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July 28

July 28

July 28 is the 209th day (210th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 156 days remaining.

Events

- 1493 - Great fire in Moscow
- 1540 - Thomas Cromwell, is executed on order from Henry VIII of England on charges of treason. Henry marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day.
- 1794 - Maximilien Robespierre is guillotined in front of a cheering crowd, for sending thousands of others to a similar fate during the French Revolution.
- 1821 - Peru declares independence from Spain.
- 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Ezra Church begins - Confederate troops make a third unsuccessful attempt to drive Union forces from Atlanta, Georgia.
- 1866 - The Metric Act of 1866 becomes law and legalizes the standardization of weights and measures in the United States.
- 1868 - The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is adopted guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.
- 1873 - The Japanese government implements land and tax reform as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms.
- 1878 - Great Britain's William Gowland becomes the first non-Japanese to reach Yarigatake peak (3,180 meters), and he names the mountain the Japanese Alps, a name that is eventually used to refer to the entire mountain range.
- 1914 - World War I begins: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia after it failed to meet the conditions of an ultimatum it set on July 23 following the killing of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Serbian assassin. This event leads to the outbreak of war.
- 1932 - US President Herbert Hoover orders the United States Army to forcibly evict the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, DC.
- 1942 - World War II: USSR leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into Russia. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so will be immediately killed.
- 1943 - World War II: Operation Gomorrah - The British bomb Hamburg causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.
- 1945 - A US Army bomber accidentally crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 injuring 26.
- 1965 - Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.
- 1973 - Watkins Glen, New York concert attended by 600,000 to see The Band, The Allman Brothers Band, and the Grateful Dead.
- 1976 - The Tangshan earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 magnitude flattens Tangshan, China, killing 242,769 and injuring 164,851.
- 1990 - Alberto Fujimori becomes president of Peru
- 1992 - Mary J. Blige releases her album What's the 411?. It is considered the album that started the new subgenre, hip-hop soul (also see 1992 in music).
- 1995 - Network Solutions announces a new policy to help companies protect their trademarks on the Internet.
- 1996 - Kennewick Man, the remains of a prehistoric man, was discovered near Kennewick, Washington.
- 1997 - Guatemala becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
- 1998 - Monica Lewinsky scandal: Ex-White House intern, Monica Lewinsky receives transactional immunity in exchange for her grand jury testimony concerning her relationship with US President Bill Clinton.
- 2002 - Nine coal miners trapped in the flooded Quecreek Mine in Somerset, Pennsylvania, were rescued after 77 hours underground.
- 2003 - NPR broadcasts the first episode of Day to Day, a one-hour radio newsmagazine
- 2005 - Larry Brown is introduced as the head coach of the New York Knicks NBA franchise, at a press conference in Madison Square Garden.

Births

- 1659 - Charles Ancillon, French Huguenot pastor (d. 1715)
- 1804 - Ludwig Feuerbach, German philosopher (d. 1872)
- 1844 - Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet (d. 1889)
- 1866 - Beatrix Potter, English author (d. 1943)
- 1867 - Charles Dillon Perrine, American-born astronomer (d. 1951)
- 1872 - Albert Sarraut, French politician (d. 1962)
- 1874 - Ernst Cassirer, German philosopher (d. 1945)
- 1887 - Marcel Duchamp, French painter (d. 1968)
- 1896 - Barbara La Marr, American actress (d. 1926)
- 1901 - Rudy Vallee, American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer (d. 1986)
- 1902 - Karl Popper, Austrian-born philosopher of science (d. 1994)
- 1904 - Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
- 1907 - Earl Tupper, American inventor (d. 1983)
- 1909 - Malcolm Lowry, English novelist (d. 1957)
- 1914 - Carmen Dragon, composer (d. 1984)
- 1915 - Charles Townes, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1915 - Frankie Yankovic, American musician (d. 1998)
- 1916 - David Brown, American film producer
- 1922 - Jacques Piccard, Belgian-born undersea explorer
- 1925 - Baruch S. Blumberg, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- 1927 - John Ashbery, American poet
- 1929 - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, First Lady of the United States (d. 1994)
- 1934 - Jacques d'Amboise, American dancer and choreographer
- 1935 - Simon Dee, British television broadcaster
- 1936 - Garfield Sobers, West Indian cricketer
- 1938 - Alberto Fujimori, President of Peru
- 1940 - Philip Proctor, American comedian
- 1941 - Riccardo Muti, Italian conductor
- 1943 - Bill Bradley, basketball player and U.S. Senator
- 1945 - Jim Davis, American cartoonist
- 1945 - Richard Wright English keyboard player (Pink Floyd)
- 1948 - Sally Struthers, American actress
- 1949 - Steve Peregrin Took, English singer and songwriter (d. 1980)
- 1951 - Santiago Calatrava, Spanish architect
- 1952 - Yoshitaka Amano, Japanese artist
- 1952 - Vajiralongkorn, Crown Prince of Thailand
- 1954 - Steve Morse, American guitarist
- 1954 - Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela
- 1958 - Terry Fox, Canadian athlete and cancer activist (d. 1981)
- 1962 - Rachel Sweet, American singer
- 1965 - Lori Loughlin, American actress
- 1972 - Elizabeth Berkley, American actress
- 1976 - Jacoby Shaddix, American singer (Papa Roach)
- 1977 - Tiago Andres Vaz, Brazilian composer
- 1977 - Emanuel Ginóbili, Argentine basketball player
- 1979 - Birgitta Haukdal, Icelandic singer

