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

On 4th July 1530, Eleanor of Austria (1498 – 1558) was married to Francois I of France. Eleanor was the daughter of Philip, Duke of Burgundy, and Juana, Queen of Castile. Her brothers were the Emperor Charles V, and Emperor Ferdinand I. Eleanor, who had once been suggested as a bride for Henry VIII, prior to his marriage to her aunt, Katharine of Aragon, had been married, aged 20 to Manuel I of Portugal. Manuel had previously been married to two of her aunts. On his death in 1521, Eleanor joined her brother’s court in Spain. Various second marriages were proposed, but none were carried out.

In 1529, a peace was brokered between France and the Empire. France had been heavily defeated at the Battle of Pavia in 1515, and Francois I taken prisoner. As part of the agreement for his release, he sent his two sons as hostages, and agreed to marry Eleanor. She arrived in 1530, flanked by the two boys. Although Eleanor received the respect due to her as Queen of France, Francois made his resentment of the marriage plain and continued to flaunt his mistresses, even appearing with one at the celebrations following Eleanor’s coronation. There were no children of the marriage. When widowed in 1547, Eleanor returned to Spain, where she spent the remainder of her life.

On 3rd July 1495, Perkin Warbeck arrived at Deal in Kent, with some 150 supporters. His men had been paid for by Margaret of York, Dowager Duchess of Burgundy, who claimed to believe that he was her nephew, Richard, Duke of York, who had disappeared in the Tower in 1483. The local populace were less impressed than Margaret and gave Warbeck’s men a drubbing. He had not landed, and made for Ireland, where he received a warmer welcome. He was also helped by the Scottish king, James IV – read more about that here.

On 2nd July 1515, the first free grammar school in England, Manchester Grammar, was endowed by Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter d. 1519. Oldham had spent time in the household of Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby, and his wife, Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII. Lady Margaret was a strong promoter of education, founding two Cambridge colleges, and Oldham may well have been influenced by her and her Chaplain, Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester. Oldham was a reformer within the Church, and promoted the study of the classics and the ‘New Learning’ that sought to sweep away some of the superstitions and abuses of the late mediaeval church. He went on to found Corpus Christi College, Oxford, together with Bishop Fox. The cost of building of Manchester Grammar was £218 13s 5d.