MacCullogh on Cromwell

Last Monday, BBC repeated Sir Diarmaid MacCullogh‘s excellent documentary Henry VIII’s Enforcer: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell, from 2013. Please watch it soon as you can it is only available until mid-January. Actually, excellent is rather an understatement as it is better than others you may see. In telling Cromwell‘s story from “the…

‘Great magician, damned Glendower'(Part 3.)

Owain‘s service to Arundel included taking part in the naval victory over the French in 1387 in which a wine fleet was captured. Such was the booty that the price of wine in England fell through the floor. He may well also have been involved in Arundel’s attack on the French coast a few months…

The Kingmaker’s Anger

I’m working on a biography of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick – the man best introduced as The Kingmaker. I have written on the Wars of the Roses, on Richard, Duke of York, and Richard III. Warwick has been a constant presence throughout. I spent some time in an earlier dispute over the throne of…

Rosary of Mary, Queen of Scots, stolen from Arundel Castle….

The theft of items of great historical importance aren’t common, thank goodness, but they do come along…and this time—on Friday, 21st May, when a burglar alarm went off at 22:30 BST—it was Arundel Castle that was raided. To read all about it, go to this site.  The stolen treasures were worth more than £1 million,…

Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York

Richard Shrewsbury Duke of York was the second son of King Edward IV. We don’t know a lot about him because he was not the heir to the throne but notwithstanding this, he is one of the most investigated historical characters being him one of the well known “Princes” in the Tower. We have not…

Another Howard riddle

It is widely known that Elizabeth I was the only English monarch to be descended from John, 1st Duke of Norfolk, as her grandmother was a Howard, his granddaughter. There is a British monarch who can trace their maternal ancestry to this dynastic founder – Elizabeth II, who also shares the “Treetops” coincidence with her…

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…

Found lurking at Arundel Castle….

Lurking? Well, apart from me, of course, and my camera (which I managed to mess up rather, so apologies for the quality of the two portrait-photos, which were taken on 9th June 2018. Richard and Elizabeth of York were among the many portraits. Of course, there having been so many Fitzalans and Howards at Arundel…

St Edmund, the king under a tennis court…?

A wall painting at St Mary the Virgin church in Lakenheath which depicts King Edmund “November 20 is St Edmund’s Day, the feast day of the ‘last king of East Anglia’ and – some would say – England’s proper patron saint. But where do his bones lie? Trevor Heaton explores the twists and turns of…

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…