On this day in history, the 16th July 1557 (some sources say the 15th), Henry VIII’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleves died at her home, Chelsea Old Manor, the former home of Catherine Parr. She was only 41 but she was the last surviving wife of Henry VIII and on the 3rd August 1557 Anne was taken from Chelsea to Westminster to be buried. She is the only one of Henry VIII’s wives to be buried at Westminster Abbey and her tomb is on the south side of the High Altar. It is decorated with carvings of a crown and her initials, AC, skulls and crossed bones, and a lion’s head. It is a sad fact that Anne, as Elizabeth Norton points out, “is often portrayed as the least significant of Henry’s wives” but that she was actually “an international figure of some prominence” and a woman who used her intelligence to survive the English court and become an independent woman. Just like Catherine of Aragon, she did not accept the annulment of her marriage and still thought of herself as Henry’s wife and Queen, and subsequently his widow, but she made the best out of the situation. [x]
“Lord Rivers was always considered a kind, serious and just man, and tested by every
vicissitude of life. However much he prospered, he never harmed anyone , while doing good to many'”On the 25th of June 1483, Anthony Woodville is executed at Pontefract Castle.
25 June 1483: Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, is executed at Pontefract Castle
Gloucester had taken care of one last bit of business before becoming king: ordering the execution of Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan. Rivers made his will at Sheriff Hutton on 23 June, indicating that the execution order had been sent from London at least a couple of days before that.
Rivers’s will is a conventional one, in which Anthony is concerned with paying his debts, righting any wrongs he might have done, such as to Lady Willoughby, providing for the poor, and attending to the welfare of his soul. Perhaps anticipating that he would be brought south and given the trial in front of his peers that was his right as an earl, he asked that if he died beyond the River Trent, he be buried before Our Lady of Pewe at Westminster.
Crowland is adamant that Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan were beheaded ‘without any form of trial’ under the supervision of Sir Richard Ratcliffe, who was leading Gloucester’s army south to London. John Rous, on the other hand, claims that Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, was their chief judge. No records of their indictments or trial, if there were any, have survived, nor is there any indication of who besides Northumberland sat in judgement of the trio. One is inclined to suspect that any process must have been summary even by contemporary standards; certainly nothing indicates that a jury of peers was summoned to try Rivers, as was his right under Magna Carta.– Susan Higginbotham - The Woodvilles: The Wars of the Roses and England’s Most Infamous Family
~~happy 248th birthday John Quincy~~
In March 1603 Elizabeth was described as being unwell and seemed depressed. She took up residence in one of her favourite palaces – Richmond – close to the River Thames. She refused to allow herself to be examined, and she refused take to her bed – standing for hours on end. As her condition deteriorated her ladies-in-waiting spread cushions on the floor, and Elizabeth eventually lay down on them. The painting shown below depicts this scene beautifully. Elizabeth lay on the floor for nearly four days – mostly without speaking.She grew weaker and weaker until her servants insisted on making her more comfortable in her bed. Elizabeth’s Councillors gathered around her bed, and it is said that gentle music was played to soothe her. Death finally came on 24 March 1603, and she is said to have yielded ‘mildly like a lamb, easily like a ripe apple from the tree’.Elizabeth’s body was embalmed and laid in state in a lead coffin at Whitehall – having been carried from Richmond to Whitehall at night on a barge lit with torches. On the day of her funeral on 28 April the coffin was taken to Westminster Abbey on a hearse drawn by four horses robed in black velvet. In the words of the chronicler John Stow:
“Westminster was surcharged with multitudes of all sorts of people in their streets, houses, windows, leads and gutters, that came to see the obsequy, and when they beheld her statue lying upon the coffin, there was such a general sighing, groaning and weeping as the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of man, neither doth any history mention any people, time or state to make like lamentation for the death of their sovereign” [x]
15 February - Birth of King Louis XV
When Louis XV was born on February 15, 1710, no one expected that he would ever reach the throne. His mother, Marie Adelaide of Savoy, had two sons—both Louis as well—before Louis XV was born at Versailles.A series of family tragedies changed the direction of Louis’ life. He was an infant when his grandfather died, and he was barely a toddler when he lost both of his parents and his older brother to illness. Louis XV became the heir apparent as a result. After his great-grandfather’s death in 1715, he became king at the age of 5.Louis XV was too young to actually rule, however, so the Duke of Orleans took control as his regent.Young Louis lived a privileged but lonely life as a child. He was watched over by adults and had little interaction with other children. Tutored by future Cardinal André Hercule de Fleury, Louis XV developed a special interest in science—a near lifelong passion for the monarch. He turned to Fleury soon after the death of his uncle in 1723, and Fleury became Louis’s first minister a few years later.King Louis XV was first betrothed to the daughter of his uncle, Spain’s King Philip V, but he ended up marrying Marie Leszczynska. Marie was the daughter of dethroned king of Poland. Louis XV and Marie wed in 1725, when Louis XV was only 15 years old. The couple had 10 children together—only seven of which lived to adulthood.
