genealogy
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In the recent newspaper reports about further genetic testing on King Richard’s remains, a surprise for many people was the fact he had a fairly strong blond gene. As is typical, the newspapers jumped on this new information immediately, inundating us with a series of badly photoshopped pictures of Richard III with bright yellow Barbie-doll…
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Yesterday there was a comment on a Facebook group by a lady named Elizabeth Borson, that Kit Harington, the actor who plays Jon Snow in “Game of Thrones”, is a descendant of William Catesby, Richard III’s advisor. Kit is apparently also descended from Charles II, but it is Richard’s era that is of interest to…
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Did the House of York, founded by Edmund of Langley, first duke of York, have distinctive livery colors? Perhaps this is an unusual question to ask, because I’ve always been under the impression that those colors were murrey and blue. In their text Heraldry, published in 1993, Rouge Croix Pursuivant Henry Bedingfeld and Lancaster Herald…
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Why lineage still matters in battle
“Beauforts”, “Tudors”, Battle of Bosworth, Blanche of Lancaster, Cnut, Earl of Oxford, Edmund Mortimer, Edward I, Edward IV, Edward VI, Emma of Normandy, Ethelred II, Hastings, Henry I, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Henry VII, House of York, James VII/II, Jane, Joan of Acre, Mary I, Matilda, Richard II, Richard III, Stephen, William I, William IIIThe crown of England, among others, has often been claimed in battle or by other forceful means. However, to exercise such a claim, it is necessary to persuade a challenger’s military followers that he has a dynastic claim of sorts, even when this is greatly exaggerated or totally spurious. Thus William I, the Conqueror or…
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The above rather dark and dingy painting shows the unfortunate Margaret of Anjou, queen of the Lancastrian monarch, King Henry VI, being led from the battlefield at Tewkesbury after being captured. She had not only lost the battle, but also her son, the heir to the throne, seventeen-year-old Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. The…
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Quite an unfortunate family
“Popish Plot”, anniversaries, beheadings, Edward of Buckingham, England, executions, France, French Revolution, General Arthur Dillon, Henry of Buckingham, Lady Margaret Bulmer, Pilgrimage of Grace, Place de la Concorde, Salisbury, Smithfield, Staffords, Thomas Stafford, Tower Green, William Howard Viscount StaffordHenry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, cannot be called unlucky. The story of his revolt against Richard III, ending in Salisbury at the start of November 1483 is so well known that even Shakespeare has the right end of this particular stick. However, his family suffered fates that they didn’t always deserve so obviously: 1)…
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Contrary to the impression given by certain articles, the latest DNA evidence does not repeat not demonstrate that there was illegitimacy in the line of descent from Edward III to Richard III. It demonstrates it either there or in the line from Edward III to the present Duke of Beaufort. (The latter line, being longer,…
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2861643/CHRISTOPHER-STEVENS-Damian-Lewis-No-best-Henry-VIII-Sid-James.html Yes, Sid James’ was probably the best portrayal of Henry VIII on screen, but the first (Arthur BOURCHIER, 1911) actually shared the surname of some of that King’s (apparent) relatives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Bourchier
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In the research just released by the University of Leicester, researchers identified Haplogroup G as the Y-Chromosome of Richard III. Is that also the Haplogroup for the Plantagenet Dynasty? The jury is still out on that, but perhaps Shakespeare gives us a clue:
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……… in which Dr. John Ashdown-Hill, who located the mtDNA match, tells nerdalicious what these findings really mean, not what the Cairo brigade (eg Hicks, Dan Jones and their acolytes) are already twisting them to mean: What do King Richard III’s Latest DNA Results Really Prove? 1) Given that Richard III is only four generations…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 