Castillon

Tyrants – Part 2

Dec 25, 2023

battles, films, genealogy, law, sources

Adam of Usk, Azincourt, Castillon, Edmund Earl of March, executions, extrajudicial killings, France, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Lancastrians, Lollards, Lords Appellant, monasteries, Richard II, Thomas Mowbray Earl of Nottingham, Treaty of Troyes, tyranny, Wales, Westminster Chronicle

Henry Bolingbroke, of course, was not a tyrant. Not at all. It’s just that before he became king, he executed an earl and four knights, no doubt by mistake. He was neither king, high constable nor marshal, and anyway was a banished man. So he had no lawful authority whatever. But he was merely carrying…
How Edward IV’s bigamy should have been resolved

Jul 17, 2023

Alternative History, anniversaries, battles, genealogy, law, religion

Affinity, banns, bigamy, canon law, Castillon, Catherine de Roet, Catholicism, Church of England, consanguinity, Council of Trent, dispensations, Elizabeth Wydeville, family law, Henry VIII, illegitimacy, infertility, John Earl of Shrewsbury, John of Gaunt, lack of consent, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Lumley-Conyers marriage, Moynihan barony, non-consummation, Papal Legate, pre-contract, R.H. Helmholz, Ralph Butler Baron Sudeley, Reformation, Sixtus IV, Statute of Merton, widows, witchcraft

Canon law, as practiced in most of Europe to the late mediaeval period, is noticeably different to the laws of the United Kingdom today, although it is somewhat looser today in several ways. Consequently, secret marriages were banned eventually, only first cousins now require dispensations and relationships do not beget affinity, although previous manages still…
Bosworth – only ranked 9 out of 9….!

Apr 21, 2022

anniversaries, battles

Azincourt, Battle of Bosworth, Battle of Bouvines, Battle of Hastings, Battles of Sandwich, Castillon, cowardice, Crusades, Hattin, Henry VII, Mohi, Morgarten, Richard III, Sir William Stanley, Thomas Lord Stanley, tours, treachery

Bosworth, a victory for treachery – and for cowardice, because Henry Tudor didn’t raise a finger, but lurked at the back, behind a protective screen of bodyguards As far as Ricardians are concerned, the most important (and tragic) medieval battle was Bosworth, but 22nd August 1485 only makes it to number nine of nine! See…
ASTLEY CASTLE – HOME TO SIR JOHN AND ELIZABETH GREY nee WYDEVILLE.

Feb 12, 2020

anniversaries, battles, buildings, genealogy, law, religion

Astley Castle, Berlin, bigamy, Castillon, Edward IV, Elizabeth Viscountess Lisle, Elizabeth Wydeville, Greys, John Ashdown-Hill, John Earl of Shrewsbury, John Talbot Viscount Lisle, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Landmark Trust, pre-contract, Scheduled Ancient Monuments, Sir John Grey of Groby, Warwickshire

Astley Castle and church..photo taken 1976. Courtesy of Will Roe, Nuneaton Memories. Astley Castle, Warwickshire, was the marital home of Sir John and Elizabeth Grey nee Wydeville. Sir John often comes across as a shadowy figure, outshone in eminence by his wife, and later widow, who went on to catch the eye of a king. This…
Coming Upon the King: My Accidental Path Toward Becoming a Ricardian

Dec 10, 2019

anniversaries, archaeology, battles, buildings, genealogy, Science

“Eleanor”, “Princes”, Alaska, Anglo-Saxons, Anne Mowbray, Castillon, denialists, dental evidence, dishonesty, Edward IV, Elizabeth Wydeville, Garden Tower, Henry VII, John Ashdown-Hill, John Earl of Shrewsbury, Josephine Josepha Wilkinson, King Lear, Leicester dig, Magna Carta, mtDNA evidence, Nevilles, Richard III, Richard III Society, Shakespeare, Stuarts, Tanner and Wright, Weir, Westminster Abbey

I’ll be perfectly honest with you: I was never really that interested in Richard Plantagenet, later Richard III. In school I had avoided the Anglo-Saxons like the plague, and Richard, well, perhaps like a round of the flu. He wasn’t quite as intimidating, despite the double-murder allegation lodged, and I got away with not having…
So if …

Mar 31, 2019

anniversaries, battles, humour

Captain Mainwaring, Castillon, Charlotte Bronte, dental evidence, Domenico Mancini, Edward IV, Edward Rochester, Fawlty Towers, gap-toothed, Jane Eyre, John Earl of Shrewsbury, language, Manuel, Terry-Thomas

… Edward IV is either Mr. Rochester or Captain Mainwaring, which other fictional character may be based on one of his contemporaries? John, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, posthumously Edward’s father-in-law, who was identified after the battle of Castillon by the gap between his teeth might be Terry-Thomas? Domenico Mancini, a foreign visitor who barely understood…
Talbot Country

Feb 8, 2019

anniversaries, battles, genealogy, heraldry, law, sources

“Lambert Simnel”, Alton Towers, Battle of Bosworth, Bess of Hardwick, bigamy, Bridgnorth, Castillon, destruction of records, Duchess of Norfolk, Earls of Shrewsbury, Edward Grey Lord Lisle, Edward IV, Edward V, Elizabeth I, Elizabeth Wydeville, evidence, executions, Fotheringhay, France, funicular railways, George Duke of Clarence, George Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury, Henry VI, Henry VII, heraldic symbols, Hex, house arrest, House of York, Hundred Years War, illegitimacy, Jeanne d’Arc, John Earl of Shrewsbury, John Mowbray Duke of Norfolk, Lady Elizabeth Talbot, London, Lord Protector of the Realm, Margaret d’Anjou, Mary Stuart, memorials, Pontefract, pre-contract, pubs, Ralph Shaa, Richard III, Robert Stillington, secret marriage, Shropshire, Simon Stallworth, Sir Gilbert Talbot, Staffordshire, Talbot hound, Talbot Monument, Talbots, The Shrewsbury Book, Titulus Regius, Tutbury castle, Wingfield Manor

There is a pub in Bridgnorth, near where I live. Well, let’s be honest, there’s about a hundred. If you have ever been to Bridgnorth, aside from the Severn Valley Railway, the funicular railway from Low Town to High Town and the remains of the slighted castle, which lean at a greater angle than the…