Might there be another reconstruction of another English king called Richard….?

We all know the amazing reconstruction of the head of Richard III, and the confirmation it gave of how he really had looked. Forget Shakespeare’s Richard III, the real man had been young, good-looking and altogether normal, except for scoliosis that affected his spine. But when he was dressed, it wouldn’t have shown, especially in…

Maria de Padilla

I am surprised to find the internet has several images of Maria de Padilla. Her daughters married John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley and she was the grandmother of Catherine of Lancaster, aka Catalina, Queen of Castile,  Edward, Duke of York, Constance of York and Richard of Conisbrough. (Richard of Conisbrough is known thus to…

Richard III enters York

Richard III and his royal progress in York It is not that easy to find a city connected to King Richard III as York is. During his life, he visited the capital of Yorkshire many times and after he accepted the crown and became king, he left London for the Royal progress and stayed in…

MYSTERY OF THE MONK’S MUMMY

Ancient human remains can sometimes ‘speak’ to us through time and inform us not only of their own life stories, but how modern medical complaints came to be. Here is a case of a Franciscan friar’s mummified remains  found in an old church in Ecuador that collapsed during an earthquake in 1949. The man, who…

River Hunters at Warwick and Tewkesbury….

Last night I watched an episode of the new River Hunters series, in which two divers with metal detectors go searching rivers for evidence of historical events. This episode (see these excerpts ) was centred upon the River Avon in Warwickshire, specifically at Warwick Castle. The aim was to find evidence of the Wars of…

It was Julius Caesar who did it, so why blame the Wars of the Roses….?

During the Wars of the Roses, was there ever a deliberate policy of depopulation? By that, I cannot think of an example. Destruction, yes. Killing off the other side’s armed forces, yes. But the annihilation of towns and villages? Or of castles and strongholds, which were surely regarded as great prizes. So how could there…

1968 accuracy about Richard’s resting place….

Here is an extract that I found interesting. It’s from a 1968 booklet titled Discovering London 3: Medieval London, by Kenneth Derwent, published by Macdonald, and while it doesn’t condemn Richard, a previous paragraph states that the disappearance of Edward V and his brother “were disposed of” and that “the circumstantial evidence points most strongly…

The Staple

In early medieval times, ‘the staple’ meant England’s staple export: wool. But it was inconvenient and inefficient for the king’s men to collect the customs duties that were payable on the exported wool from every one of the hundreds of little English ports all around the country. London, Bristol, Ipswich and Sandwich were major ports…

Scoliosis treatments at the time of Richard III

After centuries of slanders about Richard III, always named as “the hunchbacked king”, it was finally proved that he just suffered from scoliosis. He was not born with this condition but he probably started to suffer with it in his adolescence between 10 and 15. This is the so-called idiopathic scoliosis that can be, in…

Try, try and try again – and unearth a Richard III full gold angel….!

  It just goes to show that giving something “one last try” can sometimes pay off handsomely. A detectorist who persevered discovered a Richard III full gold angel. Damaged, maybe, but still the real thing! And very rare. Well done Mark Porter. Read more at here