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

On 11th March 1516, Mary, Dowager Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk, gave birth to her first child, who was tactfully named Henry after his uncle, the King. The marriage of Mary to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, had shocked the court and enraged the King (more on that here). Sadly, Henry died young, otherwise he might have stood a good chance of being named as the heir of Edward VI, rather than his niece, Lady Jane Grey.

Picture of Mary, the French Queen, and Charles Brandon by Jan Gosseart

On 6th March 1536 the first bill was introduced into the English Parliament to dissolve the monasteries. Initially, only smaller houses were affected, where the annual income was less than £200 p.a. or where there were insufficient monks or nuns to form the minimum community required by the Monastic Rule.The act followed the eighteen month survey of monastic wealth and practice, commissioned in 1534, and known as Valor Ecclesiasticus. Although the suppression of the monasteries can be over-emphasised as the cause of the rebellion that year, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, it was one of the contributing factors.

Picture of the Valor Ecclesiasticus

On 5th March 1496 Henry VII gave full licence to the Cabots – Giovanni (better known as John), and his sons Ludovico, Sebastiano and Sancio - to sail to all ports of the eastern, western and northern seas to claim lands on behalf of the English Crown. Cabot, born in Genoa, had travelled extensively in the Mediterranean in his youth, before moving to Bristol, in England. Following Columbus’ discovery of the Americas for Spain in 1492, whilst searching for a western passage to the Indies, Cabot became convinced that a more northerly route would achieve the goal of a faster route to the east than the traditional one around the tip of Africa.

Cabot set sail in early May 1496 in the ‘Matthew’, 50 tons, with 18 crew. After around 50 days of sailing he landed somewhere on the north American coast – possibly Newfoundland, Nova Scotia or Maine, claiming it for England. Not choosing to hang about, Cabot and his men arrived back in England on 6th August, and was granted a pension of £20 by the King, as well as sponsorship for a new voyage in 1498, from which he never returned.