November 17, 1558, aged 42, at St James’s Palace, during an influenza epidemic that also claimed Archbishop Pole’s life later that day. She was succeeded by Elizabeth. Felipe, who was in Brussels, wrote to his sister Joan: “I felt a reasonable regret for her death.”

Although Mary’s will stated that she wished to be buried next to her mother, she was interred in Westminster Abbey on December 14, in a tomb she eventually shared with Elizabeth. The inscription on their tomb, affixed there by James I-VI when he succeeded Elizabeth, is Regno consortes et urna, hic obdormimus Elizabetha et Maria sorores, in spe resurrectionis (“Consorts in realm and tomb, we sisters Elizabeth and Mary here lie down to sleep in hope of the resurrection”).

June 1, 1533: Anne Boleyn is Crowned Queen of England

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1st Earl of Wiltshire, Anne Boleyn, Archbishop of Canterbury, Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII of England, Lady Elizabeth Howard, Pope Clement VII, Thomas Boleyn, Thomas Cranmer

Anne Boleyn (c. 1501 – May 19, 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and of her execution by beheading for treason and other charges made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that marked the start of the English Reformation.

Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France, largely as a maid of honour to Queen Claude of France. Anne returned to England in early 1522, to marry her Irish cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; the marriage plans were broken off, and instead she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII’s wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Early in 1523, Anne was secretly betrothed to Henry Percy, son of Henry Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland, but the betrothal was broken off when the Earl refused to support their engagement. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey refused the match in January 1524 and Anne was sent home to Hever Castle.

In February or March 1526, Henry VIII began his pursuit of Anne. She resisted his attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress, as her sister Mary had previously been. Henry soon focused his desires on annulling his marriage to Catherine so he would be free to marry Anne.

Wolsey failed to obtain an annulment of Henry’s marriage from Pope Clement VII, and when it became clear that Clement would not annul the marriage, Henry and his advisers, such as Thomas Cromwell, began the breaking of the Catholic Church’s power in England and closing the monasteries and the nunneries. In 1532, Henry made Anne the Marquess of Pembroke.

Henry VIII and Anne formally married on January 25, 1533, after a secret wedding on November 14, 1532. On May 23, 1533, the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declared Henry and Catherine’s marriage null and void; five days later, he declared Henry and Anne’s marriage valid.

Shortly afterwards, Clement excommunicated Henry and Cranmer. As a result of this marriage and these excommunications, the first break between the Church of England and the Catholic Church took place, and the king took control of the Church of England.

Anne was crowned Queen of England on June 1, 1533. On September 7, she gave birth to the future Queen Elizabeth I. Henry was disappointed to have a daughter rather than a son but hoped a son would follow.

Anne subsequently had three miscarriages and by March 1536, Henry was courting Jane Seymour. In order to marry Seymour, Henry had to find reasons to end the marriage to Anne.

Henry VIII had Anne investigated for high treason (including incest) in April 1536. On May 2, she was arrested and sent to the Tower of London, where she was tried before a jury of peers, including Henry Percy, her former betrothed, and her uncle Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk; she was convicted on May 15 and beheaded four days later.

July 19, 1553 – Lady Jane Grey is replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England. Part II.

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1st Duke of Northumberland., 1st Duke of Suffolk, Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry Grey, High Treason, John Dudley, Lady Jane Grey, Lord Gilford Dudley, Philip II of Spain, Privy Council, Queen Mary I of England, Thomas Cranmer, Thomas Wyatt Rebellion

The Duke of Northumberland faced a number of key tasks to consolidate his power after Edward VI’s death. Most importantly, he had to isolate and, ideally, capture Mary Tudor to prevent her from gathering support. As soon as Mary was sure of King Edward’s demise, she left her residence at Hunsdon and set out to East Anglia, where she began to rally her supporters. Northumberland set out from London with troops on 14 July to capture Mary.

