MARGARET BEAUFORT, THE UNKNOWN REGENT

Recently it came up on Mastermind that Margaret Beaufort was once Regent of England. This surprised me as I had not heard this fact stated before.  Digging on the internet, it turns out it is indeed true. Henry VIII was not quite of age when he ascended the throne, although he was not far off,…

Myths about the murderous mandrake….

  “….in the Mediterranean there grows a…murderous plant called the mandrake. Its roots can look bizarrely like a human body, and legend holds that it can even come in male and female form. It’s said to spring from the dripping fat and blood…of a hanged man. Dare pull it from the earth and it lets…

It’s history, Jim, but not as we know it….

OK, folks, bearing in mind that it’s from an article about Game of Thrones, here’s a portion of England’s history, both potted and potty:- “To begin with, the House of Lannister seems to be pretty closely based on the real life House of Lancaster. To vastly simplify actual history, the War of the Roses was…

A house in Scarborough

If you visit Scarborough Castle and go down towards the beach from there, turn your head to your right and walk along the seafront opposite the Harbour, and you will notice something singular. Among the shops, cafés and fish-and-chip restaurants, there is a house that stands out because it is the oldest in the area.…

A New Novel of Richard III

Finally my new novel, Distant Echoes, is available on Kindle for only £2.50 ($2.99 on Amazon.com). The paperback is imminent too! It was inspired by lyrics from a song, Sheriff Hutton, by The Legendary Ten Seconds. Here is the synopsis of the story: A new, innovative invention. The DNA of a mediaeval king. Put them…

A fleeting trick of the eye….

Occasionally, an image glimpsed quickly on TV appears to be something it is not. This happened to me when I first saw the TV trailer for the series Catching History’s Criminals: the Forensics Story on the Yesterday channel. Being inured to the old, old propaganda that Richard III was the first criminal in all Creation,…

Have a yummy choccy chunk of Windsor Castle….?

Oh, dear, I think I died and went to heaven, having just discovered that Cadbury made a chocolate Windsor Castle for the wedding of Harry and Meghan. For the couple who already have everything they want? No! For heaven’s sake, don’t waste it on the royals! Let this peasant get her choccy hammer out and…

Not again: “Britain’s bloody Crown” (3)

Here at Murrey and Blue, we are not in the habit of reviewing repeats, not even when we have commented on them before. This time, it is the very fact and timing of the repeat of Channel Four’s “Who killed the Princes in the Tower?”, with the ubiquitous Dan Jones, that is at issue, together…

Digging up Britain’s Past: By George, I think she’s got it

This second episode of this Channel Five series, presented by Alex Langlands and Helen Skelton, took us to Elsyng Palace, a North London house built by Henry VIII but with question marks about its precise venue until recently. Very unusually, the presenters clearly stated that the “King’s Great Matter” concerned not a divorce from Catherine…

A very detailed, interesting and informative thesis with a lot about Henry VI, Edward IV and Richard III…

There are few more fertile sources for intricate information about the medieval past (and other areas too, of course) than theses that have been published online. A prime website for these is White Rose eTheses on line, of which I have written before. I am mentioning the site again now because of finding a particularly absorbing 2016 thesis by Anna Maria…