anniversaries
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Several years ago I was out at Bosworth to attend an author signing with one of my favourite Ricardian authors, Sharon Penman, who wrote the mighty epic The Sunne in Splendour. We were staying in the Royal Arms at Sutton Cheney, which has a public room filled with armour, memorabilia, paintings of the battle and…
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A pastoral tale
bacon, climate, Dominic Sandbrook, East Anglia, Edward I, Florence, Geoffrey Chaucer, George Orwell, Hanseatic League, Italy, Jerusalem, Lavenham, Mediaeval Warm Period, Medici, music, Peter and the Wolf, Peter Corbet, Prokofiev, sheep, Shropshire, T.S. Eliot, timber-framed houses, William Blake, wolves, wool, WoolsackThis article investigates why, as the Mediaeval Warm Period drew to a close, Britain (and particularly England) developed differently to many nations of Southern Europe. Sandbrook mentions two major cultural factors: the tradition of salting bacon because ham could not be dry-cured and the evolution of the wool trade through the systematic elimination of the…
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There has been attempt to write this already and some of the songs are available. The songwriter in question, who died during the process, was Anthony Newley, who would have been 86 today. So how do they compare to other music on the subject?
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They are sharp and good for purposes both fair and foul, and might even be handy for some back-stabbing (should one be of that disposition!) What am I talking about? The Stanley Knife. Jokes abound on certain medieval groups about these multi purpose knives being something that should have been invented by the two side-shifting,…
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Unlocking the secrets of the Black Prince’s effigy A team of scientists and art historians has been attempting to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding the Black Prince’s tomb. In this short video you can find out what they were up to and what they are hoping to discover. This investigation is one of a…
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The ten worst Britons in history?
“Popish Plot”, Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Thomas Arundel, avarice, BUF, censorship, Cnut, Culloden, de heretico comburendo, Eadric Streona, Edmund Ironside, executions, Henry II, History Extra, Hugh le Despenser, Jack the Ripper, Jacobites, John, murder, perjury, Reformation, Sir Oswald Mosley, Sir Richard Rich, Thomas Becket, Titus Oates, torture, treachery, Whitechapel murders, William Duke of CumberlandThis is a very entertaining and well-illustrated 2006 article, choosing one arch-villain for each century from the eleventh to the twentieth. The all-male list includes just one King but two Archbishops of Canterbury. So what do you think?
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It is perhaps not a well-known fact that during World War II, many priceless historical treasures were crated up and shipped out of London for safe storage. At least, I wasn’t particularly aware of something that now makes perfect sense. I found out about this whilst visiting Gloucester Cathedral and touring the amazing crypt beneath…
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We do know that Edmund Bonner , born in Worcestershire in about 1500, died in the Marshalsea Prison, today in 1569 and was buried secretly in St. George’s, Southwark. Rather like the head of Cardinal Morton, however, we cannot be certain that he remains there. As Bishop of London under Mary I, he (along with Cardinal…
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More Tyrrells, this time in Oxfordshire. One family or two?
“Princes”, Capel St. Mary, David Starkey, Edmund Earl of Suffolk, Elizabeth of York, executions, genealogy, Gipping Chapel, Gipping Hall, Great Wenham, Guisnes, Henry Stuart, Henry VII, James VI/I, John Locke, London Guildhall, Master of Horse, Master of the Buckhounds, Richard III, Robert Catesby, Shotover House, Shotover Park, Sir James Tyrrell, Stowmarket, television, Tower of London, Tyrrell “confession”, Tyrrell family, William CatesbyThis (below) is Shotover Park in Oxfordshire, formerly part of the Wychwood royal hunting forest. It became the property of one Timothy Tyrrell in 1613, the year after the death of Henry Stuart, Prince of Wales, whom Tyrrell had served as Master of the Royal Buckhounds. Tyrrell was further honoured with a knighthood in 1624…
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