In October 1562, less than three years after her accession to the throne, Elizabeth I contracted the highly-infectious smallpox virus, which led to her becoming critically ill, and subsequently raised questions in relation to the succession 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,

At around eight o'clock in the evening, on 06 July 1553, after over a year of ill-health, the fifteen-year-old Edward VI took his final breaths, dying at Greenwich Palace, a favoured residence and birthplace of his father, Henry VIII.

On This Day (19 May) in 1536, Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII and recently deposed Queen of England, was led from the royal apartments within the Tower of London to a scaffold erected on Tower Green, where she was executed by beheading.

On This Day (13 May) in 1515, at Greenwich, the public marriage took place between Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk and the king's sister Mary Tudor, Dowager Queen of France, two months after their secret marriage in Paris, France.

Henry Carey, later appointed 1st Baron of Hunsdon, son of Mary Boleyn and her first husband William Carey, was born on this day, 04 March, in 1526.

On This Day (04 February) in 1520, Mary Boleyn married William Carey in the Chapel Royal at Greenwich Palace, with Henry VIII in attendance.

Anne Askew's name has long been associated with martyrdom in Henry VIII's Protestant England. However, her early years were not necessarily indicative of a woman who would grow up to be at the forefront of rebellion and heresy in the religiously turbulent 1540s.

On This Day (06 Jul) in 1553, Edward VI died at the ‘Palace of Placentia’, Greenwich, at around 8pm.

Anne Askew was a 25yo writer, poet and preacher, originally from Lincolnshire, whose resolute Reformist religious views...