Deaths

- 450 - Theodosius II, Roman Emperor (b. 401)
- 1057 - Pope Victor II
- 1128 - William Clito, Count of Flanders (b. 1102)
- 1230 - Duke Leopold VI of Austria (b. 1176)
- 1527 - Rodrigo de Bastidas, Spanish conquistador
- 1540 - Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, English statesman
- 1631 - Guillén de Castro y Bellvis, Spanish dramatist (b. 1569)
- 1655 - Cyrano de Bergerac, French poet (b. 1619)
- 1667 - Abraham Cowley, English poet (b. 1618)
- 1675 - Bulstrode Whitelocke, English lawyer (b. 1605)
- 1685 - Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, English statesman (b. 1618)
- 1718 - Etienne Baluze, French scholar (b. 1630)
- 1741 - Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer (b. 1678)
- 1750 - Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer (b. 1685)
- 1762 - George Dodington, 1st Baron Melcombe, English politician (b. 1691)
- 1794 - Maximilien Robespierre, French Revolutionary leader (b. 1758)
- 1794 - Louis de Saint-Just, French Revolutionary leader (b. 1767)
- 1835 - Édouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier, French marshal (b. 1768)
- 1842 - Clemens Brentano, German poet (b. 1778)
- 1844 - Joseph Bonaparte, older brother of Napoleon I and King of Naples and Spain (b. 1768)
- 1849 - King Charles Albert of Sardinia (b. 1798)
- 1869 - Jan Evangelista Purkyně, Czech anatomist (b. 1787)
- 1930 - Allvar Gullstrand, Swedish ophthalmologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1862)
- 1934 - Marie Dressler, Canadian actress (b. 1868)
- 1942 - William Matthew Flinders Petrie, English Egyptologist (b. 1853)
- 1957 - Edith Abbott, American social worker, educator, and author (b. 1876)
- 1965 - Edogawa Ranpo, Japanese author (b. 1894)
- 1968 - Otto Hahn, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1879)
- 1971 - Myril Hoag, baseball player (b. 1908)
- 1972 - Helen Traubel, American soprano (b. 1903)
- 1982 - Keith Green, American gospel singer, songwriter, and pianist (b. 1953)
- 1996 - Marguerite "Marge" Ganser, American singer (Shangri-Las) (b. 1948)
- 1999 - Trygve Haavelmo, Norwegian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911)
- 2002 - Archer John Porter Martin, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1910)
- 2003 - Lady Valerie Goulding, Irish Senator and campaigner for the disabled (b. 1918)
- 2004 - Francis Crick, English molecular biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1916)
- 2004 - Sam Edwards, American actor (b. 1915)
- 2004 - Tiziano Terzani, Italian journalist (b. 1938)

Holidays and observances

- Canada - Commemoration of the deportation of the Acadians
- Faroe Islands - Ólavsøka Eve
- Peru - Independence Day
- San Marino - Fall of the Fascist Government

External links

- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/28 BBC: On This Day] ---- July 27 - July 29 - June 28 - August 28 -- listing of all days ko:7월 28일 ms:28 Julai ja:7月28日 simple:July 28 th:28 กรกฎาคม

July 28

July 28 is the 209th day (210th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 156 days remaining.

Events

Births

Deaths

Holidays and observances

- Canada - Commemoration of the deportation of the Acadians
- Faroe Islands - Ólavsøka Eve
- Peru - Independence Day
- San Marino - Fall of the Fascist Government

External links

Leap year

A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing an extra day or month in order to keep the calendar year in sync with an astronomical or seasonal year. Seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of days, so a calendar which had the same number of days in each year would over time drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. Leap years (which keep the calendar in sync with the year) should not be confused with leap seconds (which keep clock time in sync with the day).

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar, the current standard calendar in most of the world, adds a 29th day to February in all years evenly divisible by 4, except for century years (those ending in -00), which receive the extra day only if they are evenly divisible by 400. Thus 1996 was a leap year whereas 1999 was not, and 1600, 2000 and 2400 are leap years but 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not. The reasoning behind this rule is as follows:
- The Gregorian calendar is designed to keep the vernal equinox on or close to March 21, so that the date of Easter (celebrated on the Sunday after the 14th day of the Moon that falls on or after 21 March) remains correct with respect to the vernal equinox.
- The vernal equinox year is currently about 365.242375 days long.
- The Gregorian leap year rule gives an average year length of 365.2425 days. This difference of a little over 0.0001 days means that in around 8,000 years, the calendar will be about one day behind where it should be. But in 8,000 years' time the length of the vernal equinox year will have changed by an amount we can't accurately predict (see below). So the Gregorian leap year rule does a good enough job. Image:Gregoriancalendarleap.png

Which day is the leap day?

The Gregorian calendar is a modification of the Julian calendar first used by the Romans. The Roman calendar originated as a lunar calendar (though from the 5th century BC it no longer followed the real moon) and named its days after three of the phases of the moon: the new moon (calends, hence "calendar"), the first quarter (nones) and the full moon (ides). Days were counted down (inclusively) to the next named day, so 24 February was ante diem sextum calendas martii ("the sixth day before the calends of March"). Since 45 BC, February in a leap year had two days called "the sixth day before the calends of March". The extra day was originally the second of these, but since the third century it was the first. Hence the term bissextile day for 24 February in a bissextile year. Where this custom is followed, anniversaries after the inserted day are moved in leap years. For example, the former feast day of Saint Matthias, 24 February in ordinary years, would be 25 February in leap years. This historical nicety is, however, in the process of being discarded: The European Union declared that, starting in 2000, 29 February rather than 24 February would be leap day, and the Roman Catholic Church also now uses 29 February as leap day. The only tangible difference is felt in countries that celebrate feast days.

