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

In several European countries, 8th October 1582 did not happen. Pope Gregory XIII, in his bull named Inter Gravissimas, introduced a new dating system (known now as the Gregorian Calendar) to try to bring the dates of Easter back towards the spring equinox. Problems in the old (Julian) calendar, meant that the calendar and the moon were out of phase, and Easter dates were falling later than the Church wished. To solve the problem, three leap days in every 100 years were dropped, and the length of the year shortened very slightly. Astronomers and mathematicians had been working on the problem for a while – the scheme introduced was designed by Luigi Lilio (or Aloysius Lilius), although he did not live to see it implemented. To align the new calendar with the moon, ten days had to be dropped. Because the scheme was promoted by the Catholic Church, the first countries to adopt it were Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain. England and Scotland did not adopt it until 1752, giving rise to all sorts of confusion in dating.

On 7th October 1515, Margaret, Queen of Scots, gave birth to a daughter, whom she named after herself. The date is often given as 8th October, but there is a letter of Queen Margaret’s saying it was 7th, and presumably, she was in the best position to know. The little girl, child of the Queen’s second marriage, to Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, was to have one of the most colourful careers of any royal lady of the sixteenth century. Spending her childhood in Scotland, she was exiled to England with her father, aged thirteen, and joined the court of her uncle, Henry VIII. Lady Margaret served in the courts of Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, Katheryn Howard and Katherine Parr - she did not serve Jane Seymour, as she spent the period of Jane’s queenship in the Tower of London.

Married to a Scots Earl, she bore a son, Henry, Lord Darnley, who was the husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and was murdered in the most notorious assassination of the century. Margaret spent another period in the Tower for plotting his marriage to Queen Mary, and yet a third for planning the marriage of her younger son, Charles, to the daughter of Bess of Hardwick. Nevertheless, she escaped retribution, and died in her bed in 1578. Read more about Lady Margaret Douglas here.

On 6th October 1509, Sir Nicholas Vaux was appointed as Lieutenant of Guisnes Castle – initially for 20 years, but subsequently for life. He was to hold the office without any interruption from the Governor of Calais. Sir Nicholas, who was about fifty, was the son of loyal Lancastrians – his mother, Katherine Peniston, had been one of Marguerite of Anjou’s attendants and had followed her into exile. He himself had been in the household of Lady Margaret Beaufort from an early age, and had fought for Henry Tudor at Bosworth. Vaux had then married the widowed Elizabeth FitzHugh, Lady Parr, the niece of Warwick the Kingmaker. As Lady Vaux, she attended her second cousin, Queen Elizabeth of York. Vaux’s second wife, Anne Green, was the sister of Maud Green, who married Elizabeth FitzHugh’s son by her first marriage, Sir Thomas Parr. Vaux and Elizabeth’s daughter, Katherine, married Sir George Throckmorton of Coughton Court.

Picture of Coughton Court