OLD LONDON BRIDGE – A MEDIEVAL WONDER!

REBLOGGED FROM sparkypus.com A Medieval Potpourri  London from Southwark, c.1630. Old London Bridge is in the right foreground and Old St Paul’s Cathedral on the skyline to the left.  Old London Bridge Antiquated, in a run down state, and at 600 years old, the old bridge had reached its self by date and was demolished in…

Retracing the 1476 funeral procession of Richard, Duke of York….

Richard, Duke of York, was killed at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460 but later, in 1476, exhumed by his son, Edward IV. The body was taken with great ceremony from Pontefract to Fotheringhay, resting each night at Doncaster, Blyth, Tuxford le Clay, Newark, Grantham, Stamford and finally being reburied at Fotheringhay. Among the mourners…

The first “red carpet” in England….?

  We’re all accustomed to seeing dignitaries, film stars and so on walking along a red carpet, and know it’s a sign of great respect, courtesy or just plain flattery. According to Wikipedia :- “The earliest known reference to walking a red carpet in literature is in the play Agamemnon by Aeschylus, written in 458…

ST OSWALD’S IN GLOUCESTER–A TOWER FOUND

The scanty arches of St Oswald’s Priory lie tucked in a Gloucester suburb  a few minutes walk  from  the cathedral. Once a place of great importance, it was the burial spot of Queen Aethelflaed, daughter of Alfred the Great. She was a warrior-queen who fought the Vikings. Henry of Huntingdon wrote this about her– Heroic…

Guilty!…until proven innocent, which ain’t gonna happen….

What a very strange state of affairs it is, when the king who made certain that people were innocent until proven guilty, is himself always presumed guilty with scant chance of ever being proved innocent. But this is the case with Richard III, whose one and only Parliament advanced and improved the lot of the…

Just where might Edward of Westminster be buried…?

The above rather dark and dingy painting shows the unfortunate Margaret of Anjou, queen of the Lancastrian monarch, King Henry VI, being led from the battlefield at Tewkesbury after being captured. She had not only lost the battle, but also her son, the heir to the throne, seventeen-year-old Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. The…

King Richard III’s Funeral: Cry, ‘Usurper’ and cancel the plans?

So now we know. The funeral of Richard III will take place from 22nd to 27th March, 2015, beginning with a procession of his remains through villages on the return route from the site of his death to the Cathedral in Leicester. There he will lie in state for three days prior to the reburial…