religion
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Years ago, not quite before the Flood, although it feels like it now, I went to Tewkesbury Abbey with my husband and we saw a flat glass display cabinet containing a number of ancient locks of hair. I was writing a book called “Wife to the Kingmaker” at the time, so I was particularly…
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In this instance I refer to St George’s Chapel, Windsor. In this article you can read all about its history and see some beautiful photographs. The other royal peculiar which immediately leaps to Ricardian minds is, of course, Westminster Abbey…which harbours That Urn. The last time we all saw St George’s Chapel at its…
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So Sir Michael Morpurgo is refusing to include The Merchant Of Venice in a new book adapting Shakespeare’s plays for children under 16 because the portrayal of Shylock is too offensive. See this link. Well, let’s be honest, there are precious few Shakespeare’s works that won’t offend someone. Everything of his that I endured at…
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Royal History’s Biggest Fibs
Act of Union, Anne, Bourbons, East India Company, Elizabeth I, executions, French Revolution, George III, George IV, Glorious Revolution, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Lenin, Marie Antoinette, Nicholas II, Phillip II, Reformation, Regency, Richard III, Russian Revolution, Stalin, Victoria, Wars of the RosesLucy Worsley, having covered the Wars of the Roses, the “Glorious Revolution” and Britain in India, has returned with a further series. This time, the episodes earlier this year having been about the Reformation, the Armada and Queen Anne, she covers the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, reversing the contemporaneous “spin” on the French Revolution, the…
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One of Edward III’s many grandchildren, Philippa de Coucy (born before April 1367) was the daughter of the important French nobleman Enguerrand, Lord of Coucy, by Isabella, eldest daughter of King Edward and Queen Philippa. Isabella was pretty much the definition of a spoiled princess, and contrary to the usual stereotype, pretty much did as…
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Henry Bolingbroke (Duke of Lancaster, soon-to-be the usurper Henry IV) was in mourning for his father John of Gaunt when he returned to England from exile and stole the throne of his first cousin, Richard II. I won’t go into all the details because what I’m about to write is rather, um, facetious. Apparently on…
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If there’s anything in the notion that all the different spellings of one name means all the folk of those various spellings are related, then I (as a Machin by birth) must have something (vaguely!) to do with the astonishing memorial to Thomas Machen and his family on the wall of Gloucester Cathedral. I’ve ended…
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Lady Eleanor Talbot’s family was long connected with ‘bottomless’ Blakemere/Blackmere/Black Mere, near Whitchurch in Staffordshire. Their manor house was on the shore of the mere, and was where Lady Eleanor may have been born. I once had reason to research Blakemere, but my prying did not turn up the legend of the Blakemere mermaid. Well,…
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… on the Bayeux Tapestry are featured in this excellent journal, Peregrinations by the International Society for the Study of Pilgrimage Art. The first relevant article, which also discusses Viking longboats and the Battle of Fulford, earlier in 1066, starts on (pdf) page 196. The second starting on page 238 compares the Tapestry with Trajan’s…
