anniversaries
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Years ago, not quite before the Flood, although it feels like it now, I went to Tewkesbury Abbey with my husband and we saw a flat glass display cabinet containing a number of ancient locks of hair. I was writing a book called “Wife to the Kingmaker” at the time, so I was particularly…
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In this instance I refer to St George’s Chapel, Windsor. In this article you can read all about its history and see some beautiful photographs. The other royal peculiar which immediately leaps to Ricardian minds is, of course, Westminster Abbey…which harbours That Urn. The last time we all saw St George’s Chapel at its…
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Only 405 years after his death, Mr William Shakespeare of Warwickshire, England has taken a tremendous step forward for mankind, (and so he should after what he did with THAT play.) In all seriousness, though, on December 8th , Mr William Shakespeare, a gentlemen who is indeed from Warwickshire, was the second person and first…
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Here’s a tale of treachery and the cowardly theft of a throne. Such a shame though, because Powis Castle today is extraordinarily beautiful. I lament that Tudor‘s invasion with his foreign army didn’t take him into a particularly gluey and bottomless Welsh bog, or over a cliff on to jagged rocks in the middle of…
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Royal History’s Biggest Fibs
Act of Union, Anne, Bourbons, East India Company, Elizabeth I, executions, French Revolution, George III, George IV, Glorious Revolution, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Lenin, Marie Antoinette, Nicholas II, Phillip II, Reformation, Regency, Richard III, Russian Revolution, Stalin, Victoria, Wars of the RosesLucy Worsley, having covered the Wars of the Roses, the “Glorious Revolution” and Britain in India, has returned with a further series. This time, the episodes earlier this year having been about the Reformation, the Armada and Queen Anne, she covers the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, reversing the contemporaneous “spin” on the French Revolution, the…
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One of Edward III’s many grandchildren, Philippa de Coucy (born before April 1367) was the daughter of the important French nobleman Enguerrand, Lord of Coucy, by Isabella, eldest daughter of King Edward and Queen Philippa. Isabella was pretty much the definition of a spoiled princess, and contrary to the usual stereotype, pretty much did as…
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Take note everyone, this is from the Tewkesbury Battlefield Society: “….In the run up to the 550th anniversary we are running a day by day information page on the progress of both the Yorkist and Lancastrian manoeuvres prior to the meeting at Tewkesbury. To find out more and to receive these updates visit our…
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“Today it is hard to credit the importance that the Middle Ages attached to prophecies, at that time taken so seriously that King Henry VII was to declare them against the law on the grounds of political danger.” The above quote is taken from The Usurper King by Marie Louise Bruce, the usurper of…
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Henry Bolingbroke (Duke of Lancaster, soon-to-be the usurper Henry IV) was in mourning for his father John of Gaunt when he returned to England from exile and stole the throne of his first cousin, Richard II. I won’t go into all the details because what I’m about to write is rather, um, facetious. Apparently on…
