Will the sequencing of Richard’s genome prove he was good or bad….?

On Tuesday 2nd March a new series commences on BBC2 (9 pm) about what may or may not be revealed by the in-depth study of DNA and sequencing genomes. Of course, this will include Richard. How can it not? Especially when Professor Turi King is involved. Richard is surely the most important and prominent historical…

So here is the challenge:

Dan Snow (LLoyd George knew his great-grandmother) said (punctuation corrected): “I thought twitter was full of Richard III fans. So, WATSON, why in the name of usurping cadet branches has the Henry V hoodie has massive outsold the Richard III one.”  “Where are you, Ricardians?” We can do something about it here.

Welsh Marcher Lordships

So here is the latest video from the Legendary Ten Seconds, this time about the Mortimers and other Marcher Lords.     Here are the lyrics: THE MARCHER LORDS   ON THE BORDER WITH WALES WE STAND DEFENCE AND CONQUEST WE HAVE IN HAND OUR KING AND COUNTRY WE MAY SERVE THOUGH IT’S OUR OWN…

Who’s coming to dinner (a guest post)

How did this happen? Am I dreaming? Is there some sort of Time-slip? Yet here I am, somehow “transposed” from my 21st century self to a Lady-in-Waiting, helping to host a secret dinner. I cannot understand how or why it has occurred, all I know is that it is the end of February 1485, after…

A beautiful Yorkshire church with connections to the Scropes of Bolton….

Here is a link to a very interesting paper on the astonishingly beautiful but now redundant church of Holy Trinity in the small North Yorkshire village of Wensley. I’m posting it because this church was much patronised by the Scropes of Bolton who did, of course, have great connections to our period and to various…

THE ANCIENT TREES OF GREENWICH PALACE HUNTING GROUNDS

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri sparkypus.com THE ANCIENT OAK TREE KNOWN AS THE ‘ELIZABETH’ OAK.  With thanks to Spitalfieldlife for this photo.   In the words of Sir John Howard,  Duke of Norfolk, Richard III’s loyal friend, I get  as ‘wode as a Wilde bullok‘  when I read yet another tedious reference to Henry VIII…

GREAT BALLS OF FIRE! CHARLES VI OF FRANCE

On January 28, 1393, Charles VI decided to partake in the  Bal des Sauvages, the Ball of the Wild Men, a masquerade ball in which the ruler joined with gusto, joining a party of five other nobles to perform a frenzied dance dressed as a ‘woodwose’–a Wild Man of the forest. Unfortunately, the Ball ended…

THE TRIAL OF RICHARD III, PART 1

REBLOGGED FROM A MEDIEVAL POTPOURRI SPARKYPUS.COM The statue of Justice, Old Bailey, London. Way back in  1980 the late Jeremy Potter,  Chairman of the Richard III Society,  and producer Richard Drewitt discussed King Richard III at length and an idea was born.    That was to put Richard  on trial for a heinous murder he had…

The strange story of the Stanley boy….

Yes, very strange, because there are conflicting histories of this effigy and tomb shown in the image above. The tomb is in St Peter’s Church, Elford, Staffordshire, and both it and the effigy are rather small and therefore generally believed to be that of a child. The story is that the dead boy was John…

Edward of Warwick, a “pretender” to Henry VII’s throne? Well, REALLY Mr Amin….!

  Oh dear, Nathen Amin wants us to fork out £10 to listen to him lecturing that poor old Henry VII was beset by wicked imposters and pretenders? I think not. Not even 10p! Especially as poor Edward, Earl of Warwick didn’t pretend to be anything at all, he was imprisoned as a child and…