The Privy Council switched their allegiance and proclaimed Mary queen in London, on July 19. The historical consensus assumes that this was in recognition of overwhelming support of the population for Mary. However, there is no clear evidence for that outside Norfolk and Suffolk, where Northumberland had put down Kett’s Rebellion; hence, where Princess Mary sought refuge.

John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland

Rather, it seems that Henry FitzAlan, 19th Earl of Arundel—whom Northumberland had arrested and detained twice as an ally of Somerset, before rehabilitating—engineered a coup d’état in the Privy Council in Northumberland’s absence.

Jane is often called the Nine-Day Queen, although if her reign is dated from the moment of Edward’s death on July 6, 1553, her reign could have been a few days longer. On July 19, 1553, Jane was imprisoned in the Tower’s Gentleman Gaoler’s (Jailer’s) apartments, her husband in the Beauchamp Tower. The Duke of Northumberland was executed on August 22, 1553. In September, Parliament declared Mary the rightful successor and denounced and revoked Jane’s proclamation as that of a usurper.

Trial and execution

Referred to by the court as Jane Dudley, wife of Guildford, Jane was charged with high treason, as were her husband, two of his brothers, and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. Their trial, by a special commission, took place on November 13, 1553, at Guildhall in the City of London.

Lady Janes Grey

The commission was chaired by Sir Thomas White, Lord Mayor of London, and Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Other members included Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl of Derby and John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath. As was to be expected, all defendants were found guilty and sentenced to death.

Jane’s guilt, of having treacherously assumed the title and the power of the monarch, was evidenced by a number of documents she had signed as “Jane the Quene”. Her sentence was to “be burned alive on Tower Hill or beheaded as the Queen pleases” (burning was the traditional English punishment for treason committed by women). The imperial ambassador reported to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, that her life was to be spared.

The rebellion of Thomas Wyatt the Younger in January 1554 against Queen Mary’s marriage plans with Felipe II of Spain sealed Jane’s fate. Her father, Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and his two brothers joined the rebellion, and so the government decided to go through with the verdict against Jane and Guildford.

Their execution was first scheduled for February 9, 1554, but was then postponed for three days to give Jane a chance to convert to the Catholic faith. Mary sent her chaplain John Feckenham to Jane, who was initially not pleased about this. Though she would not give in to his efforts “to save her soul”, she became friends with him and allowed him to accompany her to the scaffold.

On the morning of February 12, 1554, the authorities took Guildford from his rooms at the Tower of London to the public execution place at Tower Hill, where he was beheaded. A horse and cart brought his remains back to the Tower, past the rooms where Jane was staying. Seeing her husband’s corpse return, Jane is reported to have exclaimed: “Oh, Guildford, Guildford.” She was then taken out to Tower Green, inside the Tower, to be beheaded.

While admitting to action considered unlawful, she declared that “I do wash my hands thereof in innocence”. Jane then recited Psalm 51 (Have mercy upon me, O God) in English, and handed her gloves and handkerchief to her maid. The executioner asked her forgiveness, which she granted him, pleading: “I pray you dispatch me quickly.”

Referring to her head, she asked, “Will you take it off before I lay me down?”, and the axeman answered: “No, madam.” She then blindfolded herself. Jane then failed to find the block with her hands, and cried, “What shall I do? Where is it?” Probably Sir Thomas Brydges, the Deputy Lieutenant of the Tower, helped her find her way. With her head on the block, Jane spoke the last words of Jesus as recounted by Luke: “Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit!”

Jane and Guildford are buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula on the north side of Tower Green. No memorial stone was erected at their grave. Jane’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, was executed 11 days after Jane, on February 23, 1554. Her mother, the Duchess of Suffolk, married her Master of the Horse and chamberlain, Adrian Stokes, in March 1555. She was fully pardoned by Mary and allowed to live at Court with her two surviving daughters. She died in 1559.

May 2, 1536: Arrest of Anne Boleyn, Queen of England.

