From the murder of an emperor to the birth of a Lancastrian priince

October 13th was an incredibly busy day from a historical standpoint. So fasten your seat belts for this one.
On October 13, 54 AD, the Roman emperor Claudius was poisoned. I am sure that thousands are like me, having gleaned most of what we know about Claudius from the brilliant television series, I, Claudius, based upon the equally brilliant novel by Robert Graves. The wonderful actor Derek Jacobi played Claudius as a very sympathetic character who was extraordinarily unlucky in his choice of wives, including the notorious Messalina and Agrippina, who is believed to have murdered him to gain the crown for her son, Nero. The series is available on DVD for those who’ve never seen this classic.
On October 13, 1162, Leonora, the second daughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, was born. She would become Queen of Castile, winning the affection of her husband and his subjects. She is one of the two children who outlived their mother, the other being John. She seems to have had a happy marriage, but there was much tragedy in her life due to the deaths of so many of her children. The abbot of Mont St Michel was her godfather. Like all of Henry and Eleanor’s children, she was said to be very attractive, and a later Spanish chronicle described her as having dark hair.
On October 13, 1278, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd wed Ellen de Montfort at Worcester Cathedral. They’d actually been wed by proxy but Edward I then had the bride kidnapped by a pirate in his pay and held her prisoner for 3 years as he sought to extract as many concessions as possible from Llywelyn. Edward paid for the wedding and then blackmailed Llywelyn into making even more concessions on the eve of the wedding. Knowing his sense of humor, I do not think it was coincidence that he scheduled it on October 13th, which was the feast day of St Edward. Llywelyn and Ellen’s marriage appears to have been a happy one, but I doubt that they enjoyed the wedding itself.
On October 13, 1307, the grasping, unscrupulous French King, Philippe IV, ordered the arrest of the Templars. You will occasionally see October 13, 1244 give as the birthdate of the last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, but there is no evidence for that as we are not even sure of the date of his birth year.
On October 13, 1399, Henry IV was crowned at Westminster as the first Lancastrian king, having deposed and probably murdered his cousin Richard II, his usurpation laying the seeds for the Wars of the Roses. Brian Wainwright has written an excellent novel about Henry’s reign, Within the Fetterlock.
On October 13, 1453, the only child of Marguerite d’Anjou and the hapless Henry VI was born, Edward of Lancaster, who would die at seventeen at the battle of Tewkesbury.
It is sometimes claimed that October 13, 1537 was the birthday of the Nine Days Queen, Jane Grey, but that is open to dispute, with some historians believing that she was born earlier than that, possibly even in 1536. Susan Higginbotham has written a novel about Jane, Her Highness, the Traitor. I’ve always had great sympathy for Jane, the ultimate political pawn.