‘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…

A further anachronism

Many of you will have watched the 2014-16 BBC production of The Musketeers, the first series of which starred Peter Capaldi as Cardinal Richelieu. The third series was based on Dumas’ lesser-known sequels, in which Henrietta Maria, separated from her husband Charles I for her own safety and by mutual consent, is permanently residing with…

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 Earls’ Rebellion

This is a quite remarkable article by Dr. Callum Watson about the revolt against David II in 1363. To summarise the background:David succeeded Robert I in 1329 at the age of five. He was exiled in France between 1334 and 1341. He was captured at the Battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346 and ransomed in…

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…

Walking “Tudor” England

Suzannah Lipscomb has just completed another series on Channel Five, this time visiting the sites related to the “Tudors”. In the first episode, she concentrated on Henry VIII and the naval power he inherited from John Howard, Duke of Norfolk. The second was principally about the penultimate “Tudor”, Mary I, as well as Edward VI…

Richard III and Harold II

We all know that Richard is directly descended from William the Conqueror, who is his eleven times great grandfather. Here is Richard’s pedigree to William in three parts – follow the yellow dots left to right. (N.B. the first few generations have the yellow combined with red and blue which lead to other ancestors). But…

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…

If Edward IV didn’t dispose of Henry Holand, 3rd Duke of Exeter, who did….?

I must state from the outset that I could not find any contemporary likenesses of Henry Holand, so the above is of him as played by an actor unknown to me. The life of Henry Holand, 3rd Duke of Exeter—*actually 4th Duke, by my calculations, see below—has never been of particular interest to me, but…

A Peterborough mystery

Peterborough is a well-planned city. The walk from station to Cathedral passes through two short subways, with an optional detour to start of the Nene Valley Railway heritage line, to a semi-pedestrianised street with the Cathedral ahead,  with a range of shops, restaurants and even a parish church on the approach. The Queensgate Centre includes…