On this day in 1541, The queen and Henry VIII’s 5th wife, Katherine Howard, found herself well and truly in the shit. Henry had discovered that he had not been the only person to have ‘carnal knowledge’ of his wife, in fact he had not even been her first husband as the queen had previously had a marriage of sorts to a man called Dereham, who was now loitering around her again. 
As this wasn’t enough, to add a cherry to this turd flavoured cake, He ru had also learned that the queen was now shagging one of his besties, a man called Thomas Culpepper who was a manger of his privy council. Henry went wild. The 6th November was the last time that Katherine saw her husband before being locked away awaiting her fate. This was the legendary day that she apparently broke free of her guards at Hampton Court and chased Herny down the gallery to protest to her house arrest and convince the king of her innocence. She was dragged back into confinement, never to see the king again. Apparently her ghost can still be heard screaming down the gallery at Hampton Court, (and because it’s totally cool and the Historic Royal Palace people are boss, I have put a link to their take on the ghost at the bottom of the page).

On 7th November, Henry sent the Archbishop Cranmer to question the queen at Winchester Palace, but he found her in such a state of distress that he ordered that anything and everything the queen could use to harm herself to be removed. It did her no good because the following February she would be executed. 

And what of Culpepper and Dereham I hear you ask? Well they too were executed, but the real kick in the teeth here is that Culpepper (Henrys pal and helper who was bending it up the queen behind Henrys back) was given the privilege of a quick death by being beheaded, whilst Dereham who had known and loved the queen before they had even met Henry, (although was more than likely now blackmailing her into getting a position at court) served the traitors death, as he was the one who had ‘spoilt’ the queen for Henry. 

Katherine was only 20 when she died.

You can read more about Katherine’s ghost here: http://www.hrp.org.uk/discover-the-palaces/ghost-stories/catherine-howard/#gs._Lv9Pow

Queen Jane- not the most attractive of Henry’s wives but his favourite non the less

Today is the anniversary of the death of Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s 3rd and fave wife. She died a mere 12 days after giving the king his long awaited, precious son, and like a cruel joke, or a mean twist of fate died as consequence. The man who had rejected the church, and ditched his two previous wives had now, at last, got what he wanted, but lost his beloved wife in return. 
Janes death was caused by a long and painful birth, open wounds and the royal midwives failing to remove bits of placenta from Jane’s body, which became infected causing ‘childbed fever, (or septicaemia if you want to get technical…fanny rot if you don’t). 
The ironic thing is, the richer you are, the more inexperienced midwives you had, as they were reserved for the nobles households, and not out there gaining valuable experience in not killing labouring women. It paid to be a scrubber in Tudor times where childbirth was concerned. 
Henry went into mourning for 3 months after the death of Jane, wearing black, refusing to marry (although more than likely still shagging anything in a kirtle), and skulking about like a child who had its sweets stolen. He refused to marry for 3 years, (and when he did it was a political marriage done under much winging and moaning). I dare say the closest Henry ever got to why is commonly known as ‘feelings’.
Janes funeral was organised by a select few members of Henrys privy council. The country hadn’t buried a ‘proper’ queen for 34 years, (ditching your first wife for another woman only to hack her head off a few years later didn’t enable Henry’s first wives to be called ‘Queen’ at the times of their deaths), so they had to spend a few days looking up how to actually do it. Fucking useless. 
Queen Jane was laid to rest in the chapel at Hampton Court, which was draped in fine black cloth, until early November, when she was taken to Windsor and buried in a tomb designed by Henry. She had 29 mourners, the chief being Mary, Henrys daughter, who rode out in black being not quite as mental as she would be in years to come.
Ten years and three more wives later, Henry croaked it and was buried in the tomb with Jane, and their young son, Edward VI, inherited the crown of England.

