16 February –Thetford Priory is closed down as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
23 March –Waltham Abbey is the last abbey to close as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.[3] ComposerThomas Tallis, a musician here, moves to Canterbury Cathedral.
April – the cathedral priories ofCanterbury andRochester are transformed into secular cathedral chapters, concluding the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
June – Anne of Cleves is banished from court toRichmond Palace.
9 July – Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleves is annulled.[3] She is given a generous settlement with several residences in England, is referred to as "the King's Beloved Sister" and will outlive him and all his other wives.
Publication ofThe Byrth of Mankynde, the first printed book inEnglish onobstetrics, and one of the first published in England to include engraved plates.[6]
John Brooke and Sons established atArmitage Bridge in West Yorkshire as textile manufacturers; the business will still exist in family hands into the 21st century.[11]
April – posthumous publication of CardinalJohn Fisher'sPsalmi seu precationes in the original and in an anonymous English translation by its sponsor, QueenCatherine Parr.[13]
29 May – publication ofCatherine Parr'sPrayers or Meditations, the first book published by an English queen under her own name, and theKing's Primer, another devotional work overseen by her.[13]
18–19 July –Battle of the Solent between English and French fleets. On 19 July, Henry VIII's flagship, theMary Rose, sinks[2] but the French are unable to land on the English mainland.
27 January – execution ofThomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, father of Henry Howard, for treason is given royal approval but his life is spared by death of the king the following day.[15]
7 September – the funeral of dowager queenCatherine Parr, widow of Sir Thomas Seymour, in the chapel atSudeley Castle (Gloucestershire) is the first in the British Isles to be held in theEnglish language.[16]
Beverley Minster in Yorkshire is suppressed as a collegiate church on Easter Sunday.[17]
Howden Minster in Yorkshire is suppressed as a collegiate church.
Destruction of the religious colleges ofGlasney andCrantock inCornwall end the formal scholarship that has helped sustain theCornish language and cultural identity.
^Freeman, Thomas S. (2013). "One Survived: The Account of the Katherine Parr in Foxe's "Books of Martyrs"". In Betteridge, Thomas;Lipscomb, Suzannah (eds.).Henry VIII and the Court: Art, Politics and Performance. Farnham: Ashgate. pp. 241–242.
