On Good Friday, 14 April, Anne's personal physician, Dr Thomas Muffit, one of the witnesses to her will, noted that she presented as "very weak...more likely to die than live". Having been informed of her pending mortality, Dr Muffit encouraged the Duchess to set her affairs in order, including making changes to the will, as promised the previous week; Anne died on Easter Sunday, 16 April 1587.

At the beginning of 1676, Lady Anne Clifford, Dowager Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Cumberland was just about to turn 86 years old. Now she was about to enter her final months, and as she had for most of her life, she continued to ensure that her day-to-day activities would be documented. Anne had been a prolific diarist throughout her life, and she ensured this continued.

On 03 March 1542, Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle, died within the Tower of London, aged about eighty-years old, having been imprisoned there since May 1540.

On This Day (23 February) in 1554, Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, was executed on Tower Hill, having being convicted of charges of high treason five days previously.

On the morning of 12 February 1554, Jane Grey, then known as 'Jane Dudley', was spending her last hours within the Tower of London, where she had been held prisoner the previous seven months. Just before 10 o'clock, fellow prisoner and her husband of less than a year, Guildford Dudley, was led from the Tower to nearby Tower Hill, where he was beheaded. A short time later, Jane herself was taken to a scaffold that had been erected on Tower Green, where he was also beheaded.