Inside Henry and Janes tomb, (which resembles a shit French wine cellar that’s currently out of stock)

On this day in 1548, Catherine Parr died after contracting ‘childbed fever’, (scepticemia caused by shit, inexperienced midwives who had been reserved for the wealthy instead of actually delivering babies and working out what the fuck they were meant to be doing). She was Henry VIII’s last wife and pretty cool, so here are my 5 fave Cath facts:
1. Catherine wasn’t a fan of the idea of marrying Henry, (let’s face it by the time he had got to her, he was a vile, bitter old bastard, and she had been shoved into two marriages prior to him; the last being to a proper Grandad). She had the hots for Thomas Seymour, who was Jane Seymour’s (Henry’s 3rd wife), brother. She married Tom in what some called an indecent amount of time after Henry’s death, (Good girl is what I say).

2.Catherine’s mum, Maud, was Katherine of Aragon’s lady in waiting. Maud called her baby after the queen, so Herny’s last wife is named after his first… Which is fucking grim.

3. Catherine was the best step mum in history (probably). Catherine nagged Henry into bringing his kids back to court, and ultimately back into his favour. She took on Elizabeth’s welfare when Herny died and saw the best education. She moved her into her home at Sudley (away from court), and encouraged her to follow the Protestant faith, (she also sent her away from the house to protect her from her rapey, mental as balls husband when she found out he’d been sniffing around young Liz, which must’ve broke her heart). Without Catherine, Elizabeth I wouldn’t have been the fab queen, and strong woman that she was.

4. Katherine was a known follower of the reformed faith, which pissed off loads of the moany old codgers at court. She was known to have a stash of banned books, which she had inevitably read and shared with her ladies. This was a crime punishable by death and some of the members of the privy council, in particular a sly cockweasle called Gardiner, wanted to see her gone, so drew up a warrant for her arrest. 

To cut a long story short, Catherime caught wind of the plan to arrest her. Some people think the warrant was ‘dropped’ and one of her ladies found it and told her about it, others say that she was so well loved that an insider told her, whatever happened it was a bloody good job it did. The queen was so distraught she became ill (or maybe faked it), and the king came to visit her. Not letting on that she knew of the arrest warrant, she let Henry talk to her about religion and listened as he tried to trap her into saying something incriminating. 

Katherine was far too clever for Henry, and simply said that she could not have an opinion about religion without him, because his opinion was the greatest. Like the egomaniac he was, he believed that she actually thought he was the leading authority on religion and went back to being her BFF, but like a complete bell end forgot to tell his guards, so when they came the next day to arrest Catherine, instead of putting them straight, he battered them (yet again another illustration of what a tool he was).

5. Catherine was a bit of a boffin and published her own books about religion, (much to Henry’s dismay). Upon Henry’s death, she published a book called ‘Lamentations of a Sinner’, in which it became obvious she had been a strong believer in the Protestant faith all along. Well played lady.

So there you are, a whistle stop guide to my fave Catherine facts. 

480 years ago today, in 1536, Anne Boylen and her brother George were arrested and taken to the Tower of London by barge, to await a trial for incest, high treason and adultery.  

On May 1st he had held the May Day joust when half way through he stropped off with some of his pals to head for Westminster, without a word to anyone, leaving his queen, Anne,  stood there like a right dick in front of their audience.

 En route Henry asked his one of his knights of the garter, (and Henry’s actual arse wiper), Henry Norris, if he had been nobbing Anne. Norris maintained his innocence but was taken to the tower anyway, along with a court musician called Mark Smeaton. Anne and George were sent the next day, and eventually 2 other blokes who had also supposedly shagged the queen joined them. 

Anne had apparently been having a fine old time with these blokes, (even her brother), and the whole thing was a nightmare. All concerned were found guilty and executed. The whole thing had been engineered by the incredibly perceptive Thomas Cromwell, who was trying to sack off Anne because the king had grown fed up of her and wanted to commence his molestation of a young courtier named Jane Seymour. The queen had been accused of witchcraft during the trial because Henry’s lack of sexual competence had been brought into the spotlight. After all, it would be inconceivable to thing that the fat old prick couldn’t get a stiffy. 

