Trial by combat proved nothing in the end….

    Trial by combat was a last-ditch method of proving one’s case. Of course, it didn’t prove innocence or guilt, just that one or other of the combatants was luckier/stronger on the day. Nor did trial by water prove a woman innocent of witchcraft, because it killed her no matter what the outcome. If…

The denouement at Penmaenhead in 1399….

  When we think of Colwyn Bay today, we don’t think of vital historic events in August 1399, when a King of England, Richard II, was captured. This fact led to his deposition, imprisonment and suspiciously convenient death…culminating in the rise of the House of Lancaster in the form of his usurping first cousin, Henry…

Trial by combat attended by the King of England….

On 16th September 1398, at Gosford Green near Coventry, there was a tournament involving a trial by combat between Henry of Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford and Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. Almost the entire nobility of England attended this event, including the king, Richard II, who had ordered the trial to settle a dispute (concerning…

Sir Roger of Clarendon

It is not widely know that Richard II had a half-brother on his father’s side. This was Sir Roger of Clarendon, son of Edward of Woodstock ‘the Black Prince’ by one Edith de Willesford. Roger was almost certainly older than Richard II. In 1372 he received an annuity from Edward III of £100. He was…

THE TOMB OF THOMAS COCKAYNE, YORKIST

In my many travels I once came upon a very fine effigy in Youlgrave Parish church, high in the Derbyshire Peak District. Exquisitely carved from alabaster, with great attention paid to detail, it shows the small figure (only about three or four feet long, crafted in such a manner because Thomas died before his father)…

BUCKINGHAM’S MYSTERIOUS BURIAL

Where lies Harry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham? No one can say for sure, his final resting place is as elusive and entwined with myth and legend as Richard III’s once was. Stafford, leader of the October 1483 rebellion against Richard, was turned in by one of his own men while hiding in a cottage, apparently…