On a cold morning on Wednesday 19 January 1547, Tudor courtier, soldier and poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was taken to the scaffold on Tower Hill, where he was beheaded, following his conviction for high treason one week earlier. With his death, Surrey, the eldest son and heir of the recently deposed and co-accused Lord High Treasurer, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, would be the last man to be executed during the reign of Henry VIII.

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.

On This Day (18 April) in 1587, clergyman, historian, theologian and martyrologist John Foxe died at his London home on Grub Street, in the parish of St Giles-without-Cripplegate.

On This Day (10 March) in 1538, a son and heir was born to Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, soldier, politician and poet, and his wife Frances

On This Day (12 February) in 1554, Lady Jane Grey and her husband, Guildford Dudley, were executed.

Edmund Dudley, esq. was the grandson of John Dudley, 1st Baron Sutton - a courtier and diplomat, who after switching from the Lancastrian to the Yorkist cause during the Wars of the Roses, joined the court of Edward IV and was appointed as 'Constable of the Tower of London'.

Thomas Seymour was born in c.1508, a younger brother to Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford and later Duke of Somerset, and older brother to Jane Seymour, Queen of England. Their parents were Sir John Seymour and Margaret Wentworth, and their family seat was Wulfhall, in Wiltshire.

Sir Christopher Blount, born c.1555, was the second son of Thomas Blount of Kidderminster (c.1525-1568) and his wife Margery Poley.