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

On 24th March 1603, Elizabeth I, Queen of England, died in her palace at Richmond. She was sixty-nine years old and had been ailing for at least six months. Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, came to the throne in 1558, aged just twenty-five. For the following forty-five years she ruled England. History has presented her reign as a golden era – it was an age of exploration, of unprecedented literary flowering and of a growing sense of nationhood. It was not all golden – there were difficult times in the 1570s and 1580s when persecution of Catholics increased; in the 1590s, when Parliament and monarch began to clash and in the last years in Ireland when expensive and bloody campaigns laid the groundwork for centuries of conflict. Elizabeth herself is remembered as a clever, pragmatic and politically astute monarch – often reckoned the greatest of all English sovereigns. Much of her policy was developed in concert with Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley.

The image is the Rainbow Portrait, probably by Marcus Gheerhaerts, at Hatfield House, home of Burghley’s son, Robert.

On 17th March 1473, Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Scots, gave birth to her first child, who later became James IV. James was one of the most successful kings of Scotland – he extended Crown authority to the Isles, concluded a peace treaty with Henry VII of England, and encouraged education and industry throughout his kingdom whilst still finding time to joust, pay court to his mistresses, and undertake amateur dentistry. Read more on this busy Renaissance monarch here

On 12th March 1539 Sir Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde, died. Boleyn’s rise to power and influence, and subsequent catastrophic fall from favour, shows just how rewarding, and dangerous, life as one of Henry VIII’s courtiers could be. Boleyn was from a fairly undistinguished Norfolk family, although his mother, Lady Margaret Butler, was a daughter of the Anglo-Irish Earl of Ormond & Wiltshire. He married Lady Elizabeth Howard in the last years of the 15th century – a good match for him, as she was the daughter of the Earl of Surrey.

He received a number of marks of favour from Henry VII, including joining the entourage that accompanied Henry’s daughter to Scotland to marry James IV. Boleyn was made a Knight of the Bath for the coronation of Henry VIII and Katharine of Aragon, and later took an important role in the baptism of their daughter, Mary. Boleyn was an excellent French speaker, and undertook many diplomatic trips to the court of France and to Marguerite of Austria, in the Netherlands. Through his contacts, he was able to place his daughters, Mary and Anne, in the courts of those countries. Both Boleyn’s daughters caught the eye of Henry VIII. Mary became the King’s mistress for an unknown period, then Henry’s infatuation with Anne almost tore his kingdom apart. Boleyn received high office, but, when Anne was executed, he was dismissed from court, and retired to his home at Hever, where he died and is buried in St Peter’s Church.