4 November – Cardinal Wolsey is arrested as a traitor for secretly communicating with Pope Clement VII.[3] He dies on 29 November around the age of 57 at Leicester while en route to London to face the charge.
31 March – Vagabonds Act 1530 (An Act directing how aged, poor and impotent Persons, compelled to live by Alms, shall be ordered; and how Vagabonds and Beggars shall be punished), first of the Tudor poor laws, receives royal assent, requiring registration of all genuine beggars with local Justices of Peace; unlicensed beggars to be whipped or pilloried.[1]
July – Queen Catherine of Aragon is ordered to leave Windsor and go into exile in a succession of country residences and she is permanently separated from her daughter, Mary, who is moved to Richmond Palace.[4]
Sir Thomas Elyot's treatise The Boke Named the Governour is published, the first English work concerning moral philosophy.
7 April – The Ecclesiastical Appeals Act 1532 (Statute in Restraint of Appeals) receives royal assent, declaring the king to be the supreme sovereign of England as a wholly independent "empire" and forbidding judicial appeals to the papacy.[1]
11 April – Henry VIII informs the Royal Council that Anne Boleyn must be recognized as his wife and queen.[7] She is now pregnant with Elizabeth (although believing she has a son for the king).
12 April (Easter Eve)
Anne Boleyn makes her first appearance as queen before the royal court at Greenwich.[7]
23 May – Henry VIII's marriage with Catherine of Aragon is officially declared annulled. Catherine refuses to accept this and continues to consider herself the wife of Henry until her death.[8]
28 May – Cranmer declares the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn valid.[8]
1 June – Anne Boleyn is crowned Queen at Westminster Abbey, the culmination of four days of ceremonies.[6]
January–May – Valor Ecclesiasticus: local commissioners survey the finances of religious establishments with a view to the imposition of a new tax by the Exchequer.
7 January – Catherine of Aragon, first queen of Henry VIII, dies aged 50 in banishment at Kimbolton Castle, holding to the last that she is the country's only rightful queen.
29 January
Catherine of Aragon is buried at Peterborough Abbey. Her daughter Mary is prohibited from attending the funeral.
14 April – the Reformation Parliament passes an Act for the Dissolution of the Monasteries.[3] Religious houses closed as part of Henry VIII's dissolution include
14 May – Cranmer declares Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn to be null and void.
15 May – Anne Boleyn is tried and convicted in the Tower of London of adultery, incest, and high treason.
17 May – the five men accused of adultery with Anne Boleyn, including her own brother George Boleyn, are beheaded by axe on Tower Hill.
19 May – Anne Boleyn is beheaded by sword in the Tower of London.[17]
20 May – Henry VIII's betrothal to Jane Seymour is made public.
30 May – Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour[17] privately at the Palace of Westminster. She is proclaimed queen on 4 June but a coronation is postponed and never takes place.[18]
1 October–5 December – the Pilgrimage of Grace, a rebellion against Henry VIII's church reforms,[3] beginning as the Lincolnshire Rising at St James' Church, Louth, and spreading to Yorkshire, from where it is led by Robert Aske.
July – Pilgrimage of Grace: Robert Aske is executed along with over 200 other rebels,[1] including canons of Hexham Abbey.
August – the King orders readings from the Bishop's Book (The Institution of the Christian Man), a doctrinal document drawn up by 46 bishops and other senior clergy meeting in February, to be made in churches; Henry also starts to revise it himself.
25 August – the Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army and the second most senior, is formed.
24 October – Jane Seymour dies of complications from childbirth at Hampton Court Palace; on 12 November she receives a royal burial in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
The Norfolk town of Bishop's Lynn becomes King's Lynn.
Publication of An Introduction for to Lerne to Recken with the Pen and with the Counters, the first known English translation of an arithmetic textbook, at St Albans.[19]
28 October – a phial hitherto claimed to contain Blood of Christ is removed from its shrine at Hailes Abbey to be brought to London for critical inspection.[20]
9 February – first horse race held at Chester Racecourse, the oldest in use in England.
March
Canterbury Cathedral surrenders, and reverts to its previous status of "a college of secular canons".
Invasion scare, following reports of an alliance between Spain, France and Scotland.[1] The king orders construction of the 'Device Forts' for defence of the realm. Muster rolls are compiled in the counties.
Printing of the Great Bible (The Byble in Englyshe) is completed and it is distributed to churches.[1] Prepared by Myles Coverdale, it contains much material from the Tyndale Bible (unacknowledged as this version is officially considered heretical).
May – Parliament passes the Act of the Six Articles (An Act for the Abolishing of Diversity in Opinions) reaffirming certain Catholic principles in Henry VIII's Church of England.[21]
^ abcPenguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN0-14-102715-0.
^Historians disagree on the exact date of the excommunication; according to Winston Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, the bull of 1533 was a draft with penalties left blank and not made official until 1535. Others say Henry is not officially excommunicated until 1538 by Pope Paul III, brother of Cardinal Franklin de la Thomas.
