anniversaries
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Back in the mid-90’s, I went on a jaunt to Leicester, visiting the old town, the statue of Richard III (then sited close to the river) and Leicester Cathedral, where I stopped for a moment to pay my respects near the floor plaque commemorating Richard (who, little did I know it then, was really only…
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It’s been a long wait for American Ricardians. The Lost King was released in Great Britain about six months ago to generally excellent reviews. And during those six months I have read all the Facebook posts from happy Ricardians extolling the virtues of the movie while I sat on my couch fuming because it was…
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There has been a lot of publicity about the splendid The Lost King, but until happening upon this article I hadn’t read anything about the thoughts of the writer, Jeff Pope. What had his opinion of Richard III been before the advent of Philippa Langley and her almost miraculous discovery of Richard’s remains? One…
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Richard Armitage, the actor best known for his roles as Guy of Gisburne in BBC’s Robin Hood (the only good thing about it IMO) and the dwarf leader Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson’s version of The Hobbit, has always had a special affinity with King Richard III. He was born in Leicester, the place of…
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Otterburn Castle is in glorious Northumberland, see here, and dates back to the time of William the Bastard….er, Conqueror. All you need is £3 million. My quirky sense of humour had a turn when I read “The days of arrows shot from battlements and boiling oil poured over the walls are long gone, however….”…
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Well, we’ve been waiting and waiting for Philippa Langley’s exciting announcement, for which it feels we’ve been holding our breath for ages. She has written a new book, called The Princes in the Tower: Solving History’s Greatest Cold Case and it deals with the eponymous mystery that’s confounded us all for centuries. What did happen…
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Oh, is there no end to the groanworthiness of TV documentaries? I found myself watching Blowing-up History, series 8, episode 5, about the Tower of London. (My hand is cupped to my shell-like ear, and yes, I can hear your soaring chorus of groans!) You’re right, yet again it was Richard wot dunnit to…
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According to this link: “The Herefordshire home of the late John Challis – famous for playing Boycie in [the] iconic sitcom Only Fools and Horses – has been put up for sale.” Much as I love Boycie (I’m delighted when Only Fools and Horses and Green Green Grass of Home are repeated on TV), it’s…
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Various Goings on in the General Area of Cheshire.
Battle of Northampton, Battle of Shrewsbury, Blore Heath, Cheshire, Chester Castle, Chirk Castle, Clwyd, Coventry, de Bohun, Dee estuary, Duke of Norfolk, Edward IV, Edward of Lancaster, executions, fee-farm, Henry Duke of Somerset, Hexham, Holt, Holt Castle, House of Lancaster, Jasper “Tudor”, John Neville, John Paston III, John Southworth, Lancashire, Margaret of Anjou, Mold Fair, Nantwich, Redbank, Richard Duke of York, Richard II, Sir William Stanley, Skipton Castle, swan, Thomas Lord Stanley, Thomas NevilleAlthough Cheshire was fiercely loyal to Richard II, after the Battle of Shrewsbury (1403) that loyalty gradually transferred itself to the House of Lancaster. Cheshire was a royal earldom and palatinate, with the King (or the Prince of Wales when there was one) as its immediate lord. As in next-door Lancashire, there was no resident…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 