BRITAIN: This week in history 3-9 March

Henry VIII. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014
Henry VIII. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

This week has been an eventful one throughout history, with a country ruled by two kings, and Henry VIII being denied divorce from his first wife.

Each week BRITAIN magazine will bring you a round-up of the significant historical dates in the week ahead; so if you think you’re having a bad Monday, just spare a thought for some of these people.

King Henry VIII. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

3 March

In 1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles Edward Stuart) occupied the Castle of Inverness as part of his Jacobite uprising.

4 March

In the sixth year of the bloody War of the Roses, on this day in 1461 the 16th Earl of Warwick declared Edward of York as King Edward IV, meaning there were now two kings of England. This led to one of the war’s bloodiest fights at the Battle of Towton a few weeks later in which the newly named king cemented his claim to the throne after Henry VI fled the country.

In 1890 the longest bridge in Britain, the Forth Bridge in Scotland, was officially opened by the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII.

In 1945 the then Princess Elizabeth, (later Queen Elizabeth II), joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service as a driver and mechanic to help in the war effort.

5 March

In 1946, shortly after failing to be reelected, Winston Churchill delivered his famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech in front of an audience of 40,000 in the small Missouri town of Fulton.

6 March

Charles Darwin reaches King George’s Sound, Australia, on board HMS Beagle, where he did further work on his theory of evolution and natural selection.

In 1881 Horatia Nelson, the illegitimate daughter of Lord Horatio Nelson and his lover Emma Hamilton, dies.

7 March
In 1530 King Henry VIII’s divorce request is denied by Pope Clement VII, setting the wheels in motion for Henry to set himself up as the head of the Church of England so he could divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.

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