The complete, utterly biased dissing of the House of York….

  When I recorded the first episode of the Sky series Royal Bastards: Rise of the Tudors, I watched it on 23rd November, which is the anniversary of the day in 1450 when Richard 3rd Duke of York returned to London [and Parliament] with his sword unsheathed to claim his right. The docudrama series kicks…

The Sisters Neville – Isobel, Duchess of Clarence and Queen Anne Neville, Daughters to the Kingmaker.

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri sparkypus.com Warwick Castle birthplace of both the Neville sisters.  Photo with thanks to Scotty Rae @Flkr. Richard Neville and Anne Beauchamp, Earl and Countess  of Warwick had in their long marriage just two daughters.  If there were any initial disappointment about that there was always Plan B,  that illustrious marriages could…

THE MARRIAGES OF THE SIBLINGS OF ELIZABETH WOODVILLE

Elizabeth Woodville Royal Window Canterbury Cathedral Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri sparkypus.com Very soon after the clandestine marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville had taken place in 1464 it became abundantly clear to the old nobility that the siblings of the new Queen would henceforth be having their pick of the most sought after heirs and heiresses of…

The ruby that isn’t a ruby was worn at a battle that didn’t happen….?

    Aha, so it isn’t a ruby, see this article. Well, we knew that! But for all its associations with the Black Prince, Henry V and Richard III (to say nothing of later monarchs) it seems our present queen “….often likes to think of it being worn by Henry IV during the battle of…

It WASN’T the Battle of Edgecote Moor, it was the Battle of Edgcote….

  On Monday, 24th July 1469, was fought the Battle of Edgecote Moor, and 549 years later, on 26th July 2018, I was being informative about it here . Except I had my facts wrong. It wasn’t Edgecote Moor, it was just plain Edgcote or sometimes Edgecote, but just that one word! Apparently I was…

Has one of the Kingmaker’s pirate ships been found in Newport….?

Last night I watched (on PBS America) a BBC2 Timewatch episode entitled The Mysteries of the Medieval Ship. It concerned the discovery, in June 2002, of a foundered/scuttled medieval vessel of some size, buried in the oozing mud of the Severn Sea – well, the oozing mud of the River Usk, at Newport, to be…

A WEEKEND IN A MEDIEVAL MANOR IN WALES

If you are looking for a pleasant medieval weekend away you could do worse than  staying at the manor house of St Pierre, near Chepstow in Wales. The deerpark may be a golf course now but there are still acres to walk, an ancient church,  and a handsome twin-towered gatehouse surrounded by a courtyard. The…

Black Vaughan of Hergest Court in Herefordshire….

  Thomas Vaughan ap Rosser was born in 1400, and nicknamed ‘Black’ Vaughan because of his black hair; or perhaps because of his black nature. No one knows which. His main residence was Hergest Court, near Kington in Herefordshire, and his wife was Ellen Gethin of Llanbister, Radnorshire. She was, from all accounts, a formidable…

Another ‘War of the Roses’ Battlefield found!

The site of the Battle of Edgecote, fought between King Edward IV and Warwick the Kingmaker is located, causing problems for the HS2 rail link, Read about it here. versus Edward IV image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AKing_Edward_IV_from_NPG_(2).jpg Warwick the Kingmaker image credit (link to page): https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Neville#/media/File:Warwick1.jpg

Ghosts of the Roses….

There is an article by Kelly Fitzgerald at http://sunnesandroses.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-sunne-in-splendour-part-2.html, concerning the three suns that were seen in the sky before the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross in 1460. It was a natural phenomenon—a parhelion—but was clearly not recognised as such by those who saw it. They believed it was an omen. So, what about supernatural phenomena…