The New Murrey and Blue blog

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More Royal ancestry

Apr 8, 2022

anniversaries, battles, buildings, genealogy, law, religion, Science, television reviews, The play’s the thing

actresses, Alexander Armstrong, Arthur Capell Baron Hadham, astronomy, Barings Bank, Battle of Surbiton, bigamy, burials, Careys, Clare Balding, comedians, Dame Judi Dench, Danny Dyer, Dartmoor, Denmark, Duke of Hamilton, Edict of Nantes, Edward IV, Elsinore, English Civil War, executions, France, Frank Gardner, Groom of the Stool, Guildenstern, Hamlet, Henry Earl of Holland, Henry VIII, Hugenots, illegitimacy, Ireland, Joe Sugg, Josh Widdicombe, Lettice Knollys, Mark Wright, Mary Boleyn, Military Cross, Normandy, Ophelia, religious persecution, Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester, Rosencrantz, royal palaces, Sabine Baring-Gould, secret marriage, Tom Stoppard, Trenchard Manor, Tycho Brahe, Westminster Abbey, Who do you think you are?, Will Kemp, William Shakespeare

Who do you think you are? has now completed eighteen series as British television’s predominant genealogy programmes. In that time, with an average of eight episodes per series, they have uncovered many celebrities with interesting lineage and some unexpected royal descendants, including Alexander Armstrong, Clare Balding, Danny Dyer, Frank Gardner and Sir Matthew Pinsent. Now…
KING JOHN AND THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

Apr 6, 2022

anniversaries, buildings, genealogy, law, religion, sources, The play’s the thing

AA Milne, Angevin bloodline, Anglicanism, annulment, Arthur of Brittany, Ascension Day, authorship, avarice, Barons, burials, Cardinal Pandulph, character, charles forker, clergymen, Crowland Chronicle, Defender of the Faith, Earls of Essex, Edward Hall, Edward VI, Elizabeth I, Eucharist, excommunication, Fauconbridge brothers, Geoffrey Plantagenet, George Peel, graham Seel, Henry, Henry the Young King, Henry VIII, Historiography, House of York, Hubert de Bergh, Innocent III, John, john Bale, John Dover-Wilson, John Gillingham, John Harvey, John Matusiak, John Wycliffe, Kit Marlowe, Lackland, Louis VIII, Magna Carta, male primogeniture, Mary I, Maude Plantagenet, Mirabeau, morality plays, Phillip Augustus, plays, Polydore Vergil, Ralph Holinshed, recusants, Reformation, Richard Green, Richard Hunne, Richard I, Robin Hood, royal burials, sir brian vickers, Sir James Holt, Six Articles, Softsword, Staffords, stephen langton, Stuarts, Tillyard, Walt Disney, Wilfred Warren, William Shakespeare, William Tyndale, Worcester Cathedral

KING JOHN AND THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION King John was not a good man, He had his little ways. And sometimes no one spoke to him For days and days and days. And men who came across him, When walking in the town, Gave him a supercilious stare, Or passed with noses in the air, And…
On the wall of a pub …

Apr 5, 2022

anniversaries, archaeology, art, buildings, heraldry

Earls of Salisbury, Hertfordshire, Hoddesdon, JD Wetherspoon, Lord High Treasurer, Mildred Cooke, murals, pubs, Restoration, Robert Cecil, William Cecil

… 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.
James I: Scotland’s Lancastrian King

Apr 4, 2022

anniversaries, battles, buildings, religion, sources

assassination, authoritarianism, captivity, castles, de heretico comburendo, executions, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, James I, Joan “Beaufort”, Lollards, Murdoch Duke of Albany, Pavel Kravar, Perth Blackfriars, ransom, Robert Duke of Albany, Scotichronicon, Southwark Cathedral, Walter Bower

Here is an excellent Gordon McKelvie article from History Extra about the king who was prisoner, hostage and then guest of the three Lancastrian kings, before marrying Henry V‘s cousin in Southwark Cathedral and going home to reign in person, heavily influenced in style by his former hosts, as the Stewarts of Albany and “Paul…
Who gave up on the Royal Touch….?

Apr 3, 2022

anniversaries, buildings, culture, religion, The play’s the thing

angels, coins, Edward IV, Elizabeth I, Henry III, Henry VII, Macbeth, Royal Touch, scrofula, Shakespeare Schools Foundation, St. Edward the Confessor, Winchester Cathedral

According to this article, “….The Royal Touch and King Edward the Confessor’s healing powers were so well known that, during the reign of Elizabeth I, Shakespeare referenced them in his play Macbeth. This is unsurprising however, as Elizabeth’s grandfather, Henry VII, had reintroduced the concept in the late 15th century….” So, if the Royal Touch was known to have…
A thing of beauty from the unlovely Henry VII….

Apr 2, 2022

anniversaries, art, buildings, religion

Arthur “Tudor”, builders, Henry VII, Henry VII Lady Chapel, Westminster Abbey

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…
Eleanor of Aquitaine, the “mother-in-law from hell”….?

Apr 1, 2022

anniversaries, battles, buildings, genealogy, religion

Anne of Bohemia, Berengaria, Crusades, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Fontevraud Abbey, Henry II, Isabella of Angouleme, John, l’Epau Abbey, le Mans, miscarriage, Navarre, Richard I, Richard II, royal marriages, royal tombs, sexuality, taxes

There are two King Richards of England whose marriages are always called into question: Richard I and Berengaria of Navarre, and Richard II and Anne of Bohemia. Richard II’s sexuality is cited as the reason he and Anne had no children. Either he was sexless…or his interests went to the male of the species. Therefore…
The Yorkist Connection to Cranborne in Dorset

Mar 31, 2022

art, buildings, genealogy, religion

Almeric d’ Evreux, Anne Mortimer, annulment, carvings, churches, Cranborne Manor. Dorset, Edmund Earl of March, Edward IV, Geoffrey de Mandeville, Gilbert de Clare, Hubert de Bergh, Isabella of Gloucester, John, Mortimers, Ralph Neville, Richard Duke of York, Richard Earl of Cambridge, Richard III, Roger Mortimer 4th Earl of March, royal hunting estates, St. Mary and St. Bartholomew

Cranborne is a little village tucked away in the Dorset countryside. The roads leading to it are small and narrow, with very high hedges, and driving there can be a bit of a nightmare if you should meet up with a farm vehicle or delivery lorry (frequent)! However, it seems to have been heavily visited…
Was 29th March a day of retribution for a certain 14th-century lord….?

Mar 29, 2022

anniversaries, art, battles, buildings, genealogy, religion, sources, travel

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, Vienna

For 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…
Finding my way around medieval Vienna….

Mar 28, 2022

buildings

Danube, Meldeman map, past maps, Richard II, Vienna

Reading old maps isn’t the easiest of things, but at least you stand a fair chance of finding your way around them if you know the general layout of the place they cover. Now, I don’t know anything about medieval Vienna, and have been endeavouring to find my way around it. In detail. So I…