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

On 2nd April 1502 Arthur, Prince of Wales, died, aged 15, at Ludlow Castle. Arthur was the great hope of the Tudor dynasty, his birth in 1486 having been seen as the confirmation from heaven of his father’s right to the throne and his death gave his parents intense grief, both personal and political. He was carefully brought up, with the best of teachers, and began his training for kingship early with his own Council in Wales. He was married when he was just past his fifteenth birthday, to Katharine of Aragon. The secrets of their marriage-bed affected the whole course of English history. The exact cause of the Prince’s death is unknown. He was buried in Worcester Cathedral where his tomb still stands.

On 1st April 1573 William Harvey was born, at Folkestone in Kent. Harvey, after education at King’s College, Canterbury and Cambridge, studied medicine in Padua. On returning to England in 1602 he married the daughter of Elizabeth I’s physician, and then became physician to both James VI & I and Charles I. In 1628 Harvey published his 'Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus' which for the first time explained the circulation of blood in the body.

On 31st March 1519, Queen Claude of France bore a second son, Henri. The young prince had a difficult childhood – he was sent to Spain as a hostage in exchange for his father, François I, who was captured at the Battle of Pavia in 1525. Henri, together with his older brother, remained there for four years, an experience which raised the political rivalry between France and Spain to one of personal hatred. He returned to France and was married to Catherine de Medici, niece of the Pope, as part of a plan to increase French strength against Spain and the Empire.

The marriage was miserable – Henri preferred his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, some twenty years older than both himself and his bride. In 1536, the death of his brother led to Henri becoming his father’s heir. He became King of France in 1547, and maintained the alliance with Scotland, arranging for the marriage of his son to Mary, Queen of Scots. He died in a jousting accident in 1559.

The drawing of Henri II is a preparatory study for his portrait by Clouet in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.