Who Didn’t Make the Cut for Tudor Executions?
Other Executed Nobles of the Tudor Period
Writing my second book Tudor Executions: From Nobility to the Block I couldn’t write about every single noble executed under the Tudors just for space reasons. I had to narrow it down, so I wanted to make sure I covered the full span of the period from Henry VII to Elizabeth I. I also wanted to ensure that I covered a mix of men and women, and some who certainly seemed guilty as well as some whose guilt was less assured. I wanted to cover different actions as well that supposedly led to a treason charge.
For those who haven’t yet read the book, the people I cover are:
Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick (1499)
Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham (1521)
Queen Anne Boleyn and George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford (1536)
Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury (1541)
Queen Katherine Howard and Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford (1542)
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1547)
Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley (1549)
Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset (1552)
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland (1553) and Queen Jane Grey (1554)
Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (1572)
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (1601)
Mary Queen of Scots is someone I get asked about – why is she not included? The answer is simple – she is not a Tudor noble. She is a Stuart queen. But who else could I have included?
Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk (1513)
Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy de Darcy (1537)
Henry Courtenay, 1st Marquess of Exeter (1538)
Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk (1554)
Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland (1572)
Several of these did come close to making the cut, but others were kind of included as part of the story of someone else I was already covering. Let’s see them in a bit more detail below.
Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk
Edmund de la Pole was, through his mother, Elizabeth, the nephew of Edward IV and Richard III. This made him a threat to the Tudor dynasty. Edmund de la Pole is the one who came closest to being included, I have to admit. It’s also important to say that the de la Pole and Pole families are not to be confused; despite both having royal blood, they are separate lines from different York siblings.
Edmund’s elder brother, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was heir to Richard III after his young son died. John de la Pole initially swore an oath of loyalty to Henry VII rather than trying to seize the throne himself. However, he soon seems to have become dissatisfied with Henry VII’s rule and in 1487 he joined the Lambert Simnel rebellion and was killed at the Battle of Stoke that same year.
Edmund de la Pole inherited his elder brother’s claim to the throne, but he seems to have remained in royal favour, receiving the dukedom of Suffolk in 1492. In 1501, he left England for the continent and became known as the ‘White Rose’, the last of the old York royal blood.
When Philip of Burgundy and Juana Queen of Castile were blown off course during a storm, they became guests of Henry VII and struck a deal that Philip would hand over Edmund de la Pole who was currently in his custody. Edmund was sent to the Tower of London on his arrival back in England in 1506 where he remained for the next 7 years. He remained there until Henry VIII carried out the death sentence that had been imposed when he was attainted. Edmund de la Pole was executed on Tower Hill on 13 April 1513.
Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy de Darcy
Thomas Darcy seems to have had a full career under Henry VII and into the reign of Henry VIII. He was knighted, became Captain of Berwick, and Warden of the East Marches before becoming a Knight of the Garter, and being created Baron Darcy de Darcy.
However, Darcy’s fortunes turned when Henry VIII took up his annulment case which led to the English Reformation. Darcy believed that annulment cases were ecclesiastical rather than temporal, setting him on a collision course with the king.
Darcy was based largely in the north of England where religious reform had less of a foothold. These areas remained largely Catholic and were against the dissolution of the monasteries. This discontent came to a head in the latter half of 1536 when the largest rebellion of Henry VIII’s reign erupted across the north – the Pilgrimage of Grace. At the time, Darcy had command of Pontefract Castle which seemed to hold out against the rebels for a while, but Darcy did eventually yield it to the rebels, citing a lack of provisions, and he was sworn into the rebel cause.
The rebellion was put down and Darcy was summoned to London in January 1537 to answer for his actions. He was initially pardoned before being arrested and sent to the Tower of London. Darcy was tried at Westminster in May 1537, found guilty of treason, and sentenced to death. He was beheaded on Tower Hill on 30 June 1537 and his head was spiked on London Bridge.
Henry Courtenay, 1st Marquess of Exeter
Henry Courtenay is one of the ones who is mentioned in Tudor Executions as his story runs alongside another in a way – that of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury. He was a grandson of Edward IV through his mother, Catherine of York, so he had a claim to the English throne which placed him in peril. His father had been accused of corresponding with Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk, and was attainted, so Henry Courtenay had personal experience of being close to treason.
