history
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Here is an interesting post from Annette Carson (originally posted on Facebook) I’ve just watched the first Michael Portillo programme on Portugal, where he visits Aveiro and films the beautiful tomb of The Holy Princess Joana. This is the Portuguese princess with whom Richard III was in negotiation to marry, a marriage which she and…
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What was King Richard III really like? Well, Ricardians have always known he was the best, as has Matthew Lewis, who has set about putting the rest of the world right about a king who has had nothing but wrong done to his memory. Historian and author Matthew is, of course, a former Chair of…
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The other castles in the Facebook top ten are, in first place, Dover Castle. Then Kenilworth, Tintagel, Bolsover, Portchester, Warkworth, Dunstanburgh, Carisbrooke, Middleham and finally Beeston. See https://shorturl.at/kxkqb for information about all of them. For English Heritage’s website about Middleham Castle, go here: https://shorturl.at/DtGDe. A more in-depth link to the history of Middleham and its…
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According to Francis Bacon, Truth is the Daughter of Time. But The Daughter of Time is also the title of a famous book by Josephine Tey which excels in both popularity and standard-bearing for Richard III. Just how many new supporters has it garnered for Richard III since it was first published in 1951? You…
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“….A sapling from an oak tree in the grounds of King Richard III’s birthplace has been planted in the place where he died….” So begins the BBC article you’ll find at https://rb.gy/n5r3y4. And the photograph above is of the ‘mother tree’ at Fotheringhay, near Peterborough, from which the sapling has been ‘born’. The great oak…
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Ian’s blog 2nd March 2025 (A Contribution from Ian Churchward) Here is a bit of a coincidence: John Wesley died on 2nd March 1791 and Horace Walpole died on 2nd March 1797. Both of them wrote about Richard III. John Wesley was a widely respected cleric, theologian and evangelist of the 18th century. He…
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Graham Mitchell (a local historian, secretary of the Richard III Society’s Yorkshire Branch and former Keighley town mayor) will speak about Richard, the Northern King, at St Michael and All Angels Church, Haworth, on Wednesday, April 9, at 7pm. Admission is £5, payable on the door. He has waived his fee so that the event…
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St Ninian was ‘a most holy man’ according to the Venerable Bede. He was born around 360AD, near Hadrian’s Wall. He is first heard of in the 8th century as being an early missionary among the Pictish peoples of what is now Scotland from his monastery in Whithorn, Galloway. For this reason he is known…
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Did you know that Richard was a direct descendent of Alfred the Great? Here is the pedigree, derived from the Genealogics website. This time you need to follow the pink circles. Although most people ‘know’ that Alfred is famous for burning some cakes that he was asked to watch, this is fallacious. It’s likely the…
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You may have often heard that people in medieval times were very dirty and unhygienic, with bad teeth. However, this has now been debunked as a myth and this article explains some of the practices they used to keep clean. They mention that teeth were cleaned, but not with a brush. They either used a…
