genealogy
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In this excellent blog post Kathryn Warner refreshes our understanding of Constanza, Duchess of Lancaster, with her usual eye for false myth. However, one particularly interesting fact arising from the post (in that it relates to the House of York) is that Pedro I, King of Castile, (Constanza’s father) was six feet tall with light blond…
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We all know that the principal protagonists of Edward II’s reign – the King himself and Roger Mortimer, later Earl of March – were among Richard III’s ancestors. However, this table shows that Anne Neville, his Queen Consort, was descended from Hugh le Despenser the Elder (and also from the Younger) through the Beauchamps of…
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William de la Pole – the most hated man in England
“Nicholas of the Tower”, Azincourt, Charles VII, de la Pole family, Edmund “Tudor”, Edmund de la Pole, Edmund Duke of Somerset, Edward III, Grafton’s Chronicle, Harfleur, Henry IV, Henry VI, Hull, Humphrey of Gloucester, Jargeau, John de la Pole, John Duke of Bedford, John Earl of Lincoln, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Lords Appellant, Margaret of Anjou, Merciless Parliament, Michael de la Pole, Richard de la Pole, Richard II, Sir William de la Pole, Tower of London, treason, William Duke of Suffolk, WingfieldAs the sun rose on the morning of 2nd May 1450, it revealed a grisly sight on Dover beach. A headless body lay on the sand, dried blood staining the butchered neck. Beside the body, atop a stake, the vacant eyes of William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk stared out over the sea…
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It can be said that every country that has ever had a monarch still has a hypothetical monarch, to whom the same selection rules apply, unless the whole family in question has been extirpated. The latter is almost impossible to achieve, as the cases of Russia and Ethiopia prove. There are probably collateral descendants of…
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(originally published in the Ricardian Bulletin) Saturday 30 July saw nearly twenty of us visit Sutton Hoo, a National Trust property that overlooks Woodbridge from across the Deben. Members travelled from London, Ipswich or by themselves, using booked taxis from Woodbridge station. We were there for three and a half hours, joining an official tour…
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Another DNA case
Charles Earl of Lennox, Charles I, Charles II, Civil War, DNA evidence, Dukes of Buccleuch, Dukes of Grafton, Dukes of Richmond, Dukes of St Albans, England, Esme Stuart, France, Henry Duke of Gloucester, illegitimacy, James Duke of Lennox, James of Monmouth, James V, James VI/I, James VII/II, Jean d’Aubigny, Ludovic Duke of Lennox, Mary Stuart, Matthew Earl of Lennox, questions of paternity, Robert Earl of Lennox Bishop of Caithness, Scotland, Stewarts, Y-chromosomeThe father of James Duke of Monmouth is usually assumed to be the future Charles II, who freely acknowledged his resonsibility. There exists a scientific proof, as published on p.36 of Beauclerk-Powell and Dewar’s Royal Bastards, through Y-chromosome tests comparing Monmouth’s male line descendants the Dukes of Buccleuch with the Dukes of Grafton, St. Albans…
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We bring you an excellent article by Susan Abernethy about the Regent of France through most of Richard’s reign. Note the different constitutional arrangements to Richard’s appointment as Lord Protector and Defender of the Realm but France adhered to a Salic Law meaning that neither Anne nor her descendants could ever reign: Anne de Beaujeu,…
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Originally posted on Giaconda's Blog: Following on from my recent post about the reception of the Agincourt campaign by later generations and the associated ‘myth-making’ which has informed our view of those events, I wanted to look at the character of the central figure in Shakespeare’s play and compare and contrast it with the ‘real’ Henry…
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Perkin Warbeck: A Story of Deception – The Fascinating Enigma as presented in Ann Wroe’s biography
“Lambert Simnel”, “Perkin”, Ann Wroe, Arthur “Tudor”, Edward IV, Edward of Warwick, Edward V, Ferdinand of Aragon, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Isabel of Castile, James III, James IV, John Morton, Lady Catherine Gordon, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Margaret Duchess of Burgundy, Maximilian of Austria, Richard of ShrewsburyOriginally posted on Giaconda's Blog: I wanted to write a piece about the man who we know as Perkin Warbeck or Piers Osbeck or Richard Plantagenet or King Richard IV or whoever he may have been if he was none of these other men after reading Ann Wroe’s excellent biography on this most appealing…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 