Henry Courtenay does seem to have had the favour of Henry VIII, particularly early in his reign. Courtenay’s wife, Gertrude Blount, remained a Catholic after the Reformation, with connections to Katherine of Aragon and Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent, as well as the Pole family who also had royal blood and were related to Courtenay.
Courtenay was supposedly the leader of what today is known as the Exeter Conspiracy which intended to overthrow Henry VIII and replace him with Courtenay. I go into this in more depth in Tudor Executions in the chapter on Margaret Pole, but just how far there really was a conspiracy is still debated. Another strand of the supposed conspiracy was to undo the Reformation and restore Roman Catholicism in England.
In November 1538, Henry Courtenay, his wife Gertrude Blount, and their son Edward Courtenay were arrested and sent to the Tower of London. The following month, Henry Courtenay was tried and found guilty of treason though there was little evidence of a conspiracy. He was beheaded on Tower Hill on 9 December 1538 with Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu, son of Margaret Pole.
Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk
Henry Grey was the father of Lady Jane Grey, the 13-days queens, more often known as the 9-days queen. His is another story that is discussed alongside another in Tudor Executions – that of his daughter, Jane. Henry Grey is said to be directly responsible for his daughter’s execution.
Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen in July 1553 on the death of Edward VI. His Devise for the Succession named Jane as his heir over his half-sister, Mary. But Mary declared herself queen and began to gather an army. In the end, the council abandoned Jane and proclaimed Mary queen. Jane Grey and her father, Henry Grey, were imprisoned in the Tower but Henry was soon released.
However, when Mary I decided to marry Philip II of Spain a rebellion was planned by Thomas Wyatt the Younger who raised men in Kent to march on London. Henry Grey was to raise men in the Midlands but failed. The rebellion was put down, though Wyatt and his men did make it to the gates of London. Henry Grey was again imprisoned in the Tower of London along with the other conspirators. He wouldn’t escape again and would condemn his daughter.
The rebellion took place in January 1554 and Jane Grey and her husband, Guildford Dudley, were executed the following month. Henry Grey only survived his daughter by less than a fortnight and was executed on 23 February 1554 on Tower Hill.
Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland
Thomas Percy was one of the leaders of the Northern Rising, which I discussed in my first book Elizabethan Rebellions. Thomas was the nephew of Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, who Anne Boleyn was said to be romantically involved with.
Thomas Percy’s father, another Thomas Percy, was executed in 1537 for involvement in the Pilgrimage of Grace. He regained his ancestral title and lands under Mary I. He was a known Catholic, which explains why Mary I restored him, but when Elizabeth I came to the throne, Catholics seemed to be coming under increased persecution. Mary Queen of Scots arrived in England in 1568 and the following year the Northern Rising took place.
Thomas Percy along with Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland, led the rising which intended to rescue Mary Queen of Scots from her imprisonment, overthrow Elizabeth I, and replace her with Mary. There were rumours that the Pope was going to excommunicate Elizabeth and thus absolve her subjects of loyalty to her. The rising was successfully quashed and both Thomas Percy and Charles Neville fled to Scotland.
Charles Neville eventually made it to Flandres, but Thomas Percy was captured in Scotland and eventually sold back to the English. He was taken to York and beheaded there on 22 August 1572, refusing to renounce Catholicism. He was beatified by the Pope in 1895.
You can buy Tudor Executions and Elizabethan Rebellions here: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Helene-Harrison/a/4659.
Further Reading:
‘The Last White Rose: The Secret Wars of the Tudors’ by Desmond Seward
‘The Pilgrimage of Grace: The Rebellion That Shook Henry VIII’s Throne’ by Geoffrey Moorhouse
‘The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s’ by R.W. Hoyle
‘Henry VIII: King and Court’ by Alison Weir
‘Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey’ by Nicola Tallis
‘Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery’ by Eric Ives
‘Elizabeth I’ by Anne Somerset
‘Tudor Rebellions’ by Diarmaid MacCulloch
What a pun! :D