anniversaries
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Above is an illustration of the coronation of Edward IV, showing the new king’s golden splendour, and bottom right, his dark brother, the “vile, scheming, murderous” Richard of Gloucester. This illustration is, to me, a perfect illustration of fiction and non-fiction. Yes, Edward was a splendid king, but no, Richard of Gloucester was never the…
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We all know the well-trodden vistas of the kings and queens of England but what about those of the kings and queens we nearly had? In my new book, Uncrowned: Royal Heirs Who Didn’t Take The Throne, I charter the lives of twenty-five heirs apparent and presumptive who nature had destined to one day wear…
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On Radio Four’s “Saturday Live”, Philippa Langley announced that Richard III wasn’t unique among monarchs in having one shoulder higher than the other, but in such a way that nobody noticed during their lifetime. Elizabeth II was also uneven in this respect, concealed by her dressmaker, although we can safely assume that archery was not…
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Digging for Britain (series 11)
Alice Roberts, bags, bath houses, Cardiff, Carlisle, Chedworth, defences, digging for Britain, docks, dodecahedrons, Domesday Book, Dorset, Dover, Enfield, evacuation, Exeter Cathedral, flint tools, forty hall, Gloucester, Grampians, gun emplacement, Henry V, Hereford, Imber, Kent, Leicester cathedral, Lincoln, Lowther Castle, Marshes, mosaic tiles, mudlarking, Norfolk, Northampton, norton disney, nunneries, Owain Glyn Dwr, Platonic solids, postern gates, pubs, Roman Britain, roundhouses, Scotland, Septimus Severus, shoes, Smallhythe, Snodhill Castle, Strathclyde, Syston, timber, Tintern Abbey, trade, Trellau Park, Wales, Waterloo, William II, WW2 defences, WyeAs another year dawns, it must be time for another series of Britain’s archeological highlights, divided into five regions. This time, it started in the north with Carlisle Cricket Club hosting a dig associated with the bathhouse of the emperor Septimius Severus, a particularly steep part of the Grampians and Lowther Castle, a site that…
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My introduction to the Battle of Shrewsbury was at school, when Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I had to be studied for ‘O’ levels. I didn’t like Henry IV then, and I don’t like him now. He was a usurper who murdered his cousin Richard II in order to plant his Lancastrian backside on the…
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As this article Walking Leicester’s new Richard III trail – 530 years in the making | Leicester holidays | The Guardian says, the trail that Richard III left through Leicester has been nearly 5½ centuries in the making. It certainly wasn’t a part of his realm that had particular meaning for him during his…
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So here we have one of Kathryn Warner‘s earlier books. It describes the life and career of Edward II’s third and final favourite – his marriage to Eleanor de Clare, his lawless activitities but also the degree to which they were exaggerated, leading to his “trial” and execution. We can recommend it highly as part…
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I have a liking for deliberately misinterpreting what someone else has written, and the headline of this article Who has held the title of Princess of Wales throughout history? (msn.com) is a prime example. Blimey, thought I, somewhere there’s a very, very, very old royal dear who has survived all these centuries…. But that’s…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 