The Crown Jewels in magnificent close-up….

  Last night I watched a truly decorative and stylish BBC documentary called The Crown Jewels. At the outset we were told that the makers had unprecedented access to both the jewels and the very latest technology, the latter permitting such close-ups of the dazzling gems that their true beauty really was revealed. There were…

An unexpected conclusion

Who do you think you are? is always an interesting programme and is disappointing to see only eight episodes in the series. In the past, Sir Matthew Pinsent, Frank Gardner, Danny Dyer and Clare Balding have all been revealed as proven descendants of Edward I. That has not happened in 2019 and few lines have…

Has mtDNA identified Jack the Ripper?

“Ripperology” is quite a confused subject and at least a dozen suspects have been conclusively “identified as the Whitechapel fiend. Nevertheless, this article and the book detailed within, if taken at face value, uses the scientific techniques that identified Richard III, Jesse James, Nicholas II and others to claim to solve the East London riddle…

Dyer or Dire?

Many of you will remember the episode of “Who do you think you are” in which Danny Dyer was revealed as a descendant of Edward III. In this new two part series, he “meets” a few prominent ancestors, some even more distant. The first episode began with Rollo, ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, which…

The Prince and the Neutron Blaster

Michael K. Jones‘ latest investigation, into Edward the Black Prince, was featured on BBC1’s “Inside Out” South-East, a half-hour regional magazine programme consisting of three reports of which this was the last one. As Jones explained, the neutron blaster is not a weapon used at the 1356 battle of  Poitiers but for present day scientific…

The Antiques Roadshow goes to Floors

There are few television programmes so long-running that participation in an early show is of interest in itself but the Antiques Roadshow is one of them. On April 29, the experts came to the majestic Georgian structure of Floors Castle, home of the Duke of Roxburghe and from which the ruins of Roxburgh Castle are…

Brat Farrar

Josephine Tey’s novel Brat Farrar is widely perceived as having been based on the Victorian Tichborne case where a well-upholstered Australia-based butcher’s son posed as the missing claimant to a baronetcy. Arthur Orton/ Castro persuaded Roger Tichborne’s mother that he was the heir to the title, but very few others and lost his court cases.…