jousting
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It’s King Richard’s Faire time again across the Atlantic. Let’s face it, our American friends certainly know how to celebrate the fun and games of medieval England! Unfortunately for us on this side of the Pond, the heralds arrived a little late for us to take up the opening-day (Saturday, 30 August 2025) challenge. Not…
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An Interview With… Thomas Dennis

This is the first in a proposed series of interviews with notable people associated with King Richard III. A short while ago, I was lucky enough to interview Thomas Dennis, the young actor who recreated the voice of Richard III. He was chosen, not only for his acting ability (which has garnered great reviews), but…
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With all the recent publicity and very real worry over the head injuries that are part and parcel of physical sports such as boxing, football and rugby, I’ve been prompted to consider similar injuries that must have happened in earlier periods of our history, when activities such as tourneying were very much the…
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The Ancestry of Sir Richard Pole.
Bletsoe, Charltons, Cheshire, Constable of Haverfordwest, Dafydd Fawr, de la Poles, Despensers, Earl of Pembroke, Earls of Suffolk, Edith St. John, executions, Geoffrey Pole I, Henry IV, Henry V, jousting, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Margaret Beauchamp, Poles of Powys, Pooles of the Wirral, Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, Richard II, Sheriff of Glamorgan, Sir John Poole of Cheshire, Sir John St. John, Sir Oliver St. John, Sir Richard Pole, Thomas Stafford, WalesRichard Pole is perhaps most famous for being the husband of Margaret Plantagenet, later Countess of Salisbury. But who was he? His maternal ancestry is relatively straightforward. He was the son of Edith St. John, who was the half-sister of Margaret Beaufort. So that makes him the (half-blood) first cousin of Henry VII. Edith St.…
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Philippa Mortimer, Countess of Pembroke and Arundel – a short, interesting and little-known life
accidents, annulment, Arundel Castle, Boxgrove Priory, dowries, Edmund Mortimer, executions, John Hastings Earl of Pembroke, John of Gaunt, jousting, Lord St. John of Basing, Philippa Mortimer, Philippa of Ulster, Richard Earl of Arundel, Sir John St. John, Sussex, Thomas Poynings, uxuriousness, Westminster ChroniclePhilippa was the younger of the two daughters of Edmund Earl of March and Philippa of Clarence,and second youngest of their four children, being born in November 1375. Philippa lost both her parents at a very young age, but her future was provided for (eventually) by her marriage to John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke after…
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OLD LONDON BRIDGE – A MEDIEVAL WONDER!
Anne Sutton, bigamy, Canterbury Cathedral, Chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr, coronation procession, David Earl of Crawford, Dover, Drawbridge Gate, Elizabeth Wydeville, fire, funeral procession, Great Stonegate, Henry II, Henry V, Jack Cade, John Stow, jousting, Kentishmen, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Livia Visser-Fuchs, Lord Wells, Old London Bridge, Peasants’ Revolt, Peter de Colechurch, pre-contract, rebellions, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Southwark, Thomas Becket, traitors, Vikings, Wat Tyler, Westminster AbbeyREBLOGGED FROM sparkypus.com A Medieval Potpourri London from Southwark, c.1630. Old London Bridge is in the right foreground and Old St Paul’s Cathedral on the skyline to the left. Old London Bridge Antiquated, in a run down state, and at 600 years old, the old bridge had reached its self by date and was demolished in…
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Leslau, Holbein, More and Clement
“Princes”, Dr. John Clement, Duchy of Lancaster, Edward VI, Elizabeth I, Erasmus, esses, Fleet prison, fleuur-de-lys, flowers, Germany, Hans Holbein, Henry Patterson, Henry VIII, infrared photography, Jack Leslau, John Dudley Duke of Northumberland, John Fisher, John Harris, jousting, Latin, Louvain, Matt Lewis, Mechelen, peonies, Pilgrimage of Grace, rebus, Richard III, Rowlandas Lockey, royal arms, Seneca, Sir Anthony Wingfield, Sir Edward Guildford, The Family of Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas More, Thomas Wolsey, Tower of London, Utopia, William CecilBefore I begin, I have two words of warning. The first is that a huge spoiler for my novels Loyalty and the sequel Honour unavoidably follows. Just so that you know! Secondly, the following is my telling of the theory researched and expounded by Jack Leslau, an amateur art enthusiast who believed that he stumbled…
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“Bone Detectives” come to Ipswich …
A9, Amesbury, Bath, Beaker Folk, Beeston Castle, body snatching, Bristol, Bristol Royal Infirmary, Caithness, Canon William Dutton, Cheshire, curses, dissection, Dutton family, Egypt, Fifth Crusade, Great Budworth, Ipswich waterfront, John de Lacy, jousting, Minerva, Norton Priory, Paget’s disease, post-mortem damage, Raksha Dave, Ranulf Earl of Chester, Roman Britain, Runcorn, Scotland, Sir Geoffrey Dutton, St. Augustines, St. George’s Concert Hall, Stoke Quay, Tori Herridge, wounds… and other venues, with Tori Herridge and Raksha Dave. This Channel Four series, which consists of five episodes, begins at Stoke Quay on the town’s Waterfront where a long-forgotten (St. Augustine’s) burial ground was fully explored before some new buildings were constructed. Three bodies in particular were examined: 1) A wealthy man buried in…
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We definitely do have set beliefs about medieval horses, mostly incorrect. Just because we see illustrations of medieval lords riding what look like ponies too small for them, we think it must be the fault of the illustrator. But no, for journeys they really did have small trotting horses that could keep going on and…