anniversaries
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Thomas Stanley, or, the man with the evil beard….
“Perkin”, “Tudors”, Battle of Bosworth, Blore Heath, Cheshire, executions, First Battle of St. Albans, Henry of Buckingham, Henry VII, Lathom House, Lord High Constable, Lord Welles, Ludlow, Richard III, Second Battle of St. Albans, Sir William Stanley, Stoke Field, Tatton Park, Tewkesbury, Thomas Lord Stanley, Towton, treachery, Wakefield, Wars of the RosesFor anyone interested in knowing what made slippery Lord Stanley tick, here is an excellent evaluation, save that Sir William was executed for refusing to oppose “Perkin”, not for supporting him. The man was a born opportunist and survivor. Full stop. Oh, and he had an evil beard!
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How often do we Google for old town maps, only to find they’re so low in pixels that actually making out details is impossible? Well, while searching for such a map of Coventry, I have found an excellent site that gives a zoomable version of Speed‘s map of 1610. It goes in so close that…
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According to this site, (http://www.northamptonshiresurprise.com/news/2018/the-battle-decided-by-a-banbury-bar-maid/) Edward IV lost the Battle of Edgcote in 1469 because of a Banbury barmaid. And no, amazingly, Edward was not involved in the lustful squabble. The culprits were the Earls of Pembroke and Devon. . .and a barmaid from Banbury. It seems that prior to the battle:- “Edward decided to…
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UPDATED POST ON sparkypus.com A Medieval Potpourri https://sparkypus.com/2020/06/15/dr-argentine-physician-to-the-princes-in-the-tower/ King’s College Chapel. Dr Argentine is buried in a chantry chapel on the south side close to the alter. In Kings College Chapel, Cambridge, just south of the alter can be found the chantry chapel where Dr John Argentine, Provost of Kings College from 1501 until his death…
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For everyone who enjoyed Only Fools and Horses, and then The Green Green Grass, the gentleman in the above photograph will be familiar as “Boycie”. But what might not be so well known about the actor, John Challis, is that for the last twenty years he and his wife, Carol, have owned and lived in…
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I confess I had never considered this before. When Henry VIII made himself the head of the church in England, it became possible for hitherto celibate priests to marry. This situation continued under Henry’s son, Edward VI. But then, Catholic Queen Mary ascended the throne. . .and promptly sacked all those priests who had married.…
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Now then, I think the Tower of London ought to have a quiet word with Westminster Abbey, because if the boys’ remains have never been found – what’s in That Urn? And by the time they supposedly disappeared, Richard was King, not merely Duke of Gloucester. “…One of the Tower’s greatest mysteries is the lost…
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The mystery of the Cade key….
burials, Cade Key, family vault, Greenwich Church, Hampstead, Henry Kelsey, Henry VI, Henry VIII, Jack Cade, James Wolfe, John Stow, Kent, Lavinia Fenton, mortimer claim, mysteries, National Churches Trust, Nicholas Hawksmoor, rebellions, Shakespeare, St. Alfege, The London Stone, Thomas Tallis, Victoria County History, Wars of the Roses, YorkshireThere is an interesting article by Sally Self in the Victoria County History, Gloucestershire, Newsletter 8, January 2018. I will repeat it in full, before making any comments of my own. Not to disprove anything, I hasten to say, but to show my own efforts to find out more about this key. I wish to thank…
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The following passage is from The Darlington and Stockton Times “The rat, the cat and Lovel our dog, Rule all England under a hog.” “This seemingly innocuous verse was in fact a searing criticism of those in power at the time it was written in 1484, and was found pinned to the door of St…
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Well, Ricardians will probably always associate the county of Northamptonshire with Richard’s birthplace and the great Yorkist connections at Fotheringhay, but it seems that back in the medieval period, it was also the home of tournaments.