anniversaries
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The inexplicable certainty of anti-Ricardians
Battle of Bosworth, bigamy, Catherine de Valois, D.A.L. Morgan, Dukes of Norfolk, Edward IV, English Historical Review, evidence, Hearne’s Fragment, James Ross, John Ashdown-Hill, Lady Eleanor Talbot, long lives, memoirs, Owain Tudor, Parliament, pre-contract, reincarnation, royal bodyguard, Royal Marriage Secrets, Thomas Earl of Surrey, Three Estates, Titulus RegiusThis post is prompted by a recent forthright statement on social media to the effect that Edward IV was not married to Lady Eleanor Talbot. Now it is one thing to suggest that there is a possibility that there was no such marriage. But certainty? Unless one was literally there, as one of the principal…
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Sometimes it’s hard for us to think of the small size of medieval ships. These brave vessels went to sea in all manner of weather, and crossed considerable distances from England to all parts of Europe. One of the swiftest and most manoeuverable was reckoned to be the caravel, which vessel Columbus used when he…
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If you fancy staying in a Tudor castle, then Thornbury Castle in Gloucestershire is the place for you. It’s a beautiful castle that is now presented very much in the Tudor style. “….It was built in 1510 by Edward Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, who had been given permission by the young King Henry VIII…
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Following the new edition of Arthur Kincaid’s ‘The History of King Richard the Third’ by Sir George Buc, there have been several news items about it, including a TV clip from Dan Snow on Channel 5’s Jeremy Vine Show. Snow himself is enthusiastic about the work done by the Richard III Society members who helped…
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While we all enjoy an excellent text, I think we also have a sneaking enjoyment when it’s accompanied by lavish illustrations. I know I do. I remember that when I was small and my father was always reading some large tome about the French Revolution, or Oliver Cromwell or World War I, he was appalled…
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A few years back I wrote about Buckden Towers in Cambridgeshire, the old palace of the Bishops of Lincoln. Finally, with the pandemic receding, I was able to visit the site in its small village (once a thriving place in coaching times and earlier but much diminished with the advent of the railways.) Here Richard…
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Here’s an oddity. Well, perhaps not, given that the kings of England had a royal menagerie at the Tower, in which a variety of exotic (to England) animals were kept. While looking at the Calendar of Patent Rolls for 1385 I came upon the following entry:- The entry doesn’t say the ostrich was kept in…