This Month in History
January

History doesn't take a break just because it's cold and dark outside. Early English kings may have avoided battles in the winter months, but politics and intrigues continue just as nicely indoors.

In fact, over the centuries, January has seen it all. Royal weddings - such as the one between King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, and the one between King Henry VII and Anne Boleyn.

It's seen the coronation of England's last Anglo-Saxon king and the coronation of one of England's greatest monarchs, Queen Elizabeth I.

It's seen the death of a king, the burial of one of Britain's greatest naval heroes and the destruction of a major Royal palace.

January is also the month that has seen the only English king ever to die on the scaffold, when King Charles I went to his death on the order of Cromwell's parliament.

I've always been sympathetic to Charles' plight, but as I've grown older, the loss of Whitehall Palace seems to me the worst event that happened in this month of January. Just imagine the artworks that we might now be able to look at had it survived.

This is how John Evelyn described the devastating fire that tore through the royal palace of Whitehall on this day in 1698. Apparently a laundress left some clothes drying before a fire and when they caught alight, the whole palace went up in flames. Only the Banqueting Hall survived. Would we have a better idea what some of England's earlier kings looked like had Whitehall palace survived? Most likely.

5 January 1066
Edward the Confessor dies

He had spent 15 years and vast resources building Westminster Abbey. He survived just long enough to see it finished. His funeral service was almost the first service to be held in the new abbey church. And his remains lie there to this day. The passing bell that tolled for Edward the Confessor heralded a change in the fortunes of Anglo-Saxon England. Years previously - it is said - the king promised the crown of England to his kinsman William, Duke of Normandy. And William was not a man to let so great a prize slip through his fingers.

6 January 1066
King Harold II is crowned

This was a busy day for Westminster Abbey. First, it saw the funeral of King Edward the Confessor. Then, only a few hours later, Anglo-Saxon priests and nobles filed into the abbey to see Ealdred, Archbishop of York, crown Harold Godwineson as King Harold II of England. Years before Harold had sworn an oath to uphold William's claim to England's crown. But William was a long way away in Normandy while Harold was in Westminster. Being in the right place at the right time must have seemed a good omen to him. And while Harold was undoubtedly a capable, courageous man, his coronation was the beginning of the end for Anglo-Saxon England.

9 January 1806
Admiral Nelson's funeral

After his death at the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson's body arrived back in England aboard his old flagship, HMS Victory. He lay in state for three days in the Painted Hall of the seamen's hospital in Greenwich, before being rowed up the Thames by his own crew. From here, Nelson's body was transferred onto a funeral car shaped like a warship, for the final journey to St Paul's Cathedral. The streets were crowded with people wanting to pay their last respects to England's greatest naval hero, and hundreds were inside the cathedral to hear the service. Nelson was entombed in the crypt of St Paul's.

15 January 1559
Coronation of Queen Elizabeth I

After the death of her sister, who was named Bloody Mary for a reason, the people of England had high hopes when Elizabeth came to the throne. She consulted her astrologist, Dr Dee, about the most auspicious day for the coronation and he suggested Sunday, January 15th. The Londoners put on a right royal spectacle to welcome their new queen. Blue carpet had been laid from Elizabeth's palace at Westminster all the way to the abbey. Elizabeth's robes were truly sumptuous and the coronation banquet at Westminster Hall lasted until after midnight.

18 January 1486
King Henry VII marries Elizabeth of York

This wedding was the final chapter in the long and bloody Wars of the Roses. The Lancastrian Henry Tudor, who had defeated England's last Plantagenet king, Richard III, at the Battle of Bosworth married the Lady Elizabeth of York, daughter of the Yorkist King Edward IV, thereby bringing the two warring factions together. To celebrate the union, a new badge was created that we know today as the Tudor Rose. It combines the White Rose of York with the Red Rose of Lancaster in a sign of unity.

25 January 1533
Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn had captivated a king's heart. But she was not ready to just become his lover. She held out for marriage and the king - desperate to bed her and desperate for a legitimate male heir - finally agreed. Henry's attempts to secure a divorce from his first wife changed England as comprehensively as nothing else had done since the Conquest. And on this day, Henry and Anne were wed in secret in the Palace of Whitehall. Anne was already pregnant.

30 January 1649
King Charles I is executed

This was the first time in English history that a reigning monarch was formally executed. In years gone by, kings had died from sickness or accident, had died in battle or had been murdered. But never before had a King of England stepped onto a scaffold to have his head struck from his body. Eyewitnesses tell us that Charles I died with great courage. And if you've ever read Alexandre Dumas' Twenty Years After - as I did numerous times while growing up - you'll have been assured of that.