St. Philip Howard and the greyhound in the Tower

Philip Howard, lived from 1557-1595. He was the only son of Thomas Howard 4th Duke of Norfolk by his first wife, Lady Mary Fitzalan who was, of course, the Arundel heiress. Philip’s father was executed for treason against Queen Elizabeth I in 1572, which explains why Philip was not allowed to succeed as Duke of…

Medieval spies….

Thanks to a post on the Richard III Society Forum, I was steered to the following interesting Ian Arthurson article about medieval spying. We know that the Tudors excelled in this dangerous world, but it’s not so well known that it was quite rife during the Wars of the Roses as well. Royalty—and the Church—always…

An American take on the “Princes” and the new scientific evidence

Here is an article from an American website about the “Princes” and John Ashdown-Hill’s work towards determining the identity of the bones in that urn, as detailed in his “The Mythology of the Princes in the Tower”. The article is rather good. It does fail to notice that Westminster Abbey is a Royal peculiar and…

Witchcraft (2): The Pendle Trials

Lancashire, in the early 17th Century, was one of the poorest and least populated counties of England, where even many gentry families had an income of less than £100 a year. The Forest of Pendle, which lies between Burnley, Colne, Clitheroe and Whalley in a remote corner of the county close to the Yorkshire border,…

TREASON 3 – The Long Parliament 1649

Introduction “ The scaffold was hung round with black, and the floor covered with black, and the axe and block (were) laid in the middle of the scaffold. There were divers companies of Foot and Horse on every side of the scaffold, and the multitude of people that came to be spectators were very great.”[1]…