Julian calendar

The Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4. This rule gives an average year length of 365.25 days. The excess of about 0.0076 days with respect to the vernal equinox year means that the vernal equinox moves a day earlier in the calendar every 130 years or so.

Revised Julian Calendar

The Revised Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4, except for years divisible by 100 that do not leave a remainder of 200 or 600 when divided by 900. This rule agrees with the rule for the Gregorian calendar until 2799. The first year that dates in the Revised Julian calendar will not agree with the those in the Gregorian calendar will be 2800, because it will be a leap year in the Gregorian calendar but not in the Revised Julian calendar. This rule gives an average year length of 365.242222… days. This is a very good approximation to the mean tropical year, but because the vernal equinox tropical year is slightly longer, the Revised Julian calendar does not do as good a job as the Gregorian calendar of keeping the vernal equinox on or close to 21 March.

Chinese calendar

The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, so a leap year has an extra month, often called an embolismic month after the Greek word for it. In the Chinese calendar the leap month is added according to a complicated rule, which ensures that month 11 is always the month that contains the northern winter solstice. The intercalary month takes the same number as the preceding month; for example, if it follows the second month then it is simply called "leap second month".

Hebrew calendar

The Hebrew calendar is also lunisolar with an embolistic month. In the Hebrew calendar the extra month is called Adar Alef (first Adar) and is added before Adar, which then becomes Adar Sheni (second Adar). According to the Metonic cycle, this is done seven times every nineteen years, specifically, in years, 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19. In addition, the Hebrew calendar has postponement rules that postpone the start of the year by one or two days. The year before the postponement gets one or two extra days, and the year whose start is postponed loses one or two days. These postponement rules reduce the number of different combinations of year length and starting day of the week from 28 to 14, and regulate the location of certain religious holidays in relation to the Sabbath.

Hindu Calendar

In the Hindu calendar, which is a lunisolar calendar, the embolismic month is called adhika maas (extra month). It is the month in which the sun is in the same sign of the stellar zodiac on two consecutive dark moons.

Iranian calendar

The Iranian calendar also has a single intercalated day once in every four years, but every 33 years or so the leap years will be five years apart instead of four years apart. The system used is more accurate and more complicated, and is based on the time of the March equinox as observed from Teheran. The 33-year period is not completely regular; every so often the 33-year cycle will be broken by a cycle of 29 or 37 years.

Long term leap year rules

The accumulated difference between the Gregorian calendar and the vernal equinoctial year amounts to 1 day in about 8,000 years. This suggests that the calendar needs to be improved by another refinement to the leap year rule: perhaps by avoiding leap years in years divisible by 8,000. (The most common such proposal is to avoid leap years in years divisible by 4,000 [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22gregorian+calendar%22+error+%22leap+year%22+4000]. This is based on the difference between the Gregorian calendar and the mean tropical year. Others claim, erroneously, that the Gregorian calendar itself already contains a refinement of this kind [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mleapyr.html].) However, there is little point in planning a calendar so far ahead because over a timescale of tens of thousands of years the number of days in a year will change for a number of reasons, most notably: #Precession of the equinoxes moves the position of the vernal equinox with respect to perihelion and so changes the length of the vernal equinoctial year. #Tidal acceleration from the sun and moon slows the rotation of the earth, making the day longer. In particular, the second component of change depends on such things as post-glacial rebound and sea level rise due to climate change. We can't predict these changes accurately enough to be able to make a calendar that will be accurate to a day in tens of thousands of years.

Marriage proposal

There is a tradition, said to go back to Saint Patrick and Saint Bridget in 5th century Ireland, whereby women may only make marriage proposals in leap years.

Saint Patrick and the leap year

:Saint Patrick, having driven the frogs out of the bogs was walking along the shores of Lough Neagh, when he was accosted by Saint Bridget in tears, and was told that a mutiny had broken out in the nunnery over which she presided, the ladies claiming the right of popping the question. :Saint Patrick said he would concede them the right every seventh year, when Saint Bridget threw her arms round his neck, and exclaimed, "Arrah, Pathrick, jewel, I daurn't go back to the girls wid such a proposal. Make it one year in four." Saint Patrick replied, "Bridget, acushla, squeeze me that way again, an' I'll give ye leap-year, the longest of the lot." Saint Bridget, upon this, popped the question to St Patrick himself, who, of course, could not marry: so he patched up the difficulty as best he could with a kiss and a silk gown. (Source: Evans, Ivor H, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988) According to a 1288 law in Scotland, fines were levied if the proposal was refused by the man; compensation ranged from a kiss to a silk gown to soften the blow. Because men felt that put them at too great a risk, the tradition was in some places tightened to restricting female proposals to 29 February.

Birthdays

A person who was born on 29 February may be called a "leapling". In non-leap years they usually celebrate their birthday on 28 February or 1 March. There are many instances in children's literature where a person's claim to be only a quarter of their actual age turns out be based on counting their leap-year birthdays. A similar device is used in the plot of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance. Category:Calendars Category:Units of time als:Schaltjahr ko:윤년 ja:閏年 simple:Leap year th:ปีอธิกสุรทิน

1493

Events

- January 4 - Christopher Columbus leaves the New World.
- March 15 - Christopher Columbus returns to Spain after his first trip to the Americas.
- July 28 - Great fire in Moscow
- November 19 - Christopher Columbus goes ashore on an island he saw for the first time only the day before. He names it San Juan Bautista (later renamed Puerto Rico).