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1st Earl of Essex, Adultery, Anne Boleyn, Archbishop of Canterbury, George Boleyn, Incest, King Henry VIII of England, Mark Smeaton, Thomas Cranmer, Thomas Cromwell, Tower of London, Traitors' Gate

Anne Boleyn (c. 1501 – May 19, 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of King Henry VIII. Their marriage, and her execution for treason and other charges by beheading, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that marked the start of the English Reformation.

Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France, largely as a maid of honour to Queen Claude of France. Anne returned to England in early 1522, to marry her Irish cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; the marriage plans were broken off, and instead she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII’s wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Anne, Queen Consort of England

Henry VIII and Anne formally married on January 25, 1533, after a secret wedding on November 14, 1532. On May 23, 1533, newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declared Henry and Catherine’s marriage null and void; five days later, he declared Henry and Anne’s marriage valid. Shortly afterwards, Pope Clement VII decreed sentences of excommunication against Henry and Cranmer.

As a result of this marriage and these excommunications, the first break between the Church of England and Rome took place, and the King took control of the Church of England. Anne was crowned Queen of England on June 1, 1533. On September 7, she gave birth to the future Queen Elizabeth I. Henry was disappointed to have a daughter rather than a son but hoped a son would follow and professed to love Elizabeth. Anne subsequently had three miscarriages and, by March 1536, Henry was courting Jane Seymour. In order to marry Seymour, Henry had to find reasons to end the marriage to Anne.

Henry VIII, King of England

Given Henry’s desperate desire for a son, the sequence of Anne’s pregnancies has attracted much interest. Author Mike Ashley speculated that Anne had two stillborn children after Elizabeth’s birth and before the male child she miscarried in 1536. Most sources attest only to the birth of Elizabeth in September 1533, a possible miscarriage in the summer of 1534, and the miscarriage of a male child, of almost four months gestation, in January 1536. As Anne recovered from her miscarriage, Henry declared that he had been seduced into the marriage by means of “sortilege”—a French term indicating either “deception” or “spells”. His new mistress, Jane Seymour, was quickly moved into royal quarters. This was followed by Anne’s brother George being refused a prestigious court honour, the Order of the Garter, given instead to Sir Nicholas Carew.

Anne’s biographer Eric Ives (and most other historians) believe that her fall and execution were primarily engineered by her former ally Thomas Cromwell. The conversations between Chapuys and Cromwell thereafter indicate Cromwell as the instigator of the plot to remove Anne; evidence of this is seen in the Spanish Chronicle and through letters written from Chapuys to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex

Anne argued with Cromwell over the redistribution of Church revenues and over foreign policy. She advocated that revenues be distributed to charitable and educational institutions; and she favoured a French alliance. Cromwell insisted on filling the King’s depleted coffers, while taking a cut for himself, and preferred an imperial alliance. For these reasons, Ives suggests, “Anne Boleyn had become a major threat to Thomas Cromwell.”

Cromwell’s biographer John Schofield, on the other hand, contends that no power struggle existed between Anne and Cromwell and that “not a trace can be found of a Cromwellian conspiracy against Anne… Cromwell became involved in the royal marital drama only when Henry ordered him onto the case.” Cromwell did not manufacture the accusations of adultery, though he and other officials used them to bolster Henry’s case against Anne. Historian Retha Warnicke questions whether Cromwell could have or wished to manipulate the king in such a matter. Such a bold attempt by Cromwell, given the limited evidence, could have risked his office, even his life.

Regardless of the role Cromwell played in Anne Boleyn’s fall, and his confessed animosity to her, Chapuys’s letter states that Cromwell claimed that he was acting with the King’s authority. Most historians, however, are convinced that her fall and execution were engineered by Cromwell.

