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

On 20th September 1492 Anne Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick died, aged about 66, in Beaulieu Abbey. The Countess had led an extremely eventful, and tragic, life. Countess in her own right, in around 1450 she was married to Richard Neville, son of the Earl of Salisbury, nephew-by-marriage and key supporter of Richard, Duke of York. Her husband took her title, and became known as ‘Warwick the Kingmaker’ for his involvement in the Wars of the Roses – first supporting York, then, when he understood that he could not have unlimited power, Lancaster. When Warwick was killed at the Battle of Barnet in 1471, Anne’s own Warwick lands were taken from her in an appalling act of injustice by her two sons-in-law, George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III. For a brief while, she was the mother of the Queen, when Richard III took the throne with Anne Neville beside him. In 1486, when Henry VII was victorious, the Countess petitioned for the return of her lands. She received some, but was obliged to disinherit her grandson, Edward Earl of Warwick, in favour of the King.

On 19thSeptember 1521, Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, who was Bishop of Salisbury, and, in theory, England’s advocate at the court of Rome, wrote to Cardinal Wolsey in London. In his letter, Campeggio says how delighted he was to read the ‘golden book’ that had been sent to him for presentation to the Pope. The book in question was Henry VIII’s own handiwork – his ‘Assertio septem sacramentorum contra M. Luther.’ This was a polemic against the reforming Augustinian Canon, Martin Luther, whose criticisms of the Church were sending shockwaves around Europe.

The actual authorship has been disputed – did Henry write it himself, or was it ghost written by Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, or Thomas More? Henry certainly had both the intellectual capacity and the interest to write it himself. Theological argument was one of his favourite pastimes. Erasmus (whose word cannot entirely be relied on as he was always eager to flatter anyone who might send him money) said he believed Henry was the author. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to suppose that Henry developed the main arguments, perhaps in discussion with leading thinkers in the debating style that he often promoted. He was notorious for not actually enjoying writing, so he probably dictated the actual words, or perhaps gave an outline and then reviewed it.

On 18th September 1535 the very young Duchess of Suffolk, Katherine, gave birth to her first son, Henry. Katherine, who was Baroness Willoughby d’Eresby in her own right, had been the ward of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, husband of Mary, the French Queen. Originally, it was assumed that Katherine would marry Mary and Charles’ son, Henry, Earl of Lincoln. But Mary died in June 1533, and Charles snapped up the fourteen year old heiress for himself. The Earl of Lincoln, like so many Tudor young men, died young, and so it was Katherine’s son, Henry, who inherited the Dukedom on his father’s death. But Henry, too, died young. He and his younger brother Charles died on the same day in 1551, of the sweating sickness. Katherine went on to marry again in a match that caused a few raised eyebrows – more on that here.