Extract from Gesta regum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Kings) by William of Malmesbury:- “….He [Eilmer] was a man of good learning for those times; of mature age and in his early youth had hazarded an attempt of singular temerity: he had by some contrivance fastened to his hands and feet in order that he might…

Oh woe, the red mist doth appear before me AGAIN! I have no idea when this (https://www.msn.com/en-ie/travel/news/some-of-the-worst-monarchs-in-history/ss-AA1naF9c) daft list was published, but it arrived with me today. All it’s done is set my hackles quivering. How on God’s own earth can anyone equate Richards II and III of England with, among others, Ivan the Terrible,…

Isn’t it strange how connections crop up quite unexpectedly? I have recently posted on this blog about The Sobbing Spirit of Langley Castle. See https://murreyandblue.org/2024/11/03/the-sobbing-spirit-of-langley-castle/. As the Sobbing Spirit title suggests, it’s about an unhappy ghost at Langley Castle near Haydon Bridge in Northumbria. She is believed to have inspired one of J.K Rowling’s ghosts, Moaning…

According to Anthony Emery (Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales Volume III Southern England, pp394-397) it was when Richard II married his second wife, the little Princess Isabella of Valois, only seven, that he decided to upgrade Portchester Castle into a royal palace. His reason was for comfort during the hunting season….and to have…

I know that the twenty priceless works of art shown in this article https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/artists/national-gallery-london-what-arworks-to-see-1234722763/ about the 200th anniversary of the National Gallery are wonders to behold, but I look at them from the viewpoint of whether or not I’d want them on my wall. The answer is no. Well, except for two, the main one…

If you go to this link https://huddersfieldhub.co.uk/university-of-huddersfield-to-launch-public-lectures-with-talk-on-the-national-health-innovation-campus/ you’ll see that on 12 December 2024 at the Daphne Steele Building of Huddersfield University, Professor Tim Thornton, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, is to give a “….talk about his research into King Richard III and ‘the princes in the Tower ’, one of the most famous and notorious missing person…

What I’m suggesting in this post must surely have been put forward before, but I don’t recall ever seeing it, so here goes with my hypothesis. Nothing is really known about the mother of Richard III’s illegitimate son, John of Gloucester, a.k.a. John of Pontefract, see here https://richardiii.net/richard-iii-his-world/his-family/illegitimate-children/john-of-gloucester/. Nor can his year of birth be…

In the Wiki article on Lady Catherine Gordon, I found the following remarkable statement: “In February 1503, Lady Catherine was a mourner at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, arriving in a “chair”, a carriage, with Lady Fitzwalter and Lady Mountjoy. The train of her dress was carried by the Queen’s mother-in-law, Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby. Lady…

This post is about an e-tour of the kitchen at Old Gainsborough Hall, in which meals were once cooked for Richard III and Henry VIII. Please note that I have put those monarchs in their correct order. How dare they name Fat Henry before Richard III! Apart from that awful error, this is very interesting.…

Today, I have dipped into Memorials of the Wars of the Roses by W.E. Hampton. This is a wonderful read for anyone interested in the period and full of interesting snippets. Although Hampton is, at times, rather judgemental and certainly not afraid of calling a spade a flipping shovel. For example, I am the last…