Usurpers to throne
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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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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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Dan Snow video on some of our kings and queens, including Richard III….
Dan Snow may be a popular historian, always on TV, always praised and admired, but he seldom comes in for any thumbs-up from Ricardians. Well, like most of today’s TV-historians, he’s pro-Tudor. And that, folks, means putting their Rosa Klebb boots into Richard III. So when this link https://shorturl.at/nlCnD turned up and I saw it…
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We all take for granted that the hammerbeam roof of Westminster Hall (see https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/westminsterhall/architecture/the-hammer-beam-roof-/) is a true masterpiece of medieval workmanship and innovation. Many of us know that the transformation of the (then) huge building was at the instigation of Richard II. But how many of us know of a painting that captures a fleeting…
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Polls are always interesting, whether for getting it wrong at General Elections or coming up with figures that take everyone so by surprise that no one believes them. If you go to this link—https://tinyurl.com/5c64bp23—you’ll find that YouGov has set about composing, in order of popularity and familiarity, a league of English/British monarchs….and an accompanying article…
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We all know how much time Richard III spent in the north, and that he was certainly happy there. He ruled it well when he was still Duke of Gloucester, and was much loved for his fairness and justice. When he was king and went on his first progress in 1484, he went north again,…
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Rhys ap Thomas and the tournament of April 1507….
2nd Duke of Buckingham, A Historical Tour Through Pembrokeshire by Richard Fenton, Battle of Bosworth, Carew Castle, Field of Cloth of Gold, Henry VII, House of Tudor, John Morton, Margaret Beaufort, Order of the Garter, Pembroke and Monkton Local History Society, Rhys ap Thomas, Richard III, Sir William Stanley, Thomas Lord Stanley, tournamentsThis morning the following link dropped into my inbox: https://tinyurl.com/3uwbet79. It seems there was a talk at the “….Pembroke and Monkton Local History Society….first meeting of 2025 on Saturday morning, January 11 in Pembroke Town Hall.…” Why have I picked up on this? Well, perhaps because of the subject of the talk “….will focus on…
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‘Twas Christmas Eve after Bosworth, the feast had been brill,but the Camembert* was vengeful, and Henry was ill.He’d gorged on a surfeit of Brie so scrumptious,and gobbling the Roquefort made him feel nauseous. As he curled up in bed, his innards were churning.Cheeses floated before him, constantly turning.His eyes he did close. “Please, Lord, let me…
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It’s sometimes interesting to read modern appraisals of Richard III. In this case modern means 2004, revised in 2007. So it was written only a few years before the discovery of Richard’s remains. I will not quote from it or delve into its contents because it’s one of those that has to be read in…
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First John of Gloucester, now….could Edward of Westminster (Lancaster) have been a father too….?
Anne Neville, Battle of Bosworth, battle of tewkesbury, dispensation, DNA, Edmund Beaufort 2nd Duke of Somerset, Edward 17th Earl of Warwick, Edward of Lancaster, Edward of Westminster, George of Clarence, Henry VI, Henry VII, Isabel Neville Duchess of Clarence, John of Gloucester, John of Pontefract, Katherine Countess of Pembroke, Margaret of Anjou, morning sickness, Perkin Warbeck, Richard III, Richard Neville 16th Earl of Warwick, stretch marks, Wars of the RosesIn mid-November I posted about whether or not Richard III’s illegitimate son, known as John of Gloucester or John of Pontefract, could possibly have had children. See here https://murreyandblue.org/2024/11/12/could-john-of-gloucester-have-had-children/. Richard III had an illegitimate daughter, Katherine, who became Countess of Pembroke but she died childless, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Herbert,_2nd_Earl_of_Pembroke). There are no other confirmed offspring of Richard III,…
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