Births

- June 5 - Justus Jonas, German protestant reformer (died 1555)
- September 28 - Agnolo Firenzuola, Italian poet
- October 14 - Shimazu Tadayoshi, Japanese warlord (died 1568)
- November 12 - Bartolommeo Bandinelli, Italian artist and sculptor (died 1560)
- Jean du Bellay, French cardinal and diplomat
- Stephen Gardiner, English bishop and Lord Chancellor
- Simon Grynaeus, German scholar and theologian (died 1541)
- Takeda Nobutora, Japanese warlord (died 1573)
- Paracelsus, Swiss physician and scientist (died 1541)
- François Rabelais, French writer

Deaths

- May 10 - Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll, Scottish politician
- June 14 - Ermolao Barbaro, Italian scholar (born 1454)
- August 19 - Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor (born 1415)
- James Blount, English soldier
- James Douglas, 1st Earl of Morton
- Martin Alonzo Pinzón, Spanish navigator and explorer
- Pietro Antonio Solari, Italian architect (born 1450)
- Tupac Inca Yupanqui, Inca ruler of Tahuantinsuyu Category:1493 als:1493 ko:1493년

1540

Events

- January 6 - King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves, his fourth Queen consort.
- July 9 - King Henry VIII of England divorces Anne of Cleves, his fourth Queen consort.
- July 28 - One of the most important political figures of the reign of Henry VIII of England, Thomas Cromwell, is executed on order from the king on charges of treason. Henry marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day.
- Spain, Foundation of Society of Jesus, Catholicism
- French translation of John Calvin's L'Institution chrétienne (originally in Latin)
- Gelawdewos succeeds his father Lebna Dengel as Emperor of Ethiopia.

Births

- January 24 - Edmund Campion, English Jesuit and Roman Catholic martyr (died 1581)
- January 28 - Ludolph van Ceulen, German mathematician (died 1610)
- June 3 - Archduke Charles II of Austria, regent of Inner Austria (died 1590)
- June 11 - Barnabe Googe, English poet (died 1594)
- July 4 - Gackt
- August 26 - King Magnus of Livonia (died 1583)
- October 1 - Johann Jakob Grynaeus, Swiss protestant clergyman (died 1617)
- November 16 - Cecilia of Sweden (died 1627)
- Jose de Acosta, Jesuit missionary and naturalist (died 1600)
- Andrea Andreani, Italian engraver on wood (died 1623)
- William Byrd, English composer (died 1623)
- Christopher Hatton, English politician (died 1591)
- George Hastings, 4th Earl of Huntingdon, English nobleman (died 1604)
- Pierre Jeannin, French statesman (died 1622)
- Lettice Knollys, lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth I of England (died 1634)
- Bernardino de Mendoza, Spanish military commander (died 1604
- Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton (died 1614)
- Zofia Odrowaz, Polish noblewoman (died 1580)
- Juan de Oñate, Spanish explorer (died 1626)
- Leonhard Rauwolf, German physician and botanist (died 1596)
- Joseph Justus Scaliger, French protestant scholar (died 1609)
- Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, Irish rebel (died 1616)
- François Viète, French mathematician (died 1603)
- Amago Yoshihisa, Japanese samurai and warlord (died 1610)
- Gaspar de Zuniga y Azevedo, Spanish colonial administrator and viceroy of Mexico (died 1606) See also :Category: 1540 births.

Deaths

- March 30 - Matthäus Lang von Wellenburg, German statesman and archbishop of Salzburg (born 1469)
- May 6 - Juan Luís Vives, Spanish scholar
- May 22 - Francesco Guicciardini, Italian statesman and historian (born 1483)
- July 28 - Thomas Cromwell, English statesman (executed)
- July 30 - Thomas Abel, English priest (martyred)
- July 30 - Robert Barnes, English reformer (martyred) (born 1495)
- August 23 - Guillaume Budé, French scholar
- August 24 - Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, Italian artist (b. 1503)
- September 2 - Lebna Dengel, Emperor of Ethiopia (died in battle) (born 1501)
- October 5 - Helius Eobanus Hessus, German Latin poet (born 1488)
- Elizabeth Blount, mistress of Henry VIII of England (born 1502)
- Tristão da Cunha, Portuguese explorer (born 1460)
- Johann Georg Faust, German alchemist (born 1480)
- Federico II of Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua (born 1500)
- Angela Merici, Italian religious leader and saint born in Desenzano del Garda (born 1474)
- Francisco de Ulloa, Spanish explorer See also :Category: 1540 deaths. Category:1540 ko:1540년

