Joan of Kent
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The Priory of the Holy Cross, also known as the Crossed or Crutched Friars, near Tower Hill, was one of about forty-five religious houses and over one hundred parish churches in medieval London. Oh, how many of these wonderful buildings were lost forever in the Great Fire, never to be replaced? My recent contact with…
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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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Before I start, I must apologise for the decidedly uncontemporary illustrations. They are an indulgence, I fear. The one above, of the Prince of Wales (known to posterity as the Black Prince) in armour at an army camp, his hands clasped behind his back, seems to me to probably capture him exactly as he was…all…
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The illustration above is from Dan Jones’s book Summer of Blood: the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Part of the caption is “Queen Joan, Richard II’s mother, pleading with the rebels as the Savoy burned”. Elsewhere in the same book, Joan is referred to as the queen mother. According to Merriam Webster, the first known…
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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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There was once a royal house, sometimes referred to as a palace, in the street named The Riole in London’s Vintry Ward, and Richard III granted it to his good friend and ally, John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk. The great house was called the Tower Royal, and, like so much of medieval London, it…
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Why I dislike John of Gaunt….
Aldersgate, Anya Seton, Beaufort family., Canterbury Cathedral, Castile, changelings, Edward III, Edward the Black Prince, entail mail, France, George Kay, Henry IV, Henry Percy, heresy trial, Hundred Years War, Ian Mortimer, Joan of Kent, John of Gaunt, John Wycliffe, Kennington, Lancastrians, Lionel of Antwerp, Marshalsea Prison, Mortimers, Parliament, Peter Courtenay, Phillipa of Ulster, Phillippa of Hainault, Richard II, riots, Savoy Palace, The Fears of Henry IV, William of WykehamAs Ricardians, we know very well now, history can be twisted to suit. The matter of those strawberries and what happened next, for instance. I mean, the different versions are legion, even to the point of whether or not Thomas, Lord Stanley was ever present at all, let alone injured in a scrap and obliged…
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Richard III wasn’t the only dog to be given a bad name….
“Tudor” propaganda, Beverly, bull-running, carnivals, Elizabeth of Lancaster, Epiphany Rising, executions, Henry IV, Joan of Kent, John, John Holland, More, Richard II, Richard III, sanctuary, Scottish border, Shakespeare, Sir Ralph Stafford, St. Brice’s Day, Stamford, Stamford Greyfriars, Thomas Holland, usurpationWe all know how Richard III’s reputation has been besmirched over the centuries. He was turned into a monster because the likes of More and Shakespeare pandered to the Tudors’ need to justify their seizure of the throne. Thus he became a creature of misshapen body and mind, capable of putting his own child nephews…
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How and why the House of York laid claim to the throne….
Adam of Usk, Anne of Bohemia, Ashburnham House, Blanche of Lancaster, British Library, British Museum, Chandos Herald, Charters, Chris Given-Wilson, Cotton Library, Edmund Crouchback, Edmund Mortimer, Edmund of Langley, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III, Edward the Black Prince, English Historical Review, entail mail, Eulogium, France, Good Parliament, Havering atte Bower, Henry III, Henry IV, Henry V, Isabella de Valois, Isabella of Angouleme, Joan of Kent, John of Gaunt, Lionel of Antwerp, male line, Michael Bennett, Penny Lawne, Phillipa of Ulster, Richard Duke of York, Richard II, Roger Mortimer, Romford, Salic Law, Scotichronicon, Sheen, Simon Sudbury, Sir Richard Stury, succession, Thomas of Lancaster, Thomas of woodstock, Thomas Walsingham, Wars of the Roses, willsHere is an article from English Historical Review, 1st June 1998, telling of how and why Richard, 3rd Duke of York, laid claim to the throne of England. The root cause was an entail to the will of Edward III, who was admittedly in his dotage at the time. The entail, which excluded a female…
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No, no – do not be put off by this dry old illustration, for it but masks the workings of an over-active mind. Mine! Does anything about the following sound familiar? “…The nickname John of London, given to Richard [II], alludes to a report spread by Henry that Richard was the illegitimate son of the…
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