Pembroke didn’t pop the Weasel when it should have….!

Well, the first part of a riveting, absolutely factual series about Henry VII was warning enough. I confess to having had to read the first sentence twice, because first time around I thought Edmund Tudor was fighting against the Duke of York’s men and Edmund’s own wife, Margaret Beaufort, who was Henry’s underage mother. Shame on…

Michael Portillo’s Great Coastal Railway Journeys and Pembroke Castle

  I have enjoyed watching Michael Portillo’s Great Railway Journeys particularly the programmes that have shown him travelling along the coast of South Wales. He stopped off in places that I know well in Glamorgan, also in places that my ancestors hailed from in Carmarthenshire. However, one programme ended up in Pembroke and I must…

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…

Myths aren’t facts; least of all myths about Richard III….

Ricardians often bemoan the repeated myths about Richard’s wickedness and cruelty. And with good reason. In spite of the fact that he did what he could to better the lot of women, he is accused of bullying the poor old (treacherous) Countess of Oxford because she happened to be financing her Lancastrian son who was…

The sad story of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Somerset….

I came upon the  following article in the course of trundling around on Google for royal mourning in the medieval period. It’s a very sad little story, no matter what our opinion of Henry VII. The specific fact that took me to it was that Henry wore “blue mourning robes” as he waited at Westminster…

GREAT BALLS OF FIRE! CHARLES VI OF FRANCE

On January 28, 1393, Charles VI decided to partake in the  Bal des Sauvages, the Ball of the Wild Men, a masquerade ball in which the ruler joined with gusto, joining a party of five other nobles to perform a frenzied dance dressed as a ‘woodwose’–a Wild Man of the forest. Unfortunately, the Ball ended…

Henry VII had an uncle Owen Tudor . . . .

Well, I confess I always thought Henry VII only had one uncle on the paternal side, and that was Jasper. So just who is in the above illustration? The Tudors as being important in English history commenced with the affair between the widowed Katherine of Valois and the rather lowly Welshman Owen Tudor. They had…

Henry VII and his “striking blue eyes”….!

This Times article has a quaint way of describing Henry VII : “Tall, with striking blue eyes, Henry was the only child of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, and Margaret Beaufort…” Striking blue eyes? Well, yes…except that they looked in opposite directions. Which I suppose counts as striking! I’m not so sure about the blue,…

HENRY “TUDOR” IN THE 21ST CENTURY?

With advanced computer technology, more artists and other interested people are doing their own ‘facial reconstructions’ of famous historical figures, often giving them modern hair styles and clothes to let people see how they might have looked if they lived in the present day. The following article has 30 such images, and is interesting because…

Margaret Beaufort’s machinations….

The above illustration is from the Spectator. Margaret Beaufort‘s machinations were indeed vital in the overthrow of the rightful king of England, Richard III. By treachery, of course, because she and her odious son never did anything honestly and up-front. Maybe she couldn’t help her face, but the sourpuss above was probably spot-on. And she…