May 30th- June 5th
“A positive week in history for royalty: two births, two coronations, a wedding, and to top it all off, this week in 2022, marks the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II; our longest reigning monarch.”
On 30th May…
Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour
1536 - Henry VIII married his third wife, Jane Seymour, just eleven days after beheading his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Jane Seymour died shortly after giving birth to his only son, Edward.
1593 - Christopher Marlowe, a playwright and friend of William Shakespeare was stabbed to death in a bar fight. Some of Christopher Marlowe’s famous plays include Dr Faustus and Tamburlaine the Great.
On 31st May…
Samuel Pepys stops writing
1669 - Samuel Pepys wrote the last entry into his diary because of his failing eyesight. His diary recorded events from his time such as the Great Fire of London.
1859 - The Great Clock in the Queen Elizabeth Tower next to the Houses of Parliament started ticking for the first time. Big Ben is the name for the bell in the tower that chimes every 15 minutes and bongs every hour.
On 1st June…
193CE - The Roman Emperor Didius Julianus was assassinated. He was only emperor for a short while having won his title by being the highest bidder in an auction for the support of the Praetorian Guard. This only goes to show that buying your way to power does not guarantee that people will like you.
Anne Boleyn crowned queen
1533 - Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, was crowned Queen of England. Her reign did not even last three years because she was executed in May 1536.
On 2nd June…
Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
1953 - Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at Westminster Abbey. It was the first British coronation to be televised. This year she will have reigned for 70 years which is celebrated with her Platinum Jubilee. Although the queen’s coronation was in 1953, she had been reigning since her father, King George VI, died in February 1952; by the time of her coronation Elizabeth had been queen for 16 months.
On 3rd June…
King George V born
1865 - King George V was born in London. In response to the anti-German feelings of the British population during World War I, he changed the royal surname from the German sounding Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the English sounding Windsor.
On 4th June…
King George III born
1738 - King George III was born in London. Despite being one of the most cultured of all British monarchs (he gathered a huge collection of books, 65,000 of which were later given to the British Museum), he is remembered most for going mad in the later years of his reign.
On 5th June…
1646 - Elena Cornaro Piscopia was born. Elena, an Italian mathematician, was the first woman ever to receive an academic degree from a university.