Now don’t get me wrong, Anne was no innocent in all of this; she was scheming, manipulative and selfish. But did she shag half the Tudor court and practice witchcraft? Did she fuck. Henry was a spoilt brat and hd grown sick of his new toy. After a seven year chase, a religious reformation, a divorce and a cast aside queen, he now needed to ditch the strummer Anne because he had cock twitches  for a younger, more submissive and far less feisty model. 

Anne was executed at the tower by a French swordsman for a whole catalogue of offences. He only real crime was being greedy and over ambitious. She had bitten off more than she could chew and paid the ultimate price. However, I like to think that Anne had the last laugh, it is her daughter who against all odds and pitfalls, became England’s greatest monarch, Queen Elizabeth I. 

a romanticised image of the execution of Anne Boylen, apparently in some sort of padestrian footpath at court

On 3rd April , 1546, the massive killjoy that was Henry VIII, (with massive being used in both a literal and metaphorical context here), decided that the brothels of Southwark had to go.

Southwark lies south of the city of London and the only way to access London from the south, (or indeed to leave), was by crossing London bridge into the borough. Because Southwark was at arms reach from the city, and a passing point for tourism, it became an almighty shit hole where all walks of life, rich or poor, young or old, went to get their kicks. It was a hovel of entertainment, rife with prostitution, bear and bull baiting and illegal acting houses (yes that was a real thing). Syphilis was fucking everywhere and the stew houses (which is just about the best name ever used to describe brothels), were full of blistered whores with boils in their bits and blokes who were willing to pay a pretty penny to get in on that action. Henry needed to stop the spread of Syphilis, clean up Southwarks image and create the illusion that Tudor London was a place of morals and not whoring and hypocrisy.

‘A good old traditional Southwark brothel, where we have tea with our tits out and everyone looks over the moon to be here…oh and we also collect crockery’

Now there are a few interesting points to be made here: the first being that this was not the first attempt to clean up Soutwark. Henry VIII’s dad, Henry VII, had tried to shut down the stew houses fifty or so years prior to this attempt. He had demanded the women who worked in such establishments were to leave, and if they were foreign that they should take their scabby fannys back to where they came from. The women simply left Southwark for the outskirts of London, spread a bit of love their and moved back into Southwark when Henry VII had forgotten about them. Some people referred to the spread of syphilis out of Southwark as ‘the wind of Winchester’, this was because the brothels in Southwark fell under the protection of the bishop of Winchester, who taxed them and made a mint, subsequently the women who worked there became known as ‘the Winchester geese’.

The remains of Winchester palace, owned by the king of the pimps, The Bishop of Winchester.

The second point to make is that both Henry VII and Henry VIII were both giant whoring cunts, who used women as a commodity and shat all over them once they had finished. Henry VII was a frequent visitor to the ‘geese’, and Henry VIII was the most immoral man in the real, but syphilis wasn’t going away fast so things had to be done.

The closure of the stew houses in 1546 was accompanied by a ban on bear and bull baiting too, which pissed off a lot of people who liked nothing more than a good old family day out seeing animals rip other animals apart. these events gave the poor an opportunity to mingle with the rich (and possibly pick a few pockets and hustle a few punters). It wasn’t even Henry VIII’s first attempt at cleaning the streets. In 1533 he introduced ‘The Buggery Act’, which saw anybody committing any sexually deviant act (not just buggery), would be punished under the charges of treason and sentenced to death (without religious rights or burial). What I love about this is that one of the buggery Acts victims was Henry’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, who was accused of shagging her brother and being somewhat of a flusie. Another victim on record is a noble woman who apparently fucked an ape and had a mutant baby, so was sentenced to death, (which is particularly horrific as this just reflects the Tudor view on deformities and the baby was probably killed too, though there is no record of this). The buggery act wasn’t really aimed at homosexuality, (though this was punishable under the law) , but at anybody partaking in a bit of bum fun or caught shagging their livestock. the act was only revoked by parliament in 1861.