“ I am myself a Queen, the daughter of a King, a stranger, and the true Kinswoman of the Queen of England. I came to England on my cousin’s promise of assistance against my enemies and rebel subjects and was at once imprisoned…As an absolute Queen, I cannot submit to orders, nor can I submit to the laws of the land without injury to myself, the King my son and all other sovereign princes…For myself I do not recognize the laws of England nor do I know or understand them as I have often asserted. I am alone without counsel, or anyone to speak on my behalf. My papers and notes have been taken from me, so that I am destitute of all aid, taken at a disadvantage. “
8 February 1587 - Execution of Mary Stuart Queen of Scots
Between eight and nine in the morning she was led to the Great Hall of Fotheringhay where she was eventually allowed to have some of her servants present after much pleading and reasoning. Sir James Melville her Secretary, Bourgoing her physician, Jacques Gervais her surgeon, Didier her porter and two of her women, Elizabeth Curle and Jane Kennedy were allowed to attend. She entered the Great Hall dressed in a black satin dress, embroidered with black velvet, and set with black acorn buttons of jet trimmed with purple. On her head she wore a white lace-edged veil flowing down her back to the ground. Her stockings were edged with silver in her black Spanish leather shoes. Her garters were of green silk and her petticoat of crimson velvet. She held a crucifix and prayer book in her hand and two rosaries hung down from her waist; round her neck was her pomander chain and an Agnus Dei.Mary was led up the three steps to the stage and from there listened unperturbed to the commission for her execution. It wasn’t until the Protestant Dean from Peterborough proposed to say her prayers according to Protestant rights that she expressed her disapproval. The Dean nevertheless proceeded while Mary, kneeling, read out loud from her Latin Prayer book, and then in English. The executioners as customary, then asked for her pardon to which she replied: “I forgive you with all my heart, for now I hope you shall make an end of all my troubles”. They proceeded to help her undress assisted by Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curle, and to divest her of her Agnus Dei and Rosary. Mary was now stripped to her red petticoat with red satin bodice trimmed with lace and a pair of red sleeves. Red, the colour of martyrdom in the Catholic church.After bidding her servants not to cry and to pray for her, Jane Kennedy bound her eyes with a white cloth embroidered in gold, chosen by Mary the night before. Mary now stood alone on the stage and positioned her own chin on the wooden execution block. ”Into thy hands O Lord I commend my spirit“ were her last words before the first stroke of the axe.The first blow missed the neck and cut into the back of the head. Mary was heard to whisper “Sweet Jesus”.The second blow almost severed the head.The third blow completely cut through the remaining sinew.As the executioner then picked up the head and held it up in the air to show the audience, the wig slipped off and the head rolled to the floor. Mary’s hair was almost entirely grey from her long imprisonment.Every relic was burned and every drop of blood washed away. Her little Skye terrier which had managed to hide under her skirts and would not leave his dead mistress’s side was also washed but refused thereafter to be fed.Mary’s body was then subjected to further humiliations. Her heart and organs were buried deep within the Castle of Fotheringhay but the exact spot was never revealed. The body was then embalmed and incarcerated in a heavy lead coffin which remained unburied in the Castle until 30th July 1587, where it was taken at the dead of night for fear of public protest, to Peterborough Cathedral.
“The king is dead” → 21st January 1793, Louis XVI is beheaded by guillotine on the Place de la Révolution, now called Place de la concorde. He was 38 years old.
