Born : October 1561 – Dethick, Derbyshire Died : 20 September 1586 – St. Giles, London Anthony Babington was descended from a family of great antiquity who in successive generations had acquired vast estates in and around Derbyshire. He was born the third son of Henry Babington, and his second wife Mary, daughter of George, […]
Edmund Campion
Edmund Campion Born : 25 January 1540 – London Died : 1 December 1581 – Tyburn Edmund Campion, the son of a bookseller, became a leading scholar of his time, respected by many for his intelligence, his kindness, and his choice of a dangerous career in an era when, had he chosen a more diplomatic, […]
Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury (1563 – 1612)
Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury Born : 1 June 1563 – Westminster, Salisbury Died : 24 May 1612 – St Margaret’s Priory, Marlborough Robert Cecil had a spectacular career by any political yardstick, rising to hold jointly the two highest civil offices of the land during the reigns of Elizabeth I, and James VI/I, […]
Thomas Wolsey: Biography, Portrait, Facts & Information
Thomas Wolsey was born in Ipswich, c1475. His beginnings were not auspicious. After he rose to power, jealous courtiers claimed his father had been a butcher; Wolsey’s own servant and eventual biographer, George Cavendish, said merely that Wolsey was “an honest poor man’s son.” Whatever the truth of his father’s work, they were a poor […]
Sir Thomas More: Biography, Facts and Information
Today we know Sir Thomas More primarily as the author of Utopia, and as one of the more famous martyrs of Henry VIII’s reign. The popular image is of a man – principled, steadfast, courageous – who placed his own conscience above his king’s demands. Yet if you were to ask More’s contemporaries to describe […]
Mary Boleyn: Biography, Portrait, Facts & Information
Who Was Mary Boleyn? Mary Boleyn was the sister of King Henry VIII’s second wife, the infamous Anne Boleyn. But she was also the king’s mistress before her sister’s ascendancy. She may also have given birth to his son. Information about the life of Mary Boleyn is sketchy at best. Before her sister’s ascendancy, Mary […]
Thomas Cromwell – Facts & Biography Information
born c.1485 in Putneyexecuted 28 July 1540 in London“A good household manager, but not fit to meddle in the affairs of kings.”May 1538, Henry VIII describes Cromwell to the French ambassador Thomas Cromwell Biography Thomas Cromwell was as great a statesman as England has ever seen and, in his decade of power, permanently changed the […]