art
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A nice little pre-Christmas break took me to two towns of interest, Buckingham and Grantham. I wanted to see Buckingham museum which is currently hosting a Richard III display featuring the gold Half Angel found in the fields nearby. It was a nice little collection and the info panels were mercifully free of too many…
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There must have been a brisk trade in illustrations of boating parties in the Merry Month of May…and Flemish painter Simon Bening (circa 1483-1561) stepped up to the mark! Mind you, I’m a little perturbed as to how the good Simon managed to paint the above in 1575 if he died in 1561. I suppose…
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When we think of women’s clothing in the medieval period, we don’t generally think of revealing necklines. Nay, plunging necklines! But if you go to this extremely interesting article you’ll see some rather eye-opening illustrations. Some of these little off-the-shoulder numbers could be worn on red carpets today. Mind you, you couldn’t see…
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My latest target for research is the English garrison/bastion of Brest, on the coast of Brittany, specifically the final years of the 14th century before it was handed back to the Bretons. My interest had been aroused when reading Ducal Brittany 1364-1399, by Michael Jones. In it I learned of the practice of…
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… was discovered this painting of people including William Cecil, Baron Burghley, senior adviser to Elizabeth I and father of Robert. The pub in question is the Star, a Wetherspoon in Hoddesdon formerly known as the Salisbury Arms (left, after Robert’s earldom), which was undergoing some internal restoration work.
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Accepting facts is sometimes difficult. For instance, how could a man like Henry Tudor (who was vile on the outside and inside) leave to posterity a thing of such immense beauty as the his chapel in Westminster Abbey? No doubt he screwed every groat from his architect and stonemasons. They may have wondered if…
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Was 29th March a day of retribution for a certain 14th-century lord….?
adultery, Blanche of Lancaster, Bridge of San Lorenzo, Britannica, Buda, Bustardthorpe, Charles VI, childbirth, conception, Crusades, Dartington Hall, diplomacy, disputed paternity, Elizabeth of Lancaster, envoys, France, Froissart, funeral effigy, Ireland, Isabel of Castile, Jerusalem, John Duke of Exeter, Mediaeval chronicles, murder, Old St. Paul’s, Order of the Passion, Philippe de Mézières, pilgrimage, questions of paternity, Richard Earl of Cambridge, Richard II, ViennaFor the past two/three years I have been grappling (off and on, so to speak) with some defiant dates. No doubt I’ve bewailed this particular problem before because my interest in the lord concerned is quite considerable. Not least because he may have had great significance for the House of York. So here goes…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 