Hanley Castle

Hanley Castle is located in the south-western part of Worcestershire, only a short distance from the Gloucestershire border. Today it is a small, agreeable village, notable for a school, an excellent pub, The Three Kings and an interesting church, consecrated in 1325. As the place name implies, there was once a castle here, although all…

Expensive bog paper….!

  Oh dear. There are times when Amazon recommends books to me that are actually anathema to a loyal Ricardian. This time it’s…I can hardly type it….that awful Terry Breverton book Henry VII: The Maligned King. Porkies from beginning to end. Well, if the Weasel has been maligned I’ll eat my Yorkist hat. Maligned suggests…

A woman friend of King Richard II.

Thanks to the works of Douglas Biggs (cited below) I have learned something new and interesting about King Richard II. When he went to Ireland in 1399, he took a woman with him. The lady in question was a knight’s widow called Margaret Sarnesfield. Although her origins are uncertain, it is probable that she was…

Where to dig and investigate next….?

It’s always interesting to know where archaeologists hope to thrust their trusty trowels next, and this article lists some sites in England. The heading Category England seems clear enough to me. Um, not so, because Scotland, Ireland and the Welsh Marches are well represented. So, incidentally are Lancashire and Yorkshire, but then they are in…

Thomas of Woodstock was an unpleasant, supposedly pious bully….

This article Thomas of Woodstock and Shakespeare’s Twisted History | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net) begins as follows:- “….William Shakespeare wrote ten history plays. Of these, one of the most famous is  Richard II . The play  Richard II , written around 1595, is based on the rule of King Richard II (reign 1377-1399), but one of the main characters in…

Oops

For those of you who listened to Paddy’s Christmas Cracker on Radio Four during Christmas morning, the host really did announce that the King’s Message that day would be delivered by Charles the SECOND!

Shakespeare goes North….?

  Using software that detects plagiarism in phrases etc, Dennis McCarthy has concluded that Shakespeare adapted earlier plays by “the scholar knight” Sir Thomas North. He sets his reasoning out in a new book entitled simply Thomas North, with the subtitle The Original Author of Shakespeare’s Plays. Is this true? Well, according to this review…

What would YOU give Henry VII for Christmas….?

  It’s always amusing to ponder things concerning people from the past, and in this article the idea is to imagine a Secret Santa doling out gifts to specific figures. For instance, Alfred the Great should be given an air fryer, to solve his cake-baking hang-ups. And King John would surely benefit from a snorkel…

On identifying significant evidence

As this Ricardian article shows, it is quite possible to believe that something is highly probable whilst not noticing a piece of evidence that goes a long way towards proving it, or not appreciating the strength of the evidence in question. This particular case is about the widely held hypothesis that Margaret, daughter of Margaret…

GLEASTON CASTLE – RENDEZVOUS FOR THE YORKIST REBELS IN 1487?

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri @ sparkypus.com Gleaston Castle today.  Entrance to south west tower.  Photo Chloe Grainger @castlestudiestrust.org Some of you reading this may be familiar with other posts I have written concerning what I call the Coldridge theory.   For those of you who are not familiar with the theory here is a brief…