Curated category
People executed by Tudor England by decapitation
- Anne BoleynAnne Boleyn went to the scaffold on the 19th of May 1536 wearing a red petticoat beneath a loose grey gown of damask trimmed in fur, and she laughed.
- Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of NorthumberlandThomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland, stood on a scaffold in York on the 22nd of August 1572 and refused to save his own life.
- George Boleyn, Viscount RochfordGeorge Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, stepped onto Tower Hill on the morning of the 17th of May 1536 to face the axe. The crowd watching was, by all accounts…
- John Dudley, 1st Duke of NorthumberlandJohn Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, died on the 22nd of August 1553 with a curious phrase on his lips: "I have deserved a thousand deaths." He had just…
- Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of SomersetEdward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, rose from a minor English noble family to become the effective ruler of England for two years, all because his sister…
- Catherine HowardCatherine Howard was Queen of England for barely sixteen months, and she was probably still a teenager when the axe fell on the 13th of February 1542.
- Francis WestonFrancis Weston was beheaded on Tower Hill on the 17th of May 1536, twenty-five years old and still protesting his innocence.
- Mary, Queen of ScotsMary, Queen of Scots was six days old when she became queen. Her father, King James V of Scotland, died on the 14th of December 1542 before he ever truly…
- Lady Jane GreyLady Jane Grey ruled as Queen of England and Ireland for nine days in July 1553 before her own Privy Council turned against her and proclaimed her cousin…
- Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of EssexRobert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex, once walked into Queen Elizabeth's bedchamber at Nonsuch Palace one morning. She was not yet, in the words of one…
- Thomas Wyatt the YoungerThomas Wyatt the Younger was born on the 10th of September 1521 into a family already famous for shaping English culture.
- Henry Norris (courtier)Henry Norris died on the 17th of May 1536, on Tower Hill, and his last words were almost nothing at all. Where his fellow condemned men chose their scaffold…
- Thomas MoreThomas More climbed the scaffold at Tower Hill on the 6th of July 1535 and, finding the structure so rickety it might collapse, told the waiting official: "I…
- Nicholas Carew (courtier)Nicholas Carew entered the household of the future King Henry VIII at six years old. He shared his education with the boy who would become England's most…
- Thomas CromwellThomas Cromwell was a blacksmith's son from Putney who died on Tower Hill with his head set on a spike above London Bridge.
- William Brereton (courtier)William Brereton walked to a scaffold on Tower Hill on the 17th of May 1536 and spoke his final words with careful precision: "The cause whereof I die, judge…
- Edmund DudleyEdmund Dudley died on Tower Hill on the 17th of August 1510, executed by the very dynasty he had spent his career enriching.
- Richard EmpsonRichard Empson died on the 17th of August 1510 with an axe, not a trial verdict, as the final word on his career. A lawyer who rose from Northamptonshire…
- Mark SmeatonMark Smeaton stood in the round window of Queen Anne's chamber at Winchester on a Saturday before May Day. He was around 23 years old when he died, yet his…
- John FisherJohn Fisher entered the world around the 19th of October 1469 in Beverley, Yorkshire. His father Robert worked as a prosperous mercer who died in 1477 when…