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

On 12th July 1543 Henry VIII married his sixth wife, Katherine Parr, in the Queen’s Closet at Hampton Court. It was the bride’s third marriage and after the King’s death she was to marry again – this time for love. Katherine Parr was an intellectual, a published author and, at one point, she was Regent of England. She was the first Queen of England to also be Queen of Ireland, and the first to be buried as a Protestant. Katherine was one of the few members of the Tudor royal family to have lived and travelled outside the south-east of England and was thus a first-hand witness of the Pilgrimage of Grace and the widening gap between the old, conservative north, and the new, radical south.

On 11th July 1536, the Act of Ten Articles was promulgated. This was the first element of Henry VIII’s Reformation that actually affected doctrinal matters, and was probably written by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. Considered to be reformist in tone, whilst it permitted prayers for the dead, it negated any value in papal pardons or remissions. It confirmed the Real Presence in the sacraments, and thus remains essentially a Catholic exposition of faith. It was, however, novel enough to cause disquiet, and religious change was one of the motives behind the Pilgrimage of Grace.

On 10th July 1559, Henri II, King of France, died following a jousting accident. He had been competing in a grand tournament held on 30th June to celebrate the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, which finally put an end to the war with Spain and the Empire that had lasted on-and-off for more than sixty years. His daughter, Elisabeth, was to marry Philip II of Spain. During the joust, Montmorecy, his opponent’s, spear shattered and a splinter entered Henri’s eye. He died in great pain. His wife, Catherine de Medici, refused access to his long-term mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Henri’s death brought his son Francois II and his wife, Mary, Queen of Scots, to the throne of France.