The Touchet/Audley Family in the Fifteenth Century.

James Touchet, Lord Audley, was born about 1398. He was not in the first rank of magnates but nevertheless had significant estates, notably Heighley Castle, near Madeley in Staffordshire, and the Red Castle (Hawkstone) in Shropshire, as well as two small Marcher lordships in Wales. His first marriage was to Margaret Roos, daughter of Lord Roos…

Autumn dig at Chirk Castle promises to be exciting….

It seems that during the medieval period, no fewer than five holders of Chirk Castle were executed for treason. With that track record, I trust the National Trust intends to tread very carefully when it looks into the castle’s past and secrets this autumn. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, also held Chirk for a while, so…

The Howards, Talbots and Seymours – England’s auxilliary royal families?

This document shows the descent of the known “wives”, secret wives, mistresses, illegal wives and alleged partners of five English and British kings, taken from Ashdown-Hill’s Royal Marriage Secrets: thosehowardsagain As a bonus, Laura Culme-Seymour, from a naval family, including Admiral Thomas Lord Seymour; Admiral Rodney and the first three Culme-Seymour baronets, has a famous…

A big development

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/141202/ncomms6631/full/ncomms6631.html It seems from this that there is a Y-chromosome mismatch between Richard III (as confirmed by his mtDNA, age, scoliosis etc), and the present Duke of Beaufort. There are various possibilities and our piece “A genealogical mystery deepens” outlined one – that Sir Hugh Swynford fathered the first “Beaufort”, making the Dukes of Somerset,…