I’m pretty sure the bear in this depiction is only smiling because he appears to have a puppy rubbing his belly. I’m not sure this is a true likeness of bear baiting at all.

Anyway, back to the stew houses… Under the new reforms it was easier for Henry to clamp down on prostitution, the church (now Henry), owned all of the brothels anyway. Of course it continued unlicensed, women had to eat, but now just got a little more dangerous, both for the women and their clients. Upon the death of Henry, the still illegal trade flourished as mentioned, but Edward VI reintroduced bull baiting and bear baiting onto the South Bank,  (it is well documented that his sister, Elizabeth I, was a sucker for seeing a bear ripped to shit by a bunch of dogs also). However, the prostitution never really went away and parliament had to appeal to the king for purges on the illegal brothels. Nothing really worked and the women continued to work,  (as you will know if you have ever been to London and been offered ‘lady pleasure’ down a back alley, or even ‘up’ a back alley  since the buggery act was dropped).

Anne Neville was born on 14th June, 1456 at Warwick Castle. Her family was one of the wealthiest in the country and her Dad, Richard of Warwick, was one of most important men in the War of the Roses, (and by far one of the biggest cock ends that has had the good fortune to be written about in history books). Because Anne’s family were so minted, they hired their own chronicler to record everything that happened to the family at that time, (well all of the good stuff), but despite this relatively little is known about Anne Neville. The chronicler was obviously shit.

It’s fair to say that if, like any normal person, Anne was to complain that her parents fucked her up, that she would have had a fair point. Anne belonged to the House of York and grew up at Warwick castle. A young Richard of Gloucester, (who grew up to be Richard III), had been sent there as a boy to learn how to be a badass from his cousin, Richard of Warwick, so the two children would’ve known each other reasonably well. However, yet again the wanky jobsworth chronicler failed to get anything good wrote down about this, and so we can only assume they were either indifferent to each other or any scandals were covered well, (I suspect it’s the former and I’m just letting the Phillipa Gregory in me run wild).But its true, the pair knew each other well and Richard of Warwick arranged to marry his daughter Isobel to Richards brother, George Duke of Clarence, (and both were younger brothers to King Edward IV, who I will introduce to you in a moment). However, all of their lives were overshadowed by the Wars of the Roses, and each of them played important roles in the shaping of the future.

In 1461, the wars were in full flow and there was a shit-tonne of scrapping happening, (which  to be honest is too giant to write about now without deflecting from the quite frankly amazing Anne). The King in Power belonged to the House Lancaster, and although essentially part of the same family, the York faction couldn’t stand them and wanted to take the throne for themselves. After much fighting and the death of the Duke of York (Edward, George and Richards Dad, and main contender for the York crown), the throne did change hands. With the help of Anne’s Dad, Richard of Warwick, who would later go on to be known as ‘Warwick the Kingmaker’.

 

Warwick. Father. Kingmaker. Prick

The new King, Edward IV (the best King ever in my opinion), was mega grateful to Warwick and the house of York rose to power, much to the utter dismay of the Lancastrian supporters and, (to a lesser extent), their soft as shit King, Henry VI who didn’t really know what planet he was on. But the person this caused the greatest grudge with was Henry VI’s feisty as fuck wife, Margaret of Anjou. This woman was like a caged bear being poked, who then just happened to stumble upon the key and shit was about to get real!