Jane Seymour, Queen Consort of England

Henry himself issued the crucial instructions: his officials, including Cromwell, carried them out. The result was by modern standards a legal travesty, however the rules of the time were not bent in order to assure a conviction; there was no need to tamper with rules that guaranteed the desired result since law at the time was an engine of state, not a mechanism for justice.

Towards the end of April a Flemish musician in Anne’s service named Mark Smeaton was arrested. He initially denied being the Queen’s lover but later confessed, perhaps tortured or promised freedom. Another courtier, Sir Henry Norris, was arrested on May Day, but being an aristocrat, could not be tortured. Prior to his arrest, Norris was treated kindly by the King, who offered him his own horse to use on the May Day festivities. It seems likely that during the festivities, the King was notified of Smeaton’s confession and it was shortly thereafter the alleged conspirators were arrested upon his orders.

Norris denied his guilt and swore that Queen Anne was innocent; one of the most damaging pieces of evidence against Norris was an overheard conversation with Anne at the end of April, where she accused him of coming often to her chambers not to pay court to her lady-in-waiting Madge Shelton but to herself. Sir Francis Weston was arrested two days later on the same charge, as was Sir William Brereton, a groom of the King’s Privy Chamber.

Sir Thomas Wyatt, a poet and friend of the Boleyns who was allegedly infatuated with her before her marriage to the king, was also imprisoned for the same charge but later released, most likely due to his or his family’s friendship with Cromwell. Sir Richard Page was also accused of having a sexual relationship with the Queen, but he was acquitted of all charges after further investigation could not implicate him with Anne. The final accused was Queen Anne’s own brother, George Boleyn, arrested on charges of incest and treason. He was accused of two incidents of incest: November 1535 at Whitehall and the following month at Eltham.

On May 2, 1536, Anne was arrested and taken to the Tower of London by barge. It is likely that Anne may have entered through the Court Gate in the Byward Tower rather than the Traitors’ Gate, according to historian and author of The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, Eric Ives. In the Tower, she collapsed, demanding to know the location of her father and “swete broder”, as well as the charges against her.

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury

On the very next day, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote a letter to the king expressing his doubts about the queen’s guilt, highlighting his own esteem for Anne. After it was delivered, Cranmer was resigned to the fact that the end of Anne’s marriage was inevitable.

Four of the accused men were tried in Westminster on May 12, 1536. Weston, Brereton, and Norris publicly maintained their innocence and only the tortured Smeaton supported the Crown by pleading guilty. Three days later, Anne and George Boleyn were tried separately in the Tower of London, before a jury of 27 peers. She was accused of adultery, incest, and high treason.

By the Treason Act of Edward III, adultery on the part of a queen was a form of treason (because of the implications for the succession to the throne) for which the penalty was hanging, drawing and quartering for a man and burning alive for a woman, but the accusations, and especially that of incestuous adultery, were also designed to impugn her moral character. The other form of treason alleged against her was that of plotting the king’s death, with her “lovers”, so that she might later marry Henry Norris.

Anne’s one-time betrothed, Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, sat on the jury that unanimously found Anne guilty. When the verdict was announced, he collapsed and had to be carried from the courtroom. He died childless eight months later and was succeeded by his nephew.

On May 16, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Archbishop of Canterbury saw Anne in the Tower and heard her confession and the following day, he pronounced the marriage null and void.

On this date in History: February 13, 1542 Execution of Catherine Howard, 5th wife of King Henry VIII of England and Ireland.

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Archbishop of Canterbury, Catherine Howard, Duke of Suffolk, King Henry VIII of England, Kingdom of Ireland, Kings and Queens of England, Thomas Cranmer

On this date in History: February 13, 1542 Execution of Catherine Howard, 5th wife of King Henry VIII of England and Ireland.

Catherine Howard (c. 1523 – February 13, 1542) was Queen of England from 1540 until 1541, as the fifth wife of Henry VIII. She (then 16 or 17) married him (then 49) on July 28, 1540, at Oatlands Palace, in Surrey, almost immediately after the annulment of his marriage to Anne of Cleves was arranged.

