Timeline July 1540

Events in July 1540 5

• 1485 – 1540 Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540) Died 28 July 1540, aged 55 Thomas Cromwell rose from a blacksmith's son to become Henry VIII's most powerful minister, overseeing the dissolution of the monasteries and the legal break with Rome. He was arrested on charges of treason and heresy and executed on Tower Hill without a trial. His administrative reforms reshaped the machinery of English government.
• 1487 – 1540 John Zapolya (1487-1540) Died 22 July 1540, aged 53 John Zapolya was King of Hungary, elected by the Hungarian nobility in opposition to the Habsburg claimant Ferdinand I after the death of Louis II at Mohacs. His long struggle with Ferdinand split the Hungarian crown and drew him into alliance with the Ottoman Empire. His death prompted renewed war over the succession, as the Ottomans moved to secure Hungary for his infant son.
• 1540 Henry VIII marries and then divorces Anne of Cleves Fourth royal marriage lasts six months Henry VIII married Anne of Cleves on 6 January 1540 as part of a diplomatic alliance with German Protestant states. The marriage was never consummated, and Henry had it annulled by Parliament on 9 July 1540. Anne accepted a generous settlement and remained in England as the king's honored "sister."
• 1540 Execution of Thomas Cromwell Henry VIII's chief minister beheaded for treason Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's principal secretary and architect of the English Reformation's administrative machinery, was executed on Tower Hill after being condemned without trial under an act of attainder. His fall followed the king's anger over the failed marriage to Anne of Cleves, which Cromwell had arranged. His death removed the most powerful commoner in Tudor government.
• 1540 Henry VIII marries Catherine Howard Fifth marriage follows swiftly after the fourth Henry VIII married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on 28 July 1540, the same day Thomas Cromwell was executed. The teenage queen was a niece of the Duke of Norfolk and a cousin of Anne Boleyn. She would be beheaded for adultery less than two years later.