anniversaries
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When I watched this video, talking about the precise location of the high altar of the Abbey with respect to Henry I, the parallels with the search for Richard III in Leicester’s Greyfriars are almost exact: Neither should we forget Henry I’s Queen, Edith (Matilda) of Scotland, who reintroduced Anglo-Saxon royal (Wessex) blood to the…
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If you wish to visit the site of a heresy execution or a memorial to a victim in England and Wales, there are several options, most of which date from Mary I’s reign. Aldham Common in Hadleigh commemorates the town’s Rector, Rowland Tayler. Oxford marks an Archbishop, Cranmer, together with Bishops Latimer and Ridley, whilst…
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Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence, was born today in 1338, although he died just before his thirtieth birthday. He is, of course, a mixed-line direct ancestor of Richard III but he is the brother of Edmund of Langley, Richard’s male-line great grandfather. Here, John Ashdown-Hill spoke to Nerdalicious about his attempts to locate Lionel…
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There are plans to look for evidence of the fishponds and orchards of the 12th-century abbey, in what is now Abbey Park, Leicester. There are also calls for this search to include seeking the tomb of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who died in Leicester in 1530. His resting place was not left undisturbed for long, because…
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Warwick Castle Portcullis Francis Frith Photo of the portcullis 1901 The mound as viewed from the portcullis Old bridge Warwick Castle The moat Warwick Castle. Old staircase in Warwick Castle 14th century Guys Tower For more photos and an interesting article from ‘Britain and Britishness’ about Warwick Castle please see this link . Much of…
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The Survival of the Princes in the Tower has finally been released. There was a delay in some copies reaching readers in September, so by way of apology I blogged a little extract which can be found below. I also wrote a piece for On the Tudor Trail which was quite well received and can…
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There is an issue with Edmund the Martyr, King of East Anglia, who was shot and beheaded by Vikings, today in 869. He isn’t England’s patron saint, although he is far more English than St. George, who is thought to have originated in modern-day Turkey or Syria. However, unlike St. Edward the Confessor, whose brother-in-law…
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Peter Cole was a tanner from Ipswich, although his year of birth is generally unknown. He found himself tried in Norwich for heresy and executed there, presumably in the Castle moat (below), which must have been something of a shock as it was 1587 and the heresy laws had been repealed again almost thirty years…
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On the left is Herman Webster Mudgett, alias H.H. Holmes, an American serial killer executed in May 1896 whilst a few days short of his thirty-fifth birthday. On the right is the “murder castle”, replete with trapdoors, sealed rooms and poison gas, he built in Chicago for the 1893 “World’s Fair” and from which at least…
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The painted tapestry below is from Rothley Chapel in Leicestershire. Strangely, since the article that prompts me now (see link below) was written in 2012, no one appears to have noticed the great likeness of the depicted English king to Richard III. At least, if they have, I don’t know of it. It’s Richard, even…