Thomas Cromwell

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (c. 1485 – July 28, 1540) was an English statesman, one of the most important political figures of the reign of Henry VIII of England. Cromwell was born about 1485 in Putney, the son of Walter Cromwell (c. 1463 – 1510), a tradesman. After studying law, he entered the service of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and became a Member of Parliament in 1523. Following the crisis over Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon, Cromwell came to prominence at Wolsey's expense. By 1533, he had risen to the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Cromwell was the most prominent of those who suggested to Henry VIII that the king make himself head of the English Church, and saw the Act of Supremacy of 1534 through Parliament. As Henry's Vice-Gerent of Spirituals, he presided over the Dissolution of the Monasteries, which began with his visitation of the monasteries and abbeys, announced in 1535 and begun in the winter of 1536. As a reward, he was created Earl of Essex in 1540. He is also the architect of the Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542, which united England and Wales. Often portrayed as a cynical money-grabbing initiative, Cromwell and his supporters had genuine theological issues with the idea of monastic life, specifically on the nature of intercessory prayers for the dead. While Cromwell was in power, Henry's government was far more open to religious reform than subsequently. Cromwell had supported Henry in disposing of Anne Boleyn and replacing her with Jane Seymour. His downfall was the haste with which he encouraged the king to re-marry following Jane's premature death. The marriage to Anne of Cleves, a political alliance which Cromwell had urged on Henry, was a disaster, and this was the real motive for Cromwell to be charged with treason. Cromwell was subject to a writ of Attainder and was privately executed at the Tower of London on July 28, 1540. It is said that Henry VIII intentionally chose an inexperienced executioner. The young boy had three attempts at chopping Cromwell's head before he succeeded. After execution his head was boiled and then set upon a spike on London Bridge - facing away from the City of London. The inscription on the paper lying on the table in the original portrait describes Cromwell as "Master of the Jewell House," an official position that he occupied for just one year from April 12, 1532, thus neatly dating the portrait (illustration, upper right). The Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658), was descended from his sister Catherine Cromwell.

Reference

- Elton, Geoffrey England under the Tudors, London : Methuen, 1974 ISBN 0416706908.

External links

- [http://www.englishhistory.net/tudor/citizens/cromwell.html A biography of Thomas Cromwell] with details on his policies
- [http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/CROMWELL.htm A genealogical page] listing some details of the Cromwell family back to the 12th century
- An [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jamesdow/s010/f002878.htm ancestor chart] of Walter Cromwell, father of Thomas; not necessarily reliable Cromwell, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England and Lord of Ireland (later King of Ireland) from 22 April 1509 until his death. He was the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty, succeeding his father, Henry VII. He is famous for having been married six times and for wielding the most untrammelled power of any British monarch. Notable events during his reign included the break with Rome and the subsequent establishment of the independent Church of England, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the union of England and Wales. Several significant pieces of legislation were enacted during Henry VIII's reign. They included the several Acts which severed the English Church from the Roman Catholic Church and established Henry as the supreme head of the Church in England, the Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542 (which united England and Wales into one nation), the Buggery Act 1533, the first anti-sodomy enactment in England; and the Witchcraft Act 1542, which punished 'invoking or conjuring an evil spirit' with death. Henry is known to have been an avid gambler and dice player. He excelled at sport, especially royal tennis, during his youth. He was also an accomplished musician, author, and poet; according to legend, he wrote the popular folk song Greensleeves, along with the lesser-known Past Time With Good Company. He was also involved in the construction and improvement of several buildings, including King's College Chapel, Christ Church, Oxford, Hampton Court Palace, Nonsuch Palace and Westminster Abbey.

Early life

Westminster Abbey Born at the Palace of Placentia at Greenwich, Henry was the third child of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Only three of Henry's six siblings, Arthur (the Prince of Wales), Margaret and Mary, survived infancy. His Lancastrian father acquired the throne by right of conquest, his army defeating and killing the last Plantagenet king Richard III, but further solidified his hold by marrying Elizabeth, the daughter of the Yorkist king Edward IV. In 1493, the young Henry was appointed Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. In 1494, he was created Duke of York. He was subsequently appointed Earl Marshal of England and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, though still a child. In 1501 he attended the wedding of his elder brother Arthur and Catherine of Aragon, who were at the time only about fifteen and sixteen years old, respectively. The two were sent to spend time in Wales, as was customary for the heir-apparent and his wife, but Arthur caught an infection and died. Consequently, at the age of eleven, Henry, Duke of York, found himself heir-apparent to the Throne. Soon thereafter, he was created Prince of Wales. Henry VII was still eager to maintain the marital alliance between England and Spain through a marriage between Henry, Prince of Wales, and Catherine. Since the Prince of Wales sought to marry his brother's widow, he first had to obtain a dispensation from the Pope from the impediment of affinity. Catherine maintained that her first marriage was never consummated, if she were correct, no papal dispensation would have been necessary, but merely a dissolution of ratified marriage. Nonetheless, both the English and Spanish parties agreed on the necessity of a papal dispensation for the removal of all doubts regarding the legitimacy of the marriage. Due to the impatience of Catherine's mother, Queen Isabella, the Pope hastily granted his dispensation in a Papal Bull. Thus, fourteen months after her husband's death, Catherine found herself engaged to his brother, the Prince of Wales. By 1505, however, Henry VII lost interest in an alliance with Spain, and the young Prince of Wales was forced to declare that his betrothal had been arranged without his assent.