So, the Lancastrians weren’t happy about being booted off the throne and the scraping continued until eventually Warwick decided that he was so pissed off with King Edward for not kissing his arse to the extent that he thought he deserved, that he made a plan with Margaret of Anjou to try to get Henry VI back on the throne, (bear in mind that Henry was a dribbling idiot, so would be ruled through Margaret and, of course, Warwick). This all went tits up and Henry VI was caught and imprisoned. Warwick took his family, (including Anne, Isobel and his son-in-law / brother to the King), and fled to France in exile like a little bitch, fearing, and quite rightly so, that Edward would execute him as a traitor.

As mentioned, Warwick had married off his eldest daughter, Isobel, to King Edwards brother George of Clarence, in some vain hope that George would inherit the English throne someday, making his daughter king. However, George had lost his place in the queue to the throne as Edward had rather inconsiderately had about a million legitimate children. Warwick decided that there was more than one way to skin a cat, or rather to get to the crown and the glory; in December 1470, he decided to marry his second daughter, Anne, to the young Lancastrian prince, Edward, Prince of Wales, the son of Margaret of Anjou and Henry VI. By doing this, Warwick had ensured that his daughter would be the future Lancastrian Queen of England, once the Lancastrian line had been placed back on the throne and his old pal Edward had been booted off. George was there to help and things looked bleak for the Yorkists…and poor Anne who was only 14 and had been used as a pawn in her fathers game.

Richard III and Queen Anne – not sure this is a true likeness. It was probably drawn by the chronicler. He was shit.

…a clue

On this day in 1466 Elizabeth of York was born. Also on this day, in 1503, Elizabeth of York died. Yes she died on her 38th birthday, what a shite present that was for her. Elizabeth of York was born a princess to King Edward IV and his Queen, the utter badass Elizabeth Woodville, but when her Dad died the shit really hit the fan and Elizabeth’s life changed forever.

To cut short a really, really long story: Elizabeth’s Mum, Elizabeth Woodville, was a commoner who had struck lucky and bagged herself the King. The King’s family didn’t like it and so made life difficult for them. When King Edward died his son was due to inherit the throne under the watchful eye of his Uncle, Richard of Gloucester. However, Richard was a greedy fucker and wanted the crown for himself, so he declared his brother’s children bastards, including Princess Elizabeth. This not coincidentally made himself next in line to the throne – where he sat and ruled as the infamous Richard III (On a side note, Edward’s two sons then ‘vanished’ in mysterious circumstances at the Tower of London, something that Richard has been blamed for throughout history. This not coincidentally cemented his claim to the throne).

The young Elizabeth of York remained at court under her Uncles rule, where there were rumours that he wanted to marry her – which is as vile as discharge, since she was his niece – but she was born a princess, also had a claim to the throne and was smoking hot as fuck, so what can you do?!.

Meanwhile, in France there was a second contender to the English throne, a dude by the name of Henry Tudor. When the time was right Henry stormed into England and kicked the holy shit out of Richard, taking the English crown for himself at Bosworth Battlefield. He made a right fucking mug out of Richard, because not only did he take his throne and his country, he killed Richard and then took his girl too. A deal had been made by Henry’s Mum that if Henry won he would marry Elizabeth. However it was also likely that had Richard won the battle she would’ve been married to him. Either way, Elizabeth was going to be Queen.

Elizabeth of York and Henry Tudor (or King Henry VII as he now was known), married in January 1486. Their marriage was politically very important, as it united the two sides of the royal family that had been tearing strips out of each other and fucking over the country for years: the House York and the House Lancaster. They even combined their colours of red and white to make the Tudor rose, which is quite sweet really.

Elizabeth (clutching her white rose of York like a defiant BADASS) and Henry with a really long face

The pair were seen to be truly in love and their marriage produced eight kids (though only 4 survived past infancy). Elizabeth wasn’t as badass as her Mum but that doesn’t mean she took any shit either. She wasn’t known for getting involved in Government politics and all of the other shit a King has to sort out, but then who can blame her. She was however known to be kind and loving and made it her business to be involved in choosing partners for her kids. It was Elizabeth who chose Katherine of Aragon for her eldest son Arthur; though Arthur died shortly after they married, and then his little brother Henry swooped in like a spoilt little turd sack and married her too.

