Tudor Times is the online repository for all things Tudor and Stewart (1485–1625)

On 5th April 1531 Richard Roose, cook in the household of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was boiled to death at Smithfield for the crime of poisoning. Roose had added something to the pottage – he claimed he believed the addition was just a purgative and done as a joke, but two people died and Fisher himself became ill. At the time, it was whispered that Anne Boleyn’s supporters were behind it, in an effort to rid themselves of Fisher, who was one of the few clergy who openly and energetically opposed the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Katharine of Aragon. No evidence was brought at the time to prove this allegation. Fisher had been Lady Margaret Beaufort’s confessor and encouraged her in her foundation of two Cambridge Colleges.

Fisher (pictured) was later executed.

On 4th April 1497 Elizabeth Tilney, Countess of Surrey, died. Through her two marriages, first to Sir Humphrey Bourchier (killed fighting for York at the Battle of Barnet in 1471), and second, to Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey (later Duke of Norfolk), Elizabeth was the ancestor of an astonishing number of members of the Tudor court, including Anne Boleyn and her siblings, Katheryn Howard, Margaret Bryan, Sir Francis Bryan, Sir Nicholas Carew and the Dukes of Norfolk. She served as Lady of the Bedchamber to Elizabeth of York and was godmother to Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots.

The picture shows Elizabeth in the stained glass of the church at Long Melford, Suffolk.

On 3rd April 1538, Elizabeth Howard, Countess of Wiltshire and mother of Mary, Anne and George Boleyn, died. Lady Elizabeth was the daughter of the Earl of Surrey, later Duke of Norfolk, and was a lady-in-waiting to both Elizabeth of York and Katharine of Aragon. During the years when her daughter, Anne, was being courted by Henry VIII, Elizabeth acted as her chaperone. There is no record of Elizabeth’s feelings when Anne and George were condemned to death in a trial presided over by Elizabeth’s brother, the Duke of Norfolk, but following their executions, Elizabeth retired to the country for the remaining two years of her life.