Perkin Warbeck: A Story of Deception – The Fascinating Enigma as presented in Ann Wroe’s biography

Originally posted on Giaconda's Blog:
I wanted to write a piece about the man who we know as Perkin Warbeck or Piers Osbeck or Richard Plantagenet or King Richard IV or whoever he may have been if he was none of these other men after reading Ann Wroe’s excellent biography on this most appealing…

An interview with Phillippa Langley – Part One …

… in which we question the “Kingfinder General”: 1) Did your name, shared with two of Richard III’s great-grandparents, interest you in him? I remember being intrigued by seeing the name Langley and the Philippas in his Plantagenet ancestry and family tree but it wasn’t what interested me in Richard. I was captivated by his…

The Making of Richard III’s Coat of Arms for his Tomb

I was quite amazed to find out last week, when visiting Leicester Cathedral, that the small coat of arms that can be seen on the front part of the tomb was made by a skilled craftsman called Thomas Greenaway, who is one of only a handful of people who use the 16th Century craft of…

Durham’s Lumiere Festival–a Cathedral of Light

http://www.lumiere-festival.com/durham-2015/ Durham’s Lumiere festival  will be taking place on November 12-15. It is Britain’s largest light festival. Most impressive perhaps is the illumination of the great cathedral on its eminent position above the river, in which medieval images are projected upon the ancient stonework and towers. Durham was well-known to Richard III; he and his…

Where those younger “Beauforts” really fit in

https://murreyandblue.wordpress.com/2014/06/27/a-genealogical-mystery-deepens-originally-published-in-the-december-2013-bulletin/ You will hopefully remember, from the above, that the first child by Katherine de Roet usually attributed to John of Gaunt may well have been legally (and biologically) her son by Sir Hugh Swynford. The other two Beaufort sons were childless and their sister married Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland, giving all of her…

Richard, Duke of Gloucester: the Man Who Wouldn’t be King

Anti-Ricardians often partly justify their dislike of Richard III on account of his unattractive crown-hunger, claiming that he was always desperate to be king, spent his life plotting to this end and ruthlessly eliminating anyone who stood in his way, and cite as proof the prompt “usurpation” of his nephew Edward V in 1483. I’ve…

A Welsh family for St. Crispin’s Day

We start with Dafydd Gam (c.1380-1415), who fought against the Glyn Dwr rebellion at the beginning of the fifteenth century, apparently trying to assassinate the leading rebel and being imprisoned by him. He may have saved Henry V’s life at Azincourt but was definitely killed there. His daughter, Gwladys ferch Dafydd Gam, married twice and…

Oh dear

The story of the Princes in the Tower Where do I start? “Richard was appointed to look after the children …” – which part of “Lord Protector and Defender OF THE REALM” does the writer not understand? Their maternal family, as was customary, was appointed to “look after” them. Carson’s latest book quotes the National…

Richard III and King’s College Chapel, Cambridge….

Laura Robinson investigates the events being held to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the completion of King’s College Chapel by Laura Robinson Friday 16th October 2015, 08:13 BST An interesting article, but I was a little surprised to read: “The crowning of Richard III sang life back into Henry’s forgotten opus; he pressed on with…

STILL LOOKING FOR RICHARD

Introduction According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, the noun Ricardianism means ‘support for or advocacy of Richard III’. Even though I have been a supporter of king Richard III for almost six decades, I am reluctant to describe myself as a Ricardian since it implies a narrow interest in one man. I prefer to…