22 December 1476 | Death of Isabel Neville, Duchess of Clarence
Isabel died on 22 December 1476, two months after giving birth to a short-lived son named Richard. Though most historians now believe Isabel’s death was a result of either consumption or childbed fever, George, duke of Clarence [Isabel’s husband] was convinced she had been poisoned by one of her ladies-in-waiting, Ankarette Twynyho… as a consequence, he had [her] judicially murdered in April of 1477, by summarily arresting her and bullying a jury at Warwick into convicting her of murder by poisoning. Ankarette was hanged immediately after trial with John Thursby, a fellow defendant. Clarence’s mental state, never stable, deteriorated from that point and led to his involvement in yet another rebellion against his brother King Edward IV…Clarence was imprisoned in the Tower of London and put on trial for treason against his brother Edward IV. Clarence was not present - Edward IV himself prosecuted his brother, and demanded that Parliament pass a Bill of Attainder against his brother, declaring that he was guilty of ‘unnatural, loathly treasons’ which were aggravated by the fact that Clarence was his brother, who, if anyone did, owed him loyalty and love. Following his conviction, he was “privately executed” at the Tower on 18 February 1478, and soon after the event, the rumour gained ground that he was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. [x]
Jane’s short, successful career and her tragic end caught the public’s imagination, and she was celebrated in popular ballads long after she was dust. She had achieved nearly everything she set out to do: she had given the King the son he so desperately needed, she had helped to restore the Lady Mary to the succession and her father’s affections, and she had used her influence to bring about the advancement of her family. She had provided the King with a family life for the first time in years, and had meddled hardly at all in matters of religion or politics. His grief at her death is testimony of his love for her. It was, in every respect, the most successful of his six marriages, and it was the only one to result in a surviving male heir. Alison Weir
RIP Jane Seymour, d. 24 October 1537
H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y
GEORGE PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF CLARENCE
O C T O B E R, 21st 1449
1st October 1553 - Coronation of Mary I, first Queen regnant of England.
“Sirs, Here present is Mary, rightful and undoubted inheritrix by the Laws of God and man to the Crown and Royal Dignity of this realm of England, France and Ireland, whereupon you shall understand that this day is appointed by all the peers of this land for the consecration, injuction and coronation of the said most excellent Princess Mary; will you serve at this time and give your wills and assent to the same consecration, unction and coronation?” -Bishop Gardiner’s adress to the assembly.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY ♦ Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather, King George III, as the longest reigning monarch in British history – a record the current Queen Elizabeth II will break on 9 September 2015 (22 September 1896)
Happy birthday, Cesare Borgia! (b. 13 September 1475)
When all the actions of the duke are recalled, I do not know how to blame him, but rather it appears to me, as I have said, that I ought to offer him for imitation to all those who, by the fortune or the arms of others, are raised to government. Because he, having a lofty spirit and far-reaching aims, could not have regulated his conduct otherwise, and only the shortness of the life of Alexander and his own sickness frustrated his designs. Therefore, he who considers it necessary to secure himself in his new principality, to win friends, to overcome either by force or fraud, to make himself beloved and feared by the people, to be followed and revered by the soldiers, to exterminate those who have power or reason to hurt him, to change the old order of things for new, to be severe and gracious, magnanimous and liberal, to destroy a disloyal soldiery and to create new, to maintain friendship with kings and princes in such a way that they must help him with zeal and offend with caution, cannot find a more lively example than the actions of this man. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince {x}
Today In History | September 7, 1533: Birth of Elizabeth I
Less than two weeks after taking to her chamber, at 3 o’clock on the afternoon of the 7th September in 1533, Anne Boleyn gave birth to a baby girl: Elizabeth Tudor, named after her paternal grandmother Elizabeth of York, and possibly also her maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Howard. The little girl had her father’s red hair and long nose, and her mother’s coal black eyes.
The birth was straightforward, the baby was healthy and so was Anne, but something was very wrong – the baby was a girl and not the promised son and heir promised by Anne, astrologers and doctors. A celebratory tournament had been organized and a letter announcing the birth of a prince had been written, with the intentions of naming the prince either Henry of Edward. The joust was cancelled and the word “prince” had an “s” added in the birth announcement letter. The celebratory jousts were cancelled in 1516 too, when Mary was born, and it was traditional for the celebrations of the birth of a princess to be low-key. Although the joust was cancelled, “a herald immediately proclaimed this first of Henry’s ‘legitimate’ children, while the choristers of the Chapel Royal sang the Te Deum”and preparations were already underway for a lavish christening.
Henry and Anne both grieved that Elizabeth was not a boy, but little did they know that she would go on to be one of the greatest monarchs in British history - the Virgin Queen, Gloriana; that she would give her name to an age. Long live Good Queen Bess. {1}{2}