"And now I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than any other thing that ever I said or did in my life: and that is, the setting abroad of writings...[script deviation begins here]...contrary to the truth. Which here now I renounce and refuse, as things written with my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and writ for fear of death, and to save my life, if it might be: and that is, all such bills, which I have written or signed with mine own hand, since my degradation; wherein I have written many things untrue. And forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished. For if I may come to the fire, it shall be first burned. And as for the Pope, I refuse him, as Christ's enemy and antichrist, with all his false doctrine....[places hand into the fire and holds it there for a long moment]...this hand hath offended."

- Final words of former Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer,
about to be burned at the stake for heresy and treason,
dramatically deviating from the final lines of the script
of penitence prepared for him by his executioners
to instead entirely recant his signed confessions,
March 21, 1556.


"Amongst divers other devilishe practises, attempted, from time to time, by Dudleye, Asheton, and other traytours in Fraunce, they have now, lastiley, sent over one Cleoburye, an infamed person, into the extreme parts of Essex and Suff. wher, naming himself to be Erle of Devon, he hath, by spreading abroade of ranndevouse lres [=letters], and proclamacons, pcured as moch as in hym lay, to stirre the K. and Quene's Maties subjects, in those pts, to rebellion..."

- Letter from the English Privy Council to the Earl of Bath, July 1556,
the earliest known appearance in the English language of the word "rendezvous."

In the year AD 1556...


These people were born in 1556:


These people died in 1556:


1555 - 1556 - 1557

16th century

How they were made

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