The New Murrey and Blue blog

red rose

Urswick, the red rose and being the saviour of Henry VII….

Jan 3, 2023

anniversaries, art, battles, buildings, genealogy, heraldry, religion

“Perkin”, “Princes”, “Tudors”, Battle of Bosworth, Christopher Urswick, David Starkey, executions, flight, Henry VII, John of Gaunt, Lady Margaret Beaufort, rebellions, red rose, Richard III, Sir William Stanley, Sutton House Lecture, Wqales

Well, it’s a fair bet that anything involving David Starkey is going to be anti-Richard III. If it also concerns Christopher Urswick, it’s a foregone conclusion. Both crop up in the Sutton House Lecture of (I think) 2019. It seems that “historian and TV and radio presenter David Starkey” (they forgot the comedian bit) gave…
History and cultural history (I)

Dec 14, 2014

battles, heraldry, The play’s the thing

David Starkey, Edmund Duke of Somerset, executions, Fotheringhay, Henry VI, King Lear, red rose, Richard Duke of York, Shakespeare, white rose

As we have observed before, Shakespeare’s plays tend to be historically inaccurate but they make good cultural history for his own lifetime. As an example, we took King Lear (probably written 1605-6), in which Cordelia was executed for political reasons, something that almost never happened to women before 1536, in England or Scotland. Similarly, the…