Geoffrey Chaucer
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There is an increasing appetite these days for audio versions of books. Whether just sitting at home, driving your car, or even out in the garden, listening to a famous actor reading to you, or even the author, is a great pleasure that sometimes beats reading the book for yourself. Which makes me reconsider…
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Rightly or wrongly, when someone has had a shock, it’s often the impulse of those around him/her to offer a “stiff drink”. This usually means spirits, although I admit that in Britain a cup of tea is as likely “to do the trick”! The spirits thing appears in novels and films, and is well…
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Britain’s Most Historic Towns (2)
“Tudors”, Alice Roberts, ATS, Ben Robinson, Black Death, Bristol, Canterbury, Canterbury Cathedral, Cardiff, Channel Four, Charles I, chocolate, city walls, coal, defences, Demonology, Dover, dressing up, Dunkirk, Edwardian era, England, English Civil War, Flodden, France, Geoffrey Chaucer, George Villiers Duke of Buckingham, Georgian era, gin, Henry VIII, James III, James IV, James V, James VI/I, Magna Carta, Marquess of Bute, Mary Stuart, New Model Army, Oxford, Peasants’ Revolt, Plantagenet era, real tennis, Rough Wooing, Sauchieburn, Scottish Reformation, Second World War, Siege of Oxford, slavery, Solway Moss, St. Augustine, Stewarts, Stirling, Stirling Castle, Thomas Becket, witchcraftThis excellent Channel Four programme, presented by Professor Alice Roberts, with Dr. Ben Robinson in the helicopter, has returned for a new series. The early venues were Dover (World War Two, visiting the underground base, concentrating on the retreat from Dunkirk and subsequent Channel defence, meeting some survivors, wearing ATS uniform and riding in a…
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How’s this for a blooper? The youngest of Edward III’s sons was “Edmund Langley, later bishop of York”. Um, I wonder what Edmund‘s wives, children, and the line of the House of York would have thought of THAT! The blooper is from The Life and Times of Chaucer, by John Gardner. Edmund is listed correctly…
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The Castle of Leicester and St Mary De Castro
Alfred the Great, Battle of Bosworth, Blanche of Lancaster, Castle Gardens, Civil War, crime, Geoffrey Chaucer, Great Hall, Green Bicycle Murder, Henry I, Henry IV, Henry VI, Hugh de Grantmesil, John of Gaunt, Leicester, Leicester Castle, Norman conquest, Philippa de Roet, Phillippa of Hainault, Prince Rupert’s Gateway, Richard Duke of York, Richard III, Robert de Beaumont, St. Aethelflaeda, St. Mary De CastroLeicester Castle Since 2015 going to Leicester is the equivalent of going to visit the tomb of the last Plantagenet King who died in battle: Richard III. Everything there speaks of him from the Visitor Centre named after him, to The Last Plantagenet Pub not to mention attractions and shops that display his portrait…
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Given her huge notoriety at the time, it’s odd that Edward III’s mistress, Alice Perrers, has (as far as I can ascertain) only garnered one biography. This is Lady of the Sun by F George Kay, 1966 (and seemingly never reprinted). There are no surviving contemporary likenesses of Alice, nor even a description of her.…
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SIR THOMAS MORE , A MAN FOR ALL REASONS: SAINT OR SINNER?
“Perkin”, “Princes”, “The History of King Richard III”, “Tudor” Despotism, “Tudors”, Alan Grant, Anthony Woodville, Archbishop of Canterbury, bigamy, Bishop of Norwich, Carmeliano, Carthusian Monastery, Colet, Domenico Mancini, Dr. Horsey, Edward IV, Edward of Buckingham, Elizabeth Lucy, Elizabeth Wydeville, Erasmus, executions, Fabyan, Geoffrey Chaucer, Greek, Hanseatic League, Henry VII, Henry VIII, heresy, Horace Walpole, humanism, Hunne Case, John Morton, John Rous, Kincaid, King’s Bench, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Lambeth Palace, Latin, law, Lollards, London Charterhouse, Lord Chancellor, Lutheran texts, More, New Inn, Oxford University, Paul Murray Kendall, Peter Ackroyd, Polydore Vergil, pre-contract, Ralph Shaa, Reformation, renaissance, Richard III, Richard Sylvester, saints, Sallust, sanctuary, satire, Sir John Harrington, Stony Stratford, Tey, The Daughter of Time, Thomas Wolsey, Threadneedle Street, Tillyard, Utopia, William Roper‘Not exactly the horse’s mouth’ In Josephine Tey’s spellbinding novel ‘The Daughter of Time’, Detective Inspector Alan Grant has a reputation for being able to spot a villain on sight. Whilst in hospital with a broken leg, Grant is idly flipping through some old postcard portraits to while away the time. He turns over a…
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Well, I confess I only know a few of these, and am disappointed that one of my personal favourites, Kingdom of Heaven, doesn’t make this list.
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Today in 1495, Jasper “Tudor”, Earl of Bedford died …
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