James I: Scotland’s Lancastrian King

Here is an excellent Gordon McKelvie article from History Extra about the king who was prisoner, hostage and then guest of the three Lancastrian kings, before marrying Henry V‘s cousin in Southwark Cathedral and going home to reign in person, heavily influenced in style by his former hosts, as the Stewarts of Albany and “Paul…

King James VI of Scotland, James I of England podcast….

  Here is a link to a BBC podcast about King James VI of Scotland, who, of course, became James I of England and was the first of our Stuart monarchs. I can’t say I’m a Stuart expert, being much more interested in the Plantagenets, but a monarch is a monarch!

A tale of monarchs and national anthems

Anyone who has watched a Scottish rugby or association football match will be familiar with the Corries’ folk song O Flower of Scotland, which is played before their matches. The second line of the chorus (“Proud Edward’s army”) refers to Edward II, defeated at Bannockburn so that he never actually ruled Scotland although he may…

The lost brass of Thomas of Woodstock’s tomb in Westminster Abbey….

While searching for what could be accurate likenesses of a number of lords, I came upon the above illustration, which I had never seen before. It is not helpful for actual likenesses of the folk concerned, but is interesting for all that. It is an engraving of the brass that once marked the tomb of…

When is a tilde not a tilde…?

  How clever are you when it comes to the precise use of English, grammar, punctuation and so on? My query here is about the use of a tilde, that is a ~, on top of an “h” in the confession of Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, on the eve of his grisly death, 8th September…

The Rise of the Clans

Neil Oliver‘s latest history series has been shown through December on Monday evenings (BBC1 Scotland) and twenty-four hours later on BBC4. The first part, of three, showed how the power vacuum caused by the sudden deaths of Alexander III and his granddaughter was resolved through the clan system and John Balliol’s abdication so that alliances…

Now a lost north-of-the-border king….

Well, we had Richard III, then they sought Henry I…and now it’s James I of Scotland. I wonder how many others will soon be on the list? According to this article : “A plan to search for the tomb of a Scottish king buried in Perth nearly 600 years ago has been unveiled. “It will…

Those accident-prone Stewarts

As this excellent article reminds us, there were eight pre-union Stewart monarchs, or nine if you exclude James VI, who had already reigned in Scotland for nearly forty years before inheriting the English throne. Of these, excepting the two Roberts, only two turned up for a pitched battle with against an English army and only…