Early reign

1505 Henry ascended the throne in 1509 upon his father's death. Catherine's father, the Aragonese King Ferdinand II, sought to control England through his daughter, and consequently insisted on her marriage to the new English King. Henry wed Catherine of Aragon about nine weeks after his accession on June 11 1509 at Greenwich, despite the concerns of Pope Julius II and William Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, regarding the marriage's validity. They were both crowned at Westminster Abbey on 24 June 1509. Queen Catherine's first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage in 1510. She gave birth to a son, Henry, on 1 January 1511, but he only lived until February 22. For two years after Henry's accession, Richard Fox, the Bishop of Winchester and Lord Privy Seal, and William Warham controlled matters of state. From 1511 onwards, however, power was held by the ecclesiastic Thomas Wolsey. In 1511, Henry joined the Holy League, a body of European rulers opposed to the French King Louis XII. The League also included such European rulers as Pope Julius II, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and Ferdinand II, with whom Henry also signed the Treaty of Westminster. Henry personally joined the English Army as they crossed the English Channel into France, and took part in sieges and battles. In 1514, however, Ferdinand left the alliance, and the other parties made peace with the French. Irritation towards Spain led to discussion of a divorce with Queen Catherine. However, upon the accession of the French King Francis I in 1515, England and France grew antagonistic, and Henry became reconciled with Ferdinand. In 1516, Queen Catherine gave birth to a girl, Mary, encouraging Henry in the belief that he could still have a male heir despite his wife's previous failed pregnancies (one stillbirth, one miscarriage and two short-lived infants). Ferdinand died in 1516, to be succeeded by his grandson (Queen Catherine's nephew) Charles V. By October 1518, Wolsey had engineered the Papacy-led Treaty of London to resemble an English triumph of foreign diplomacy, placing England at the centre of a new European alliance with the ostensible aim of repelling Moorish invasions through Spain, which was the Pope's original aim. In 1519, when Maximilian also died, Wolsey, who was by that time a Cardinal, secretly proposed Henry as a candidate for the post of Holy Roman Emperor, though supporting the French King Francis in public. In the end, however, the prince-electors settled on Charles. The subsequent rivalry between Francis and Charles allowed Henry to act as a mediator between them. Henry came to hold the balance of power in Europe. Both Francis and Charles sought Henry's favour, the former in a dazzling and spectacular manner at the Field of Cloth of Gold, and the latter more solemnly at Kent. After 1521, however, England's influence in Europe began to wane. Henry entered into an alliance with Charles V, and Francis I was quickly defeated. Charles' reliance on Henry subsided, as did England's power in Europe. Henry's interest in European affairs extended to the attack on Luther's German revolution. In 1521, he dedicated his Defence of the Seven Sacraments, which earned him the title of "Defender of the Faith" (Defensor Fidei. Prior to this, his title had been "inclitissmus", meaning "most illustrious". The later title was maintained even after his break with Rome, and is still used by the British monarch today.

The King's Great Matter

Henry VIII's accession was the first peaceful one England had witnessed in many years; however, the new Tudor dynasty's legitimacy could yet be tested. The English people seemed distrustful of female rulers, and Henry felt that only a male heir could secure the throne. Although Queen Catherine had been pregnant at least seven times (for the last time in 1518), only one child, the Princess Mary, had survived beyond infancy. Henry had previously been happy with mistresses, including Mary Boleyn and Elizabeth Blount, with whom he had had a bastard son, Henry Fitzroy. In 1526, when it became clear that Queen Catherine could have no further children, he began to pursue Mary Boleyn's sister, Anne. Although it was almost certainly Henry's desire for a male heir that made him determined to divorce Catherine, he was very infatuated with Anne, despite her child-bearing inexperience and famously plain looks. Henry's long and arduous attempt to end his marriage to Queen Catherine became known as "The King's Great Matter". Cardinal Wolsey and William Warham quietly began an inquiry into the validity of her marriage to Henry. Queen Catherine, however, testified that her marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales had never been consummated, and that there was therefore no impediment to her subsequent marriage to Henry. The inquiry could proceed no further, and was dropped. Without informing Cardinal Wolsey, Henry directly appealed to the Holy See. He sent his secretary William Knight to Rome to argue that Julius II's Bull was obtained by trickery, and consequently void. In addition, he requested Pope Clement VII to grant a dispensation allowing him to marry any woman, even in the first degree of affinity; such a dispensation was necessary because Henry had previously had intercourse with Anne Boleyn's sister Mary. Knight found that Pope Clement VII was practically the prisoner of the Emperor Charles V. He had difficulty gaining access to the Pope, and when he finally did, he could accomplish little. Clement VII did not agree to annul the marriage, but he did grant the desired dispensation, probably presuming that the dispensation would be of no effect as long as Henry remained married to Catherine. Being advised of the King's predicament, Cardinal Wolsey sent Stephen Gardiner and Edward Fox to Rome. Perhaps fearing Queen Catherine's nephew, Charles V, Pope Clement VII initially demurred. Fox was sent back with a commission authorising the commencement of proceedings, but the restrictions imposed made it practically meaningless. Gardiner strove for a "decretal commission", which decided the points of law beforehand, and left only questions of fact to be decided. Clement VII was persuaded to accept Gardiner's proposal, and permitted Cardinal Wolsey and Lorenzo Cardinal Campeggio to try the case jointly. His decretal commission was issued in secret; it was not to be shown to anybody, and was to always remain in Cardinal Campeggio's possession. Points of law were already settled in the commission; the Papal Bull authorising Henry's marriage to Catherine was to be declared void if the grounds alleged therein were false. For instance, the Bull would be void if it falsely asserted that the marriage was absolutely necessary to maintain the Anglo-Spanish alliance. Cardinal Campeggio arrived in England in 1528. Proceedings, however, were brought to a halt when the Spanish produced a second document allegedly granting the necessary dispensation. It was asserted that, a few months before he had granted papal dispensation in a public Bull, Pope Julius II had secretly granted the same in a private Brief sent to Spain. The decretal commission, however, only made mention of the Bull; it did not authorise Cardinal Campeggio and Cardinal Wolsey to determine the validity of the Brief. For eight months, the parties wrangled over the authenticity of the Brief. Meanwhile, Queen Catherine appealed to her nephew, Charles V, who pressured the Pope into recalling Cardinal Campeggio to Rome in 1529. Angered with Cardinal Wolsey for the delay, Henry stripped him of his wealth and power. He was charged with præmunire — undermining the King's authority by agreeing to represent the Pope — but died on his way to trial. With Cardinal Wolsey fell other powerful ecclesiastics in England; laymen were appointed to offices such as those of Lord Chancellor and Lord Privy Seal, which were formerly confined to clergymen. Power then passed to Sir Thomas More (the new Lord Chancellor), Thomas Cranmer (the Archbishop of Canterbury), and Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (the Chancellor of the Exchequer). On 25 January 1533, Cranmer participated in the wedding of Henry and Anne Boleyn. In May, Cranmer pronounced Henry's marriage to Catherine void, and shortly thereafter declared the marriage to Anne valid. The Princess Mary was deemed illegitimate, and was replaced as heiress-presumptive by Queen Anne's new daughter, the Princess Elizabeth. Catherine lost the title "Queen", and became the Dowager Princess of Wales; Mary was no longer a "Princess", but a mere "Lady". The Dowager Princess of Wales would die of cancer in 1536. Sir Thomas More, who had left office in 1532, accepted that Parliament could make Anne Queen, but refused to acknowledge its religious authority. Instead, he held that the Pope remained the head of the Church. As a result, he was charged with high treason, and beheaded in 1535. Judging him to be a martyr, the Catholic Church later made him a saint.