Catherine’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, found her a place at Court in the household of the King’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. As a young and attractive lady-in-waiting, Catherine quickly caught Henry’s eye. The King had displayed little interest in Anne from the beginning, but on Cromwell’s failure to find a new match for Henry, Norfolk saw an opportunity. The Howards may have sought to recreate the influence gained during Queen Anne’s reign. According to Nicholas Sander, the religiously conservative Howard family may have seen Catherine as a figurehead for their fight by expressed determination to restore Roman Catholicism to England. Catholic Bishop Stephen Gardiner entertained the couple at Winchester Palace with “feastings”.

As the King’s interest in Catherine grew, so did the house of Norfolk’s influence. Her youth, prettiness and vivacity were captivating for the middle-aged sovereign, who claimed he had never known “the like to any woman”. Within months of her arrival at court, Henry bestowed gifts of land and expensive cloth upon Catherine. Henry called her his ‘rose without a thorn’ and the ‘very jewel of womanhood’. The French ambassador, Charles de Marillac, thought her “delightful”. Holbein’s portrait showed a young auburn-haired girl with a characteristically hooked Howard nose; Catherine was said to have a “gentle, earnest face.”

King Henry and Catherine were married by Bishop Bonner of London at Oatlands Palace on 28 July 1540, the same day Cromwell was executed. The marriage was made public on 8 August, and prayers were said in the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace. Henry “indulged her every whim” thanks to her “caprice”. Catherine was young, joyous and carefree; Mannox had taught her to play the virginals. She was too young to take part in administrative matters of State. Nevertheless, every night Sir Thomas Heneage, Groom of the Stool, came to her chamber to report on the King’s well-being.

Downfall

It was alleged that, in spring 1541, Catherine had already embarked upon a romance with Henry’s favourite male courtier, Thomas Culpeper, a young man who “had succeeded [him] in the Queen’s affections”, according to Dereham’s later testimony. Culpeper called Catherine “my little, sweet fool” in a love letter; she considered marrying him during her time as a maid-of-honour to Anne of Cleves. The couple’s meetings were arranged by one of Catherine’s older ladies-in-waiting, Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford (Lady Rochford), the widow of Catherine’s executed cousin, George Boleyn, Anne Boleyn’s brother.

During the autumn Northern Progress, a crisis began to loom over Catherine’s conduct. People who had witnessed her earlier indiscretions while still a ward at Lambeth contacted her for favours in return for their silence, and many of them were appointed to her royal household. The brother of Mary Lascelles, John Lascelles, tried to convince his sister to find a place within the Queen’s royal chamber, however, Mary refused stating she had witnessed the “light” ways of Queen Catherine while living together at Lambeth. After hearing this John Lascelles reported such news to Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, who then interrogated Lascelles’ sister and upon doing so became informed of Catherine’s previous illicit sexual relations while under the Duchess’ care.

Cranmer immediately took up the case to be made to topple his rivals—the Roman Catholic Norfolk family. Lady Rochford was interrogated, and from fear of being tortured, agreed to tell all. She told how she had watched for Catherine backstairs as Culpeper had made his escapes from the Queen’s room. During the investigation, a love letter written in the Queen’s distinctive handwriting was found in Culpeper’s chambers. This is the only letter of hers that still survives (other than her later confession).

On All Saints’ Day, November 1, 1541, the King was to be found in the Chapel Royal, praying as usual for this “jewel of womanhood”. He received there a warrant of the queen’s arrest that described her crimes. On November 7, 1541, Archbishop Cranmer led a delegation of councillors to Winchester Palace, Southwark, to question her. Even the staunch Cranmer found Catherine’s frantic, incoherent state pitiable, saying, “I found her in such lamentation and heaviness as I never saw no creature, so that it would have pitied any man’s heart to have looked upon her.” He ordered the guards to remove any objects that she might use to commit suicide.

