In medieval London, there were multiple public places of execution, places where death sentences which had been given to prisoners convicted of serious crimes against the monarch or the state, including treason and heresy, were carried out. These locations included Tyburn (the location of the city's primary public gallows), Smithfield marketplace and the churchyard of St-Giles-in-the-Field. In 1464, another site was established on a raised plot of land, overlooking the Tower

On 26 December 1605, an intimate ceremony took place at Wanstead Hall, Essex, the home of Charles Blount, 1st Earl of Devonshire: the exchanging of marriage vows between the Earl and his long-time lover and recently legally-separated, Penelope Devereux, Lady Rich.

"Upon Christmas Day in the morning", 25 December 1634, the thrice-widowed 91-year-old Lettice Knollys, Dowager Countess of Essex and Leicester, died at her home at Drayton Bassett, Staffordshire.

At the beginning of December 1608, Elizabethan courtier Douglas Howard, Lady Sheffield, died, at approximately sixty-five years old. On 11 December 1608, she was buried at St Margaret's Church, Westminster, as requested in her will, "by my sister Dudley".

By early December 1542, Scotland was already in the midst of a harsh winter, with heavy snowfalls and cold temperatures. At Linlithgow Palace, a Scottish royal residence built in the style of a French château approximately fifteen miles west of Edinburgh, Scottish Queen Marie de Guise, had entered her confinement, in preparation for the birth of her highly-anticipated and yearned for child.

At the end of November 1558, or early December 1558, shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I, recently-widowed Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, remarried; his new bride was eighteen-year-old Margaret Audley, herself having been widowed the previous year.

On 13 November 1553, the trial of five prisoners accused of high treason was held at the City of London's Guildhall; Jane Grey, brothers Ambrose, Guildford and Henry ('Harry') Dudley, and Thomas Cranmer, former Archbishop of Canterbury. Their charges related to the failed coup earlier that summer, when, following the death of Edward VI in July 1553, active attempts were made to place the teenage Jane on the English throne.

On 11 November 1565, Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick, the elder brother of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, was married for the third, and what would be his final time. For the twice-widowed Warwick, now in his mid-thirties, his new bride was the eldest daughter of Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, and member of Elizabeth I's household: 15-year-old Lady Anne Russell.

George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, courtier, naval commander and expeditioner, died in October 1605 in Westminster, following a month of ill-health.

With the lease for Durham Place being taken over by Sidney, it became essential for Leicester to identify another local property that would meet his needs, and by June 1569, he had found one: Paget Place. After taking possession of the house, the property was eponymously renamed 'Leicester House', thus becoming the Earl's official residence within the capital, with Jenkins (1972, p.186) describing the house as becoming "the centre of his social and political existence".

In October 1562, less than three years after her accession to the throne, Elizabeth I contracted the highly-infectious smallpox virus; this led to her becoming critically ill, and subsequently raised questions in regards to the governing of a country with an incapacitated queen, and speculation relating to the future of the English monarchy.

The marriage between Lettice and Leicester was formally celebrated on Sunday 21 September 1578, at Leicester's Essex home of Wanstead Hall, almost two years to the date of death of her first husband. Leicester had consulted with his chaplain at Wanstead, Humphrey Tyndall, informing of his intent to marry Lettice in secret, as he felt that public knowledge of their marriage may cause "great damage to his estate", having not previously obtained the consent of the queen (Tallis,

Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, had been a popular and active courtier during the reign of Elizabeth I, following in the footsteps of his father, John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, a high-ranking councillor during the reigns of the three previous monarchs: Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I.

On 08 September 1560, Amy sent away her household for the day, encouraging them to enjoy the first day of the local Abingdon Fair. It was on the servants' return to the hall that evening that they found Amy, at the foot of a ground-floor staircase, dead, with her neck obviously broken.

On 13 June 1548, after months of preparation, Katherine and Seymour moved their households to Sudeley Castle in the Gloucestershire countryside, leaving behind the controversy and a disease-filled London.

On 02 September in 1666, an accidental fire started in a bakery on Pudding Lane, within the City of London. The blaze was not properly extinguished, and so within hours the fire grew into a blazing inferno, which devastated the city and became known as 'The Great Fire of London'.

Henry Carey was the second child of Mary Boleyn, the eldest daughter of Thomas Boleyn, born in March 1526.

In mid-June 1519, a baby boy was born to a young unmarried woman who, for the past few months, had been residing at the Prior's House of St Lawrence's Priory in Blackmore, Essex. This baby, whilst illegitimate, would take the name of his acknowledged father, the king of England: Henry Fitzroy.

On 19 July 1584, Robert Dudley, Lord Denbigh, son of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, long time 'favourite' of Elizabeth I, and his wife Lettice Knollys, Countess of Leicester, died suddenly whilst residing at Wanstead Hall, Essex.

On This Day (10 July) in 1553, Jane Grey, eldest daughter of Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, the niece of Henry VIII, and her husband Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, was publicly proclaimed Queen of England.