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

On 11th April 1492 Marguerite d’Angouleme, sister and close companion of Francois I of France, was born. Marguerite was a scholar and a writer and hugely influenced the cultural life of the French court. Her book, the Heptameron was a collection of tales in the style of the Decameron, and her more famous work, The Mirror of a Sinful Soul, strongly influenced the evangelical religious movement of the 1520s. Marguerite's work may well have also influenced the young Anne Boleyn who was in the train of Marguerite’s sister-in-law, Queen Claude. Marguerite married Henry II of Navarre, in 1525. Her grandson was Henri IV of France – about whom you can read more here in an article written for Tudor Times by Dominic Pearce.

10th April 1512 saw the birth of a son to James IV of Scotland and his English wife, Margaret Tudor. The baby was not the first born to the couple but previous infants had died young. He became King of Scots as James V at the age of eighteen months, when his father was killed at Flodden. James, after a troubled minority, during which his mother fought to retain the regency, became a capable monarch. The rivalry for control was, in part, a manifestation of the ongoing struggle between France and England for influence in Scotland. James never forgave his uncle, Henry VIII, for his interference in his realm, and it was in yet another skirmish with his southern neighbour that James fell ill and died, aged just thirty, leaving his eight-day old daughter, Mary, as Queen of Scots.

On 9th April 1582 Richard Bertie, second husband of Katherine Willoughby, Dowager Duchess of Suffolk and Baroness Willoughby de Broke, died. Bertie was the Duchess’ gentleman usher, a useful role for forming close relationships. Read our review of David Baldwin’s biography of Katherine here. Like his wife, he was a radical in religion, and when they were exiled during the reign of Queen Mary, they travelled to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. On return to England with their two children, the couple were not welcomed by Elizabeth I, but Bertie was returned as an MP several times and acted as a Justice of the Peace.