Henry IV
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Well the claim in the title above must be true, because it says so on this YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrkJ4M0Mx4M. 🙄 Boo! Hiss! So here’s more about the first Lancastrian Henry to usurp the throne of a rightful King Richard. We’re talking Bolingbroke, a.k.a. Henry IV, right? Not a long video, doesn’t reach 2 minutes, but,…
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If you study the above image (taken from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QIEHdwpAQc) you could be forgiven for thinking the video it comes from concerns someone from around about Cromwell’s era. But no! The King Locked Away. Never Left Alive is about Richard II, who was 14th century! So the makers of the above 1 minute 16 second video…
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I’m writing this because of the article you’ll find at the following link: https://tinyurl.com/5vrc3c6z. Yet again there is a certain economy with the truth where Richard II is concerned. Because of this, we may not know much about Wat Tyler, one of the leaders of the so-called Peasants’ Revolt, but we sure as heck know…
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We always bunch the participants in the Peasants’ Revolt together as something akin to Bulwer-Lytton’s great unwashed . But were they the great unwashed? No, according to new research. (See https://theconversation.com/who-were-the-peasants-of-the-1381-peasants-revolt-new-database-has-answers-278011.) Many of them were almost wealthy by 14th-century standards, and women played a great part in what happened. What they didn’t have was armour!…
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This link https://www.thecollector.com/british-royal-melodramas/ is an interesting accompaniment to your morning tea/coffee, and it’s Number Four in the list, Cousins in Conflict: Wars of the Roses, that will interest Ricardians the most. So I’ll deal with that and not the others, which are yours to read as you please. Two King Richards figure in the commentary,…
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The following contains my comments on this review (https://www.pressreader.com/uk/yorkshire-post-yp-magazine/20260124/282218017200594) of the book “The Eagle and the Hart” by Helen Castor. The reviewer (Greg Wright of YP Magazine) remarks that the “dazzling [book] has the pace of a thriller”. Well, it’s certain a work of fiction. Here is a small extract of the review, to set…
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“….Richard II is one of the Bard’s history plays, the others being Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV Part 2 and Henry V….” (From https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-weekend-witness-south-africa-9we6/20250726/281646786186296) Wot, no Richard III! 😮And this glaring omission when heading the given list of leading actors in these plays is Benedict Cumberbatch, who played—ta-ra!—Richard III! Well, the Pressreader writer of…
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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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Six (or seven?) marriages but only one husband (or two?)….!
1st Duke of Milan, 4th Earl of Kent, Austin Friars London, Bourne Abbey in Lincolnshire, Constance of York, dowries, Edmund Holand 4th Earl of Kent, Gian Galeazzo, Henry IV, Henry VII, John Beaufort 1st Earl Somerset, John Holand 1st Earl of Huntingdon 1st Duke of Exeter, Lucia Visconti Countess of Kent, Mary de Bohun, Minories, Richard II, Southwark Cathedral, St Mary Overy, The Lancashire Holandsv, the siege of BréhatYou have no doubt heard of the Minories. “….The Order of the Sorores Minores, to which the abbey of the Minores in London belonged, was founded by St Clara of Assisi in Italy, and claimed Palm Sunday, March 18th 1212, as the date of its origin….” More popularly referred to as the Minories, in the…
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Yesterday I wrote about the 1402 visit to England of the beleaguered Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, see https://murreyandblue.org/2024/12/14/in-1400-england-played-host-to-a-byzantine-emperor/. He was travelling around the western kingdoms desperately seeking support because he was having immense difficulty fending off the encroaching Ottomans. But I have now learned that it was probably an event much further back from…
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