The Tudor Period is remembered today for being a time of much brutality and execution, as
kings such as Henry VIII and his first daughter Bloody Mary I put many people to death across
England.
Henry VIII would slaughtered over 70,000 people throughout his four decades on the throne,
and many including his wives and close friends were not exempt from the executioner’s axe.
But the Tudor Period began following the Battle of Bosworth Field and the defeat of Richard
III.
The notorious Yorkist king was slaughtered and following this the reign of the Tudor
Kings and Queens began, as Henry VII was crowned a short distance from the battlefield.
Henry VII would begin to quickly execute a number of officials to bring a bloody end
to Richard III’s regime, and he ordered a number of executions a short distance from
the battlefield of Bosworth, the scene of his greatest victory.
But one of the first executions of the Tudor Period, if not the first execution of it would
be that of William Catesby’s.
But what is the story of this?
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William Catesby was born in 1450, and he was one of the most senior councillors and friends
of King Richard III.
He would throughout his life serve Richard III in a number of powerful positions including
the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Speaker of the House of Commons.
He was the son of a well of landowner, and in his younger life he was an aspiring lawyer
who worked for William, the 1st Lord Hastings.
Hastings would be the most powerful and richest man living in Richard III’s England, but
was executed inside the Tower of London after a meeting with the King which went wrong,
and Richard III showed his brutal side, screaming and berating Hastings before he was dragged
out and beheaded on the Tower’s cobbled floors.
Catesby was married to Margaret, the Daughter of William La Louche, and the couple had three
sons.
Following the death of his father, he inherited a huge number of manors in the midlands and
was very wealthy.
He performed an important role in government before Richard III’s reign, as he was part
of a ruling council that governed during the brief uncoronated reign of the young Edward
V.
But Richard III would spectacularly dethrone his young nephew, as he declared that Edward
V and his younger brother Richard were illegitimate and were the product of an affair that Edward
IV had, and parliament passed an act of legislation banning the young boy from the throne, and
after this Richard III usurped onto the throne.
But after this, Catesby became a trusted and close advisor and Richard was a King who could
very quickly turn against his closest friends, and to be on his good side was positive, but
it was still every dangerous.
As the King’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was in charge of the country’s economy
and the royal treasury, and he then served as the Speaker of the House of Commons in
1484, and he also sat in Parliament as a knight for Northamptonshire.
He was given a huge amount of reward and land from Richard III, and he was given so much
that he was one of the richest knights in England.
In July 1484, he was mentioned alongside three key aides to the King, and it was said, ‘The
Cat, The Rat and Lovell our Dog rule all England under a hog.’
It’s believed that William Catesby was one of two councillors who told the King that
if he married Elizabeth of York there would be huge issues in the North and rebellions
would arise.
However the rebellion would come in the form of the Tudor rebellion led by Henry Tudor
and the future Henry VII.
This would culminate in a huge and final battle of the Wars of the Roses, known as The Battle
of Bosworth field.
In Leicestershire, the House of York led by Richard III would meet the House of Lancaster
in a brutal and deadly battle on the 22nd August 1485.
It would be Henry Tudor who was victorious, as Richard III was unhorsed fighting in a
marsh, and then surrounded by enemy soldiers he was brutally cut down.
With the death of Richard, Henry Tudor became King and the Tudor Period began, and following
this he sought to deal with there remaining parts of the rule of Richard III.
He had to impose himself on the throne well, and deal with any form of dissent quickly
and brutally.
The way he did this was through executions, and despite fighting at the Battle of Bosworth,
William Catesby was captured fighting alongside Richard.
As Catesby was a powerful and influential figure linked to Richard III, Henry VII the
now King ordered his execution to take place.
Catesby was taken into Leicester the nearby city where Richard III’s body was displayed
for the public, and in front of a crowd he met an exeutioner who was armed with an axe.
A chronicler sarcastically claimed that Catesby was executed ‘as a final reward for his
excellent service,’ and he was one of the only men of such power and importance to be
killed in the aftermath of the battle.
He was certainly the most high profile captured soldier to fight alongside Richard III, and
he was believed to have been a key part of the dishonourable accession to Richard III
to the throne.
However Catesby as mentioned was executed in front of a crowd in Leicester, and following
his execution his body was taken back to the Church of Ashby St Ledger’s for burial.
His execution would be the first of the Tudor Period, and certainly the fight high profile
execution of a time period that led to Queen’s being beheaded.
After his death, his land and estates were confiscated by Henry VII and interestingly,
Catesby’s relative would be Robert Catesby the leader of the Gunpowder Plot, who would
plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament on November 5th.
But a short distance from the battlefield where his master and close friend Richard
III was killed in battle, William Catesby lost his head also.
Throughout the Tudor Period, prominent figures such as Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Thomas
Cromwell, Thomas Cranmer, Sir Thomas More, and Lady Jane Grey were brutally executed.
But William Catesby’s execution was the first in a long line of Tudor executions.
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