Christmas
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Who’s coming to dinner (a guest post)
“Princes”, Anne Neville, bigamy, Brittany, Burgundy, castles, Christmas, Earl Rivers, Edward IV, Edward of Middleham, Elizabeth of York, Elizabeth Wydeville, France, Gipping Halll, Henry of Buckingham, Henry VII, Jacquette, John Duke of Bedford, John Kendall, Lent, Margaret d’Anjou, Margaret Duchess of Burgundy, Nottingham Castle, Portugal, Richard III, Sheriff Hutton, Sir Edward Brampton, Sir James Tyrrell, sumptuary laws, WestminsterHow did this happen? Am I dreaming? Is there some sort of Time-slip? Yet here I am, somehow “transposed” from my 21st century self to a Lady-in-Waiting, helping to host a secret dinner. I cannot understand how or why it has occurred, all I know is that it is the end of February 1485, after…
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The Traitor’s Arms?
“Defiance”, “Loveday”, Act of Accord, Agnes Sorel, allegory, Angevin bloodline, Arma Reversata, Ashperton, Ashperton monument, attainder, Blore Heath, Book of Hours, Calais, carvings, Catherine de Roet, Catherine de Valois, Charles VII, chivalry, Chrimes, Christmas, College of Heralds, Cornish rebellion, coronations, Courtauld Institute of Art, Coventry, crowns, Dunstable Chronicle, Earls of Salisbury, Edmund Crouchback, Edmund Duke of Somerset, Edward Hall, Edward IV, Edward of Lancaster, Edward the Black Prince, Elizabeth I, executions, First Battle of St. Albans, fleuur-de-lys, Fox-Davies, France, French College of Arms, Garter stalls, Gascony, Geoffrey Fisher, Great Seal, Hanseatic fleet, Helen Maurer, helmets, Henry Holland Duke of Exeter, Henry IV, Henry VI, Hereford Cathedral, Herefordshire, Hicks, high treason, Historia Anglorum, Hollands, Hon y soit qui mal y pense, House of York, Hugh Despencer, Hugh Despencer the Younger, Humphrey of Gloucester, Ian Mortimer, insanity, inverted arms, Ireland, Jack Cade, Jacques de Saint-George, James II, James VI/I, Jeanne d’Arc, Joan “Beaufort”, John of Bedford, John of Gaunt, Lancastrians, lions, livery collars, Lord of Misrule, Lord Protector of the Realm, Mary de Bohun, Matthew Parris, mortimer claim, Mortimer’s Cross, Nigel Saul, Nikolaus Pevsner, Normans, Northampton, Old St. Paul’s, Order of the Crescent, Order of the Garter, Owain Tudor, Parliament of Devils, Plantagenets, plaster mouldings, propaganda, Ralph Earl of Westmorland, Ralph Griffiths, renaissance, Rene d’Anjou, Restoration, reversed arms, Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, Richard Duke of York, Richard of Salisbury, Rose Troup, Sandwich, Seine, Shakespeare, shields. royal arms, Sir Andrew Trollope, Sir Ralph Grey, squirrel, Staffords, stonemasons, swan badge, Switzerland, symbolism, the Beauforts., tombstones, tournaments, Treaty of Troyes, Tres Rich Heures, Warwick the Kingmaker, Westminster Abbey, Wigmore, William Duke of Suffolk, William Grandison, William Neville Lord Fauconberg, Windsor Castle, Woolhope ClubIn 1840 workmen carrying out repairs to St Bartholomew’s Church, Ashperton, Herefordshire were collecting stones from the ruins of a nearby manor house when they discovered a heavy stone plaque, carved with an elaborate coat of arms, among the rubble. The stone was taken to the church for safekeeping and has hung on the wall…
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“ . . . . Christmas with the King [ Henry III ] doesn’t immediately sound like the social engagement you would expect for a Benedictine monk, but wind the clock back to the early 13th century and for one particularly colourful religious figure, a royal invitation was nothing out of the norm . .…
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Here’s an interesting link to an article about how the medieval Tsars spent Christmas in Moscow. I know we grizzle about the British weather, but I’d rather be here any time than be turned to ice in Russia!
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Epiphany – medieval and now….
Anne of Bohemia, birthdays, Canterbury Cathedral, Chapel of Our Lady of the Pew, Christmas, Christmas decorations, Epiphany, Epiphany Rising, feast days, Gregorian Calendar, Henry IV, Julian Calendar, Magi, Peasants’ Revolt, Pontefract Castle, rebellion, Richard II, Shakespeare, Sir William Walworth, Smithfield, St. Edmund, St. Edward the Confessor, St. George, St. John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Twelfth Night, wassailing, Wat Tyler, Westminster Abbey, Wilton Diptych, yule logsAccording to the Oxford Dictionary, the following two definitions refer to the use of the word epiphany:- The manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (Matthew 2:1–12). Definition (1) A moment of sudden and great revelation/realisation. Definition (2) Epiphany has been a recognised feast of the Western Church since the 5th…
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Reconstruction of Christmas at Eltham 1482 – Historic England (illustration by Peter Urmston) In the 14th century it became a royal tradition to spend Christmas at Eltham, and by 1482, Edward IV also held his Christmas there. The top picture is an imagined scene of this Christmas in the great hall (pictured immediately above) with…
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I was browsing, and came upon the following interesting details about how Henry VII celebrated Christmas and Twelfth Night. It is from Christmas: Its Origin and Associations by William Francis Dawson, which I found in Google Books. The following extract has been tweaked a little by me, to create more paragraphs and thus make it…
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Long before Gourmet Magazine went out of business in 2009, collapsed under too many overwrought articles on bovine emissions, it had been an intellectual colossus in the culinary world. From the 1940s through the ’60s, it featured lush travel articles on world cuisine venturing into far-flung places such as Persia, Bhutan (“a taste of Shangri-La!”)…
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I know I have (more than once!) written of a strange string of coincidences connecting Richards II and III and their queens, both named Anne. Now I have come upon another question that puzzles me. It is well known that Richard II loved his Anne deeply, and was distraught when she died suddenly in the summer…
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What was Christmas like for Richard III? I’m thinking particularly of 1483, his first as king. He still had both his wife and child, and the future must have looked set for a long and prosperous reign. He was only to have two Christmases as king, and by 1484 he and Anne had lost their…
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