Elizabeth’s eighth pregnancy was to be her undoing. A week before she died she gave birth to a little girl who was more than likely premature and died. The birth took its toll on Elizabeth too and a week later she also died leaving behind her three surviving children and a heartbroken Henry VII.

Upon hearing of Elizabeth’s death, Henry sat in solitude for days, refusing to talk to anyone. He never really got over the death of his wife, and never remarried. At one point it was suggested he marry Katherine of Aragon, his Daughter-in-law, once she too was widowed by Arthur’s death. There was a lot of ‘keeping it in the family’ in the Tudor times, and by ‘it’ I mean shagging and marrying. Pure vomit.

Henry lived for another seven years, each year lighting candles and holding mass in Elizabeth’s honour on 11th February. He was also said to have turned into a massive dick, increasing taxes and just being a ratty old fucker in general, to be fair he had good reason.

So, that’s it, a brief look at the story of Queen Elizabeth of York. She was daughter, sister and wife of three kings, had a turbulent life and then died on her birthday. How shit is that?! Our current Queen Elizabeth of course technically has two birthdays – her actual one, and an official one – so you might say she’s stupidly put herself at twice the risk, and you would be right.

The tomb of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York in Westminster Abby – pimped out by their son, Henry VIII, during his reign

If you fancy reading more about the Battle of Bosworth you can do so here

Also, if you fancy getting your peepholes over a bit more of Henry VII’s shenanigans you can do that  here

On this day in 1569 the first lottery ticket went on sale in England. Elizabeth I, being the business-headed woman she was, wanted to invest more money in the country’s ships, ports and harbours. Why not? It would make England better able to trade, better equipped for war and generally more badass than ever before. The problem was that development wasn’t cheap.

In 1566, Elizabeth hatched an ingenious plan to improve the shipping industry (and various other developments), whilst managing not to piss off her subjects by raising taxes…never a popular idea. She would host ticket sales to nobles for their chance to win stuff which matched the value of the revenue it generated. She would then draw the tickets in a couple of years time, therefore securing herself an interest-free loan for 3 years. Thus the lottery was born.

The tickets were available for ten shilling, which sounds like nothing but was actually a shit tonne of cash in the Elizabethan era,( to keep things in good spirits, she let libraries enter for free). The tickets were so expensive to ensure that the rich would enter, generating a boat load of money for the state, a shit load of excitement for the folk who had been lucky enough to enter and probably a few years of resentment to those who couldn’t afford it.
Anyone who was anyone simply had to have a ticket, meaning the prizes had to be something spectacular in order to make the mere 400,000 entry vacancies appeal to the rich and successful – and spectacular they were.

The prizes ranged from luxury goods such as silver plates, tapestries and cloth, to artefacts belonging to the queen. The first prize was £5000 (which would be equivalent to a few millionish in today’s cash), with subsequent prizes being cash values of descending order. BUT one prize was by far the most attractive: a one week ‘get out of jail free card’. You could commit just about any crime and swan off lording over your victim knowing they could do fuck all about it – well anything except piracy, murder and treason that is.

For the poorer section of the Elizabethan middle class, there were syndicates. People would buy tickets and then sell shares on to the giddy and gullible that were willing to be fleeced for a share of the fun.

The prizes were announced on scrolls sent out up and down the country. The public went wild for it. The tickets were all sold by May 1st, 1568 and on January 11th, 1569 the tickets were drawn in the steps of St.Paul’s cathedral.The crowds were enormous and the excitement was high. The lottery was so successful that subsequent lotteries were held, however they soon fizzled away as people decided to keep their cash.

the lottery prizes as advertised in scrolls

There is a lesson in this somewhere for Camelot, (the UK Lottery operator), but I’m not sure I know what it is.