Death in Drogheda: Thomas Fitzgerald, 7th Earl of Desmond

FAMILY BACKGROUND The FitzGeralds of Desmond traced their descent from Maurice FitzGerald, son of Gerald of Windsor and the Welsh princess Nest. The original Norman conquests were confined to the eastern parts of Ireland, and the Anglo-Norman lordship as created by Henry II was based on a clear division of authority between this area and…

‘Great magician, damned Glendower'(Part 4.)

It is not my purpose to describe the Glyndŵr Rising in detail. The story is far too complex to be contained within a blog post. The reader who is interested in the full tale would do well to consult (for example) The Revolt Of Owain Glyn Dŵr by R.R Davies, an excellent work. The initial…

Shrewsbury Battlefield and the memorial church of St Mary Magdelene

I have long wanted to attend the re-enactment of the Battle of Shrewsbury and also visit the church of St Mary Magdelene. In 2022 I finally managed it. It was touch and go, although I had booked my train ticket some weeks back. These days such an excursion demands a lot of effort and I…

Two butchers, an archer and a “bourgeois of Tournai”….

“….Consider, for example, the case of John Sperhauk, which came before King’s Bench in April 1402. The plea roll record opens with the memorandum of his confession taken on 13 April by the coroner of King’s Bench, before the king and ‘by [his] authority and command’. In this confession, Sperhauk admitted to publicly repeating allegations…

THE THREE HUNDRED YEARS WAR – PART 3 : the dogs of war

Preface This is the third of three articles charting the course of continual Anglo-French conflict from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. The first, covered the rise and fall of the Angevin Empire, and the Treaty of Paris (1259). The second, continued my narrative from the accession of Edward I until the Treaty of Bretigny…

Did Richard II hide his treasure down a Cheshire well….?

“….To provide the castle’s inhabitants with fresh water, wells were dug into the rock. One at 370 feet (113 m) deep, is one of the deepest castle wells in England. According to legend, it was the hiding place of Richard II’s treasure which he stashed before leaving England in 1399 to quell the rebellion in Ireland. The treasure has…

The Last Knight: The Art, Armor, and Ambition of Maximilian I

Originally posted on RICARDIAN LOONS:
Portrait of Maximilian I, from the workshop or a follower of Albrecht Dürer. Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519) is one of those larger-than-life historical figures. Straddling the medieval and Renaissance eras, he worked tirelessly and spent a vast fortune to establish the Habsburgs as one of Europe’s dominant ruling…

“The King” and Agincourt in (almost) black and white….

  Not having Netflix myself, I went to my daughter’s house to watch The King. I enjoyed it very much, but have some gripes, not least a desire to keep scratching or wishing the characters would wash their hair…and the rest of themselves. I really don’t think the highest in the land went around looking…

The Battle Of Shrewsbury, 1403

In order to appease (as he hoped) the Percy family Henry IV granted them all those parts of southern Scotland that they could conquer. Despite advice from Northumberland that royal assistance was not needed he set out in the summer of 1403 to march to the borders with a small army to support their siege…

Bewdley’s King Edward IV Charter

Bewdley Edward IV Charter I lived in Bewdley from 1976 to 2011 and discovered that there was a charter given to the town by King Edward IV in 1472 and that in 1972 the town had held some very successful Quincentenary celebrations. I found a book called “Bewdley: A Sanctuary Town” in the town library.…