Religious upheaval

The Pope responded to these events by excommunicating Henry in July 1533. Considerable religious upheaval followed. Urged by Thomas Cromwell, Parliament passed several Acts that sealed the breach with Rome in the spring of 1534. The Statute in Restraint of Appeals prohibited appeals from English ecclesiastical courts to the Pope. It also prevented the Church from making any regulations without the King's consent. The Ecclesiastical Appointments Act 1534 required the clergy to elect Bishops nominated by the Sovereign. The Act of Supremacy 1534 declared that the King was "the only Supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England"; the Treasons Act 1534 made it high treason, punishable by death, to refuse to acknowledge the King as such. The Pope was denied sources of revenue such as Peter's Pence. Rejecting the decisions of the Pope, Parliament validated the marriage between Henry and Anne with the Act of Succession 1534. Catherine's daughter, the Lady Mary, was declared illegitimate, and Anne's issue were declared next in the line of succession. All adults were required to acknowledge the Act's provisions; those who refused to do so were liable to imprisonment for life. The publisher or printer of any literature alleging that Henry's marriage to Anne was invalid was automatically guilty of high treason, and could be punished by death. Opposition to Henry's religious policies was quickly suppressed. Several dissenting monks were tortured and executed. Cromwell, for whom was created the post of "Vicegerent in Spirituals", was authorised to visit monasteries, ostensibly to ensure that they followed royal instructions, but in reality to assess their wealth. In 1536, an Act of Parliament allowed Henry to seize the possessions of the lesser monasteries (those with annual incomes of £200 or less). In 1536, Queen Anne began to lose Henry's favour. After the Princess Elizabeth's birth, Queen Anne had two pregnancies that ended in either miscarriage or stillbirth. Henry VIII, meanwhile, had begun to turn his attentions to another lady of his court, Jane Seymour. Perhaps encouraged by Thomas Cromwell, Henry had Anne arrested on charges of using witchcraft to trap Henry into marrying her, of having adulterous relationships with five other men, of incest with her brother George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, of injuring the King and of conspiring to kill him, which amounted to treason; the charges were most likely fabricated. The court trying the case was presided over by Anne's own uncle, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. In May 1536, the Court condemned Anne and her brother to death, either by burning at the stake or by decapitation, whichever the King pleased. The other four men Queen Anne had allegedly been involved with were to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Lord Rochford was beheaded soon after the trial ended; the four others implicated had their sentences commuted from hanging, drawing and quartering to decapitation. Anne was also beheaded soon thereafter.

Birth of a Prince

Only days after Anne's execution in 1536, Henry married Jane Seymour. The Act of Succession 1536 declared Henry's children by Queen Jane to be next in the line of succession, and declared both the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth illegitimate, thus excluding them. The King was granted the power to further determine the line of succession in his will. Jane gave birth to a son, the Prince Edward, in 1537, and died two weeks thereafter. After Jane's death, the entire court mourned with Henry for some time. Henry also considered her to be his only "true" wife, being the only one who had given him the male heir he so desperately sought.

Major Acts

At about the same time as his marriage to Jane Seymour, Henry granted his assent to the Laws in Wales Act 1535, which legally annexed Wales, uniting England and Wales into one nation. The Act provided for the sole use of English in official proceedings in Wales, inconveniencing the numerous speakers of the Welsh language. Henry continued with his persecution of his religious opponents. In 1536, an uprising known as the Pilgrimage of Grace broke out in Northern England. To appease the rebellious Roman Catholics, Henry agreed to allow Parliament to address their concerns. Furthermore, he agreed to grant a general pardon to all those involved. He kept neither promise, and a second uprising occurred in 1537. As a result, the leaders of the rebellion were convicted of treason and executed. In 1538, Henry sanctioned the destruction of shrines to Roman Catholic Saints. In 1539, England's remaining monasteries were all dissolved, and their property transferred to the Crown. As a reward for his role, Thomas Cromwell was created Earl of Essex. Abbots and priors lost their seats in the House of Lords; only archbishops and bishops came to comprise the ecclesiastical element of the body. The Lords Spiritual, as members of the clergy with seats in the House of Lords were known, were for the first time outnumbered by the Lords Temporal.

