Book Reviews
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It is unlikely you will ever read another book quite like this one. Ian Churchward describes it as ‘The story of how I wrote and recorded lots of Ricardian songs’ – the term ‘Ricardian’ denoting support for King Richard III. Ian sets the scene with amusing anecdotes about his early (pre-Ricardian) music adventures with different…
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If you support Richard III and believe history has “done him wrong”, for heaven’s sake do not read The Last Knight Errant: Sir Edward Woodville and the Age of Chivalry by Christopher Wilkins. I made the mistake, and it soon struck me that the author had learned by rote every single myth about Richard, and…
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On a whim, I acquired a copy of The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England, edited by Marion Glasscoe. It concerns the papers that were the proceedings of the Exeter Symposium IV: Dartington 1987. And the first of these papers concerns The Mystics and the Early English Printers, and is by George R. Keiser. I confess…
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The heights of the two younger York brothers has always been a mystery. Richard III had always been regarded as the smallest brother, both in height and build, and then Dr John Ashdown-Hill put forward his belief that the middle brother, George, Duke of Clarence, was the shortest brother. Read on….
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Lance Corporal Jones – Dad’s Army – referring to his trusty bayonet. When someone on a Ricardian group mentioned that John Ashdown-Hill was receiving a right bashing on the BBC History Magazine page, I and a few other intrepid Ricardian souls..you know who you are..trundled over there to take up the cudgel on said author’s behalf.…
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To the delight of travelers across the globe, tired of lugging all those hard-copy books on planes, trains and automobiles, Annette Carson’s Richard III The Maligned King has just been released in ebook form and can now be purchased on Amazon.com. Along with John Ashdown-Hill, Carson is part of a new generation of historians who…
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MISTRESS OF THE MAZE—Rosamund Clifford, Lover of King Henry II
Annabel de Balliol, Bishop Hugh of Lincoln, books, Civil War, Edward IV, Everswell, Fair Rosamund Clifford, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Godstow, Henry II, Ida de Tosney, Jane Shore, John, Louis VIII, mazes, Mistress of the Maze, Old Sarum Well, Raymond of Poitiers, Rosamund’s Well, William Longspee, WoodstockJane Shore is one of the most famous royal mistresses and certainly the prime one of the 15th century. Arguably, however, the most famous royal mistress in medieval English history is the enigmatic Rosamund de Clifford, known as ‘Fair Rosamund’ or ‘Rose of the World.’ Like Jane, Rosamund seemed to have received a generally benign…
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Originally posted on Helen Rae Rants!: As the old saying goes, it’s a wise child that knows its own father; one might add it’s a sure child that knows its own mother, if only because maternity is harder to conceal, deny or be mistaken about. So while doubts have been cast on King Edward’s paternity…
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A fictional police officer lies in a hospital bed and his mind wanders to a historic case. However, it isn’t Inspector Alan Grant and the disappearance of the “Princes”, as related by Tey, but Inspector Morse and the definite murder of Christina Collins. Written in 1989, The Wench is Dead was broadcast on Radio 4…
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