Henry II
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Dyer or Dire?
Anthony Adolph, BBC1, Berkeley Castle, Buckingham Palace, Catherine Cromwell, Chris Given-Wilson, codpieces, coinage, dancing, Danny Dyer, Danny Dyer’s Right Royal Family, Denmark, direct descent, Dover Castle, Dukes of Normandy, dyeing, Edward II, Edward III, Elizabeth Norton, fencing, France, Helmingham Hall, Henry II, Henry Percy, Henry VIII, Historyonics, horses, Hugh le Despenser, Isabella de Valois, Jane Seymour, jousting, Leeds Castle, Louis IX, Nick Knowles, Norway, Piers Gaveston, Ray Winstone, red hot poker, Roger Mortimer, Rollo the Viking, saints, Shrewsbury, Sir John Seymour, St. Margaret of Wessex, sugar banquet, Sweden, Thomas Becket, Tobias Capwell, Tower of London, Tracy Borman, West Ham, Who do you think you are?, William I, Wolf HallMany of you will remember the episode of “Who do you think you are” in which Danny Dyer was revealed as a descendant of Edward III. In this new two part series, he “meets” a few prominent ancestors, some even more distant. The first episode began with Rollo, ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, which…
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Well, folks, even in 1170 it seems they were hell-bent on giving out improbable excuses! (This amusing cartoon parodying the recent events in Salisbury made me smile.)
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One of the greatest of Arthur’s knights was Sir Gawain, hero of (among other legends) the tale of the Green Knight. There is some very interesting information about Gawain here: I always knew that the Welsh tradition has Gawain (Welsh – Gwalchmai) buried as follows:- “The grave of Gwalchmai in Peryddon, as a disgrace to…
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Well, all this should be very interesting indeed…except for Hicks on Richard III, of course. Now, if it were to be Richard III on Hicks….yes, that would be worth the effort! “If your interest in royal history is piqued by the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, make a date in your diary to…
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“…A spectacular hoard of centuries-old coins found in a brook in the borough [Atherton] gives a small but perfectly-formed window into the past…” Fancy that. Thomas Jackson was poking around in a brook when he found a small rusty box, containing…43 old coins! How wonderful. The coins are apparently not that valuable. The earliest is…
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The Greatest Knight and Richard III
Barons’ War, Battle of Newbury, Bruces, Cartmel Priory, Crusades, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II, Henry III, Isabel de Clare, John, jousting, Lincoln, Louis VII, Maud de Braose, Papal Legate, Pembroke Castle, Plantagenets, regent, Richard I, Richard III, sieges, Stephen, Stewarts, Templars, Temple Church, William Marshall, Worcester Cathedral, Young King Henry
I have previously posted about my family history connections with Richard III here and I have since found out more interesting links. One such is William Marshall. Called by some the greatest ever knight, he is one of my direct ancestors and also the direct ancestor of Richard III. William had an eventful life. He…
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How Edward IV ascended the throne of England….
“Beauforts”, “Tudors”, cartoons, Castile, Catherine de Roet, Edmund Duke of Somerset, Edmund of Langley, Edmund of Rutland, Edward IV, Edward of Lancaster, Edward the Black Prince, executions, George Duke of Clarence, Henry II, Henry IV, Henry VI, Henry VII, humour, John of Gaunt, Lancastrians, Lionel of Antwerp, Margaret d’Anjou, Matilda, Mortimers, Phillippa of Lancaster, Richard Duke of York, Richard II, Richard III, Richard of Warwick, Shakespeare, SHW, Stephen, Tewkesbury, Tower of London, usurpation, Wakefield, Wars of the Roses, York, YorkistsThe Wars of the Roses did not commence, à la Bard, with white and red roses snatched and brandished in a garden by opposing lords, but they were foreshadowed at the turn of the fifteenth century when Henry of Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, usurped and murdered Richard II. Bolingbroke was the son and heir…
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Eleanor of Aquitaine was the daughter of a provincial Duke in France. Twice she married Kings and had many children, although she outlived most of them and several grandchildren, living into her ninth decade, suffering annulment and internal exile. Two of her sons became King of England and, through John “Sansterre”, she is the ancestress of…
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The ten worst Britons in history?
“Popish Plot”, Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Thomas Arundel, avarice, BUF, censorship, Cnut, Culloden, de heretico comburendo, Eadric Streona, Edmund Ironside, executions, Henry II, History Extra, Hugh le Despenser, Jack the Ripper, Jacobites, John, murder, perjury, Reformation, Sir Oswald Mosley, Sir Richard Rich, Thomas Becket, Titus Oates, torture, treachery, Whitechapel murders, William Duke of CumberlandThis is a very entertaining and well-illustrated 2006 article, choosing one arch-villain for each century from the eleventh to the twentieth. The all-male list includes just one King but two Archbishops of Canterbury. So what do you think?
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Shepperdine is a tiny settlement on the east shore of the Severn Estuary, SW of Berkeley, NW of Thornbury, and was once under the rule of the Berkeleys of Berkeley Castle, who hunted the now lost Horwood Forest that covered the area all the way to Bristol. This little part of England has not changed…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 