The Priory of the Knights Hospitaller of St John at Clerkenwell

Updated post at sparkypus.com A Medieval Potpourri https://sparkypus.com/2020/06/25/the-priory-of-the-knights-hospitaller-of-st-john-at-clerkenwell-and-a-visit-by-richard-iii/ The Great South Gate, now known as St John’s Gate, from an engraving by Wenceslaus Holler 1661 Shortly after the death of his wife, Anne Neville on the 16th March 1485 Richard rode to the Priory of the Knights Hospitaller of St John at Clerkenwell.  .  On the…

Richard the Good, or Richard the Bad? A lecturer discusses it….

There is an announcement in The Millstone community newspaper for Mississippi Mills and The Area, of a lecture on March 31st on whether or not Richard III was a villain. It sounds as if it will be interesting: http://millstonenews.com/2017/03/almonte-lecture-on-bones-of-richard-iii-march-31.html

Empress Matilda-Should She Be Listed as an English Monarch?

One of the most fascinating (and bloody) periods of English history is The Anarchy, when Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I (he who might well be found sometime soon in the ruins of Reading Abbey) fought her cousin Stephen of Blois (thought to be in Faversham Abbey) for the English throne. Battles raged across the…

Well, well – who was the real St Alkelda of Middleham….?

28th March is the Feast of St Alkelda, a lady who has two churches named after her, one in Middleham, the other in Giggleswick. That seems clear enough. BUT there does not appear to be a St Alkelda. “She” may even be a well, there being a theory that the name Alkelda derives from an old…

Those accident-prone Stewarts

As this excellent article reminds us, there were eight pre-union Stewart monarchs, or nine if you exclude James VI, who had already reigned in Scotland for nearly forty years before inheriting the English throne. Of these, excepting the two Roberts, only two turned up for a pitched battle with against an English army and only…

Richard III’s Book of Hours – Digitized, Online and Available to All

“I think miracles exist in part as gifts and in part as clues that there is something beyond the flat world we see. ~Peggy Noonan Leicester Cathedral and its project supporters (angels?) have done something wonderful and generous: they have digitized Richard III’s “Book of Hours” and posted it on the cathedral’s website. What’s so…

QUEEN ANNE NEVILL – HER BURIAL IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY

UPDATED VERSION OF THIS POST @ sparkypus.com A Medieval Potpourri https://wordpress.com/post/sparkypus.com/449   Queen Anne Neville from the Salisbury Roll.  Anne’s mantle equates her ancestorial arms with those of England and France. After Anne Neville’s death on the 16th March 1485 , she was given a magnificent funeral in Westminster Abbey ‘with honours no less than…

Coming up this year:

As you can see, Kit Harrington will soon portray Robert Catesby in a BBC drama about the Gunpowder Plot. Catesby, shot while resisting arrest, was one of the lucky ones. Then again, our folk memory of the seventeenth century is not entirely accurate. Here it is.

Still at it!

Here are nine “celebrity” couples who married in secret, fairly recently, but Edward IV surely couldn’t have done, according to some “historians”. Once, perhaps, but definitely not twice, no matter what a Bishop, the Three Estates and Parliament, all of whom knew him well at the time, concluded. After all, nobody else ever has. {now…

Yes, that Thomas of Lancaster

He lost his head at Pontefract so what was he doing on sale in Colchester? This Kathryn Warner post gives a lot of detail about Thomas Earl of Lancaster’s life, rebellion and execution six days after the Battle of Boroughbridge. Here we explained the circumstances in which John Ashdown-Hill is seeking his remains, to solve…