The ‘Rainbow Portrait’ of Elizabeth I, which hangs at Hatfield House

Birth of Princess Elizabeth

Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was born on 7 September 1533 at Greenwich Palace.  She was named after her grandmother, Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV.

Elizabeth spent part of her youth at the Old Palace at Hatfield, Herts., built by Bishop John Morton.  She was residing here when her sister, Queen Mary, died on 17 November 1558.  She ascended the throne as Queen Elizabeth I and  would reign for nearly 45 years until her death on 24 March 1603.

Death of Katherine Parr, sixth consort of Henry VIII.  She was born in August (probably) 1512.

Her first husband was Edward Borough, whom she married about May 1529.  Edward died shortly before April 1533, and she married John Neville, third Baron Latimer, in the summer of 1534.  John died on 2 March 1543 and she was married to Henry VIII just four months later on 12 July 1543.  She also survived Henry, who died on 28 January 1547.  In May 1547, she secretly married for a fourth time, Sir Thomas Seymour, in whom she had already been interested before attracting Henry’s attention.  She gave birth to a daughter, Mary, on 30 August 1548, but died a few days later of puerperal fever.

Katherine was an influential patron of religious and educational reform, the arts in the fields of drama, miniature painting, and music.  She was the first known Englishwoman to publish a work of prose in the sixteenth century, and advocated the publication of affordable vernacular religious writings.  Politically she contributed to the re-establishment of her stepdaughters Mary and Elizabeth in the line of succession.

Source:  ODNB:  Susan E. James, ‘Katherine [Katherine Parr] (1512–1548)’, accessed:  5 September 2013

Birth of Isabel Neville, elder daughter of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick (‘The Kingmaker’), and Anne Beauchamp at Warwick Castle.

She married on 11 July 1469 George, duke of Clarence, Edward IV’s younger and Richard’s older brother.  Edward was against the marriage, so it took place in secret at Calais and was conducted by Isabel’s uncle George Neville, archbishop of York.

Isabel died on 22 December 1476, leaving behind two children, Margaret (born in 1473) and Edward (born 1475).

Both descendants were eventually executed by the Tudors.

Birth of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham.

In the Wars of the Roses both his father and grandfather fought and died on the Lancastrian side.  He was made a ward of Edward IV’s queen Elizabeth Woodville and was married to her sister Katherine Woodville (1458 – 1497), when both were still children.

He was initially the major supporter of Richard III, but soon turned against him, possibly under the influence of John Morton.  He was related to the Plantagenets and could have hoped to further his own hopes to the throne.  He is also one of the suspects for the murder of the “Princes in the Tower”, if indeed they were murdered at all.  He was convicted of treason and executed following the 1483 rebellion.

Death of Louis XI from a stroke.  He was succeeded by his son Charles VIII, who was only 13 at the time.  Charles’ eldest sister Anne acted as regent.

Louis XI had suffered from a series of strokes that had left him partially paralysed since 1480 and a further stroke in August of 1483 was the final one. He died a few days later. Louis had two daughters and a son. Before his death, Louis had declared that Charles, his son, should be the next King of France but because Charles was in poor health and had been given a poor education Louis specified that Anne, his eldest daughter, should act a regent until Charles was able to rule unaided.

Treaty of Picquigny between Louis XI of France and Edward IV, Edward IV and many of his nobles were paid a ‘pension’ to return to England and not to take up arms against France again in his claim to the French throne.  Richard Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III) is said to have opposed the treaty and refused the pension.

Richard III was buried in the choir of the church of the Grey Friars in Leicester. Polydore Vergil states that the burial was “without any pompe or solemn funeral”. This is often – mistakenly – seen to indicate that there were no religious rites. However, as John Ashdown-Hill explains, “solemnity” in the religious context refers to certain aspects of a service, which were not essential. It basically means that the service was a private ceremony by the friars, especially as a choir of their church would not have been open to the public.

To the day 527 years later, on 25 August 2012, on the first day of the archaeological dig in Leicester to find out where the church of the Grey Friars actually had been and hopefully to find Richard’s remains, parts of a human leg bone were unearthed. These were later identified as being part of the remains of Richard III.

Sources:

John Ashdown Hill, The Last Days of Richard III. The History Press, 2010, pp.91-96

Mathew Morris & Richard Buckley, Richard III:  The King under the Car Park.  University of Leicester Archaeological Services, 2013, pp.22 + 36-45

Mike Pitts, Digging for Richard: How Archaeology Found the King. Thames & Hudson, 2014, pp.99-105

Dorothea Preis

Execution of William Catesby by Henry Tudor.  Catesby was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Richard III and Speaker of the House of Commons of the Parliament of 1484.  He fought for Richard at the Battle of Bosworth and was one of very few men of note who were executed afterwards.  It has been suggested that he expected a different treatment from the Stanleys because in his will he asks them “to pray for my soul as ye have not for my body, as I trusted in you.”

Death of Margaret of Anjou at Anjou, France