mdp-header title="16th Century Kent" background=gh:kent-map/images/banners/16c.jpg .sticky

Establishment of Chatham Dockyard. Battle against the Spanish Armada. Industry includes textiles and iron production.

 

Arden of Faversham

Arden of Faversham

On St. Valentine’s day 1551 a grizzly site was found in the grounds of Faversham abbey - the landowner Thomas Arden lay dead in the snow, his wife’s affair with the tailor Mosby having taken a murderous turn.

Elizabeth Barton

Elizabeth Barton

The ‘Holy Maid of Kent’, Elizabeth Barton, prophesized that Henry VIII would die if he were to marry Anne Boleyn.

John Lyly

John Lyly

Playwright, author and courtier, John Lyly was a Kentishman famed for his euphuistic writing.

Sheppey at War

Sheppey at War

In 1588 concerns about the Spanish Armada approaching London via the Kent coast caused the Crown to invest in fortifications at Queenborough Castle and Minster.

Spanish Armada

Spanish Armada

With invasion threatening, Kent mobilised its forces, but did it leave the coastal town of Margate unprotected?

Leonard and Thomas Digges

Leonard and Thomas Digges

Father and son who were learned mathematicians in Kent in the sixteenth century.