witchcraft
-
Aha, so Elizabeth Woodvile was a witch, and so was her mother, Jacquette of Luxembourg. Well, everyone knew that already, because Philippa Gregory wrote about it in great detail. So it just has to be true! Anyway, joking aside, this History extra article is interesting for the information it gives about what the English…
-
Britain’s Most Historic Towns (2)
“Tudors”, Alice Roberts, ATS, Ben Robinson, Black Death, Bristol, Canterbury, Canterbury Cathedral, Cardiff, Channel Four, Charles I, chocolate, city walls, coal, defences, Demonology, Dover, dressing up, Dunkirk, Edwardian era, England, English Civil War, Flodden, France, Geoffrey Chaucer, George Villiers Duke of Buckingham, Georgian era, gin, Henry VIII, James III, James IV, James V, James VI/I, Magna Carta, Marquess of Bute, Mary Stuart, New Model Army, Oxford, Peasants’ Revolt, Plantagenet era, real tennis, Rough Wooing, Sauchieburn, Scottish Reformation, Second World War, Siege of Oxford, slavery, Solway Moss, St. Augustine, Stewarts, Stirling, Stirling Castle, Thomas Becket, witchcraftThis excellent Channel Four programme, presented by Professor Alice Roberts, with Dr. Ben Robinson in the helicopter, has returned for a new series. The early venues were Dover (World War Two, visiting the underground base, concentrating on the retreat from Dunkirk and subsequent Channel defence, meeting some survivors, wearing ATS uniform and riding in a…
-
Haunted Essex
Colchester Castle, Cross Keys Saffron Walden, Essex, executions, Green Man Harlow, Harwich Redoubt, haunting, Howards, James Parnell, Kelvedon Nuclear Bunker, Manningtree, Matthew Hopkins, Mistley Pond, North Weald Station, Red Lion Colchester, Rose and Crown Colchester, St. Osyth, Ursula Kemp, Valence House Dagenham, White Hart Coggeshall, witchcraftSome of the venues in this article are surprising and the nocturnal visits sound very expensive but they include some classic historical venues. In Colchester, the Castle and (Howard) Red Lion are included, as is the Redoubt at Harwich, although the Kelvedon Nuclear Bunker and North Weald Station are much newer. In the north of…
-
The following article is from here. It is a light-hearted look at the things our medieval sisters did to make themselves look beautiful:- Longing to know how to hide your devil’s marks and dissolve your hairline? Step this way! Strictly speaking, the Middle Ages extend from the 5th to the 15th century, but here,…
-
There are many, many false ideas and funny beliefs about the Middle Ages and some of the notable figures who lived in those times. Alfred and the cakes, Edward II and the hot poker, Eleanor of Aquitaine flinging poisoned toads on Fair Rosamund… And of course, almost everything you can think of about Richard III. …
-
Joan of Arc and Les Soldats
Armagnacs, Azincourt, Battle of the Herrings, Bauge, Blois, Bluebeard, Burgundians, Carl Dreyer, Charles VII, Clement de Fauquebergue, Compiegne, Etienne de Vignolles, executions, France, George Bernard Shaw, Gilles de Rais, Henry Cardinal Beaufort, heresy, Jean Anouillh, Jean Benedetti, Jean Dunois, Jeanne d’Arc, John Duke of Bedford, John Earl of Shrewsbury, le Mans, Loire, Louis d’ Orleans, Mark Twain, mass murder, Orleans, Otto Preminger, Parlement de Paris, prophecy, Rheims, Siege of Paris, siege of Rouen, Sir John Fastolf, St. Catherine, St. Michael, Thomas Kenneally, Verneuil, William Duke of Suffolk, William Glasdale, witchcraftToday marks the 587th anniversary of the death of Joan of Arc, burned at the stake at Rouen, France. As the flames engulfed her, she clutched a cross made of sticks to her bosom, fashioned by an ordinary English solder. “Jesus!” was her last word. She was 19 years old. In 1920, almost…
-
Why do the Salem Witch Trials continue to fascinate after three hundred and twenty five years? Why do tourists and locals, wiccans, witches, warlocks and wizards continue to walk the crowded streets of this pretty little seaside city in Massachusetts in search of magic and mayhem? What propels them to stroll the narrow streets, licking…
-
If the witchcraft trials at North Berwick in the 1590s and later in England, of which Pendle in 1610 is an example, happened because James VI/I fervently believed in witchcraft, as shown by the three characters in Macbeth, it can be argued that the subsequent decline in such cases came because judges and Charles I…
-
Lancashire, in the early 17th Century, was one of the poorest and least populated counties of England, where even many gentry families had an income of less than £100 a year. The Forest of Pendle, which lies between Burnley, Colne, Clitheroe and Whalley in a remote corner of the county close to the Yorkshire border,…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 