Imprisonment and death

Establishing the existence of a precontract between Catherine and Dereham would have had the effect of terminating Catherine’s royal union, but it also would have allowed Henry to annul their marriage and banish her from Court, in poverty and disgrace, without having to execute her. Yet still she steadfastly denied any precontract, maintaining that Dereham had raped her.

Catherine was stripped of her title as queen on November 23, 1541, and imprisoned in the new Syon Abbey, Middlesex, formerly a convent, where she remained throughout the winter of 1541. She was forced by a Privy Councillor to return Anne of Cleves’ ring that the King had given her; it was a symbol of her regal and lawful rights. The King would be at Hampton Court, but she would not see him again. Despite these actions taken against her, her marriage to Henry was never formally annulled.

Culpeper and Dereham were arraigned at Guildhall on December 1, 1541 for high treason. They were executed at Tyburn on 10 December 1541, Culpeper being beheaded and Dereham being hanged, drawn and quartered. According to custom, their heads were placed on spikes atop of London Bridge. Many of Catherine’s relatives were also detained in the Tower with the exception of her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, who had sufficiently distanced himself from the scandal by retreating to Kenninghall to write a grovelling letter of apology.

His son Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the poet, remained a favourite of the King. The duke knew his family had fallen from grace, wrote an apology on December 14 to the King, excusing himself and laying all the blame on his niece and stepmother. All of the Howard prisoners were tried, found guilty of concealing treason, and sentenced to life imprisonment and forfeiture of goods. In time, they were released with their goods restored. The King sank into morbidity and indulged his appetite for food.

Catherine herself remained in limbo until Parliament introduced a bill of attainder on January 29, 1542, which was passed on February 7, 1542. The Royal Assent by Commission Act 1541 made it treason, and punishable by death, for a queen consort to fail to disclose her sexual history to the king within twenty days of their marriage, or to incite someone to commit adultery with her. This solved the matter of Catherine’s supposed precontract and made her unequivocally guilty.

When the Lords of the Council came for her, she panicked and screamed aloud, as they manhandled her into the waiting barge that would escort her to the Tower on Friday February 10, 1542, her flotilla passing under London Bridge where the heads of Culpeper and Dereham were impaled (and remained until 1546). Entering through the Traitors’ Gate she was led to her prison cell. The next day, the bill of attainder received Royal Assent, and Catherine’s execution was scheduled for 7:00 am on Monday, February 13, 1542. Arrangements for the execution were supervised by Sir John Gage in his role as Constable of the Tower.

The night before her execution, Catherine is believed to have spent many hours practising how to lay her head upon the block, which had been brought to her at her request. She died with relative composure, but looked pale and terrified; she required assistance to climb the scaffold. She made a speech describing her punishment as “worthy and just” and asked for mercy for her family and prayers for her soul. According to popular folklore, her final words were, “I die a Queen, but I would rather have died the wife of Culpeper”, however no eyewitness accounts support this. Instead, reporting that she stuck to traditional final words, asking for forgiveness for her sins and acknowledging that she deserved to die ‘a thousand deaths’ for betraying the king; who had always treated her so graciously. Catherine was beheaded with a single stroke of the executioner’s axe. She was about 18 or 19 years old.

Lady Rochford was executed immediately thereafter on Tower Green. Both their bodies were buried in an unmarked grave in the nearby chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, where the bodies of Catherine’s cousins Anne and George Boleyn also lay. Other cousins were also in the crowd, including the Earl of Surrey. King Henry did not attend. Catherine’s body was not one of those identified during restorations of the chapel during Queen Victoria’s reign. She is commemorated on a plaque on the west wall dedicated to all those who died in the Tower. Upon hearing news of Catherine’s execution, Francis I of France wrote a letter to Henry, regretting the “lewd and naughty [evil] behaviour of the Queen” and advising him that “the lightness of women cannot bend the honour of men”.