Dark history around Greenwich, London

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1. Start · Greenwich, London · 1012

   Saint Alphege, the Archbishop Who Refused to Be Ransomed

   In 1011 Danish raiders seized the Archbishop of Canterbury. He forbade anyone to pay for him, and in April 1012 a drunken feast pelted him with bones and an axe ended it.

2. 278 m on · Greenwich, London · 1553

   The Boy King's Hidden Collapse

   Behind closed doors, the teenage king who inherited a dynasty at nine wasted away from a lung disease while his advisers managed what the public saw.

3. same spot · Greenwich, London · 1593

   The Pirate Queen Who Sailed To See A Queen

   At sixty-three, a sea-captain and pirate chieftain sailed straight to England to demand an audience with Elizabeth I.

4. 82 m on · Greenwich, London · 1536

   The Day a Horse Fell on Henry VIII

   On January 24, 1536 Henry VIII was unhorsed at a Greenwich joust and crushed beneath his mount. Within months Anne Boleyn was beheaded, and historians still argue whether the fall changed him.

5. 998 m on · Greenwich Palace, London · 1553

   The Boy King Whose Lungs Rotted Inside Him

   His legs swelled and he coughed up green and black sputum as tuberculosis, probably, ate his lungs at fifteen.

Coordinates mark the place of each story, and some are approximate. Check opening times and access before you go.