Later years

Lords Temporal Henry's only surviving son, the Prince Edward, Duke of Cornwall, was not a healthy child. Therefore, Henry desired to marry once again to ensure that a male could succeed him. Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex suggested Anne, the sister of the Protestant Duke of Cleves, who was seen as an important ally in case of a Roman Catholic attack on England. Hans Holbein the Younger was dispatched to Cleves to paint a portrait of Anne for the King. After regarding Holbein's flattering portrayal, and urged by the complimentary description of Anne given by his courtiers, Henry agreed to wed Anne. On Anne's arrival in England, Henry is said to have found her utterly unattractive, privately calling her a "Flanders Mare". She was painted totally without any signs of her pockmarked face. Nevertheless, he married her on 6 January 1540. Soon thereafter, however, Henry desired to end the marriage, not only because of his personal feelings but also because of political considerations. The Duke of Cleves had become engaged in a dispute with the Holy Roman Emperor, with whom Henry had no desire to quarrel. Queen Anne was intelligent enough not to impede Henry's quest for an annulment. She testified that her marriage was never consummated. Henry was said to have came into the room each night and merely kissed his new bride on the forehead before sleeping. The marriage was subsequently annulled on the grounds that Anne had previously been contracted to marry another European nobleman. She received the title of "The King's Sister", and was granted Hever Castle, the former residence of Anne Boleyn's family. The Earl of Essex, meanwhile, fell out of favour for his role in arranging the marriage, and was subsequently attainted and beheaded. The office of Vicegerent in Spirituals, which had been specifically created for him, was not filled, and still remains vacant. On 28 July 1540 (the same day Lord Essex was executed) Henry married the young Catherine Howard, Anne Boleyn's first cousin. Soon after her marriage, however, Queen Catherine may have had an affair with the courtier, Thomas Culpeper. She also employed Francis Dereham, who was previously informally engaged to her and had an affair with her prior to her marriage, as her secretary. Thomas Cranmer, who was opposed to the powerful Catholic Howard family, brought evidence of Queen Catherine's activities to the King's notice. Though Henry originally refused to believe the allegations, he allowed Cranmer to conduct an investigation, which resulted in Queen Catherine's implication. When questioned, the Queen could have admitted a prior contract to marry Dereham, which would have made her subsequent marriage to Henry invalid, but she instead claimed that Dereham had forced her to enter into an adulterous relationship. Dereham, meanwhile, exposed Queen Catherine's relationship with Thomas Culpeper. In December 1541, Culpeper and Dereham were executed. Catherine was condemned not by a trial, but by an Act of Attainder passed by Parliament. The Act recited the evidence against the Queen, and Henry would have been obliged to listen to the entire text before granting the Royal Assent. Because "the repetition of so grievous a Story and the recital of so infamous a crime" in the King's presence "might reopen a Wound already closing in the Royal Bosom", a special clause permitting Commissioners to grant the Royal Assent on the King's behalf was inserted in the Act. This method of granting the Royal Assent had never been used before, but, in later reigns, it came to replace the traditional personal appearance of the Sovereign in Parliament. Catherine's marriage was annulled shortly before her execution. As was the case with Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard could not have technically been guilty of adultery, as the marriage was officially null and void from the beginning. Again, this point was ignored, and Catherine was executed on 13 February 1542. She was only about eighteen years old at the time. Henry married his last wife, the wealthy widow Catherine Parr, in 1543. She argued with Henry over religion; she was a Protestant, but Henry remained a Catholic. This behaviour almost led to her undoing, but she saved herself by a show of submissiveness. She helped reconcile Henry with his first two daughters, the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth. In 1544, an Act of Parliament put them back in the line of succession after the Prince Edward, Duke of Cornwall, though they were still deemed illegitimate. The same Act allowed Henry to determine further succession to the throne in his will. A mnemonic for the fates of Henry's wives is "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived". An alternative version is "King Henry the Eighth, to six wives he was wedded: One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded". The doggerel, however, may be misleading. Firstly, Henry was never divorced from any of his wives; rather, his marriages to them were annulled. Secondly, four marriages — not two — ended in annulments. The marriages to Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were annulled shortly before their executions. Ironically the annulments undermined the process under which Boleyn and Howard were executed: annulments operate on the basis that there had never been a marriage. If they had never been married to him, they could not have committed adultery, one of the central charges brought against them. However this technicality did not stop their execution.

Death and succession

doggerel Later in life, Henry was grossly overweight, with a waist measurement of 54 inches (137 cm), and possibly suffered from gout. The well known theory that he suffered from syphilis was first promoted approximately 100 years after his death. Henry's increased size dates from a jousting accident in 1536. He suffered a thigh wound which not only prevented him from taking exercise, but also gradually became ulcerated and may have indirectly led to his death, which occurred on 28 January 1547 at the Palace of Whitehall. He died on what would have been his father's 90th birthday. Henry VIII was buried in St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, next to his wife Jane Seymour. Within a little more than a decade after his death, all three of his children sat on the English throne. Under the Act of Succession 1544, Henry's only surviving son, Edward, inherited the Crown, becoming Edward VI. Edward was the first Protestant monarch to rule England. Since Edward was only nine years old at the time, he could not exercise actual power. Henry's will designated sixteen executors to serve on a council of regency until Edward reached the age of eighteen. The executors chose Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, Jane Seymour's elder brother, to be Lord Protector of the Realm. They required, however, that Lord Hertford "not do any act but with the advice and consent of the rest of the co-executors". Nonetheless, Lord Hertford seized power to become the sole Regent. He was overthrown by