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 mealy-mouthed excuse for not opening That Urn….!

Well, it seems they won’t allow the inspection of That Urn because it wouldn’t prove whether Richard III, Henry VII or whoever else murdered the boys. See here. No, but it would prove if the remains belong to the boys, and not to the animals and Roman remains that are so strongly suspected. For heaven’s…

Britain’s top burial sites?

This Sun article, which originally confused Richard’s Leicester with Henry I’s Reading, lists what they consider to be Britain’s top burial sites, although there is no detail on the supposed “Princes” in that urn, especially now that there is evidence to test the remains. Are there any others you might have included?

The children of Barnard Castle delve into history….

The following passages are taken from the Teesdale Mercury “….HUNDREDS of children in and around Barnard Castle have been learning more about medieval ailments while helping St Mary’s Church in the town raise cash for vital repairs. “….The church is working with archaeology group DigVentures to engage people in the town’s heritage as part of…

Does someone not understand science?

This blog suggests that the failure of Richard’s Y-chromosome to match that of the Dukes of Beaufort doesn’t make him a male line descendant of Edward III through the “illegitimacy” of Richard, Earl of Cambridge. The issue it fails to address is this: The inconsistent chromosome has several other, more likely explanations – that Richard…

Oops, the NY Times claimed Richard wasn’t found in Leicester, but in London….!

Even the New York Times gets it wrong! Apparently an earlier version of a book review had Richard being found in London, not Leicester. Someone advised them, and the error was corrected. Anyway, to read the whole review of A BRIEF HISTORY OF EVERYONE WHO EVER LIVED: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes by…

Is this the face of Lady Anne Mowbray….?

Here is what little Lady Anne Mowbray may have looked like. She was the child bride of one of the so-called Princes in the Tower, the younger one, Richard, Duke of York. Her burial was recently extensively covered by sparkypus here. Now The Times has come up with an article about the reconstruction of this…

Where to find that “Tudor” Y-chromosome?

This very good blog post details the career and planned future of Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, who might have succeeded Henry VIII had he not died suddenly at seventeen and a legitimate half-brother been born a year and a quarterlater. It also states his original and current burial places, the latter being St. Michael’s…

The latest on the hunt for Richard’s Y-chromosome

Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence, was born today in 1338, although he died just before his thirtieth birthday. He is, of course, a mixed-line direct ancestor of Richard III but he is the brother of Edmund of Langley, Richard’s male-line great grandfather. Here, John Ashdown-Hill spoke to Nerdalicious about his attempts to locate Lionel…

Salvador Dali to be exhumed in paternity case….

So, a Spanish judge has ordered that Salvador Dali’s remains be exhumed in order to settle a paternity case. But here in the UK, a marble pot with a lid cannot be opened to examine the bones inside. Many of which are reputedly animal bones, not human. Oh, well, I suppose there’s some logic in…