The tapestries of Thomas Wolsey

We have recently come across this rather interesting article, extracted from Reyes y Prelados, by Emma Luisa Cahill Marron (excuse the missing accent) about Cardinal Wolsey and some of his artefacts. The original is in Spanish and here is a translation, by ladychaol.

The Traitor’s Arms?

In 1840 workmen carrying out repairs to St Bartholomew’s Church, Ashperton, Herefordshire were collecting stones from the ruins of a nearby manor house when they discovered a heavy stone plaque, carved with an elaborate coat of arms, among the rubble. The stone was taken to the church for safekeeping and has hung on the wall… Continue reading The Traitor’s Arms?

The Franchise Affair

Josephine Tey is renowned for writing contemporary novels that refer to older mysteries. The Daughter of Time was unquestionably about an injured police Inspector learning about Richard III and the “Princes” – a device borrowed by Colin Dexter. Brat Farrar was about a missing boy who seems to reappear but whose identity is doubted, for… Continue reading The Franchise Affair

Matthew Lewis on YouTube: 1) More

I’ve decided to have a little go at some YouTube stuff. My first foray is a breakdown of my Top 10 problems with Sir Thomas More’s story of Richard III. It’s so full of problems that I’m left dismayed that academic historians I speak to still insist on relying on More’s evidence even today. There… Continue reading Matthew Lewis on YouTube: 1) More

The Forgotten Art of Allegory

Much of Jonathan Swift’s seminal ‘Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts, by Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships’, or Gulliver’s Travels as it is more popularly known, is metaphor and allegory. Swift had lived through the troubles of James II’s dalliances with Catholicism, the… Continue reading The Forgotten Art of Allegory