The Despensers: The Rise and fall of a mediaeval family

Here is another of Kathryn Warner‘s volumes in which the genealogy is central but there is plenty of history about the principal individuals that comprise the structure of the book. These range from Hugh Despenser the Justiciar, who fell at Evesham in 1265 opposing Henry III, to his son and grandson (the latter married to…

The Mysterious Disappearance of Henry Pole the Younger in the Tower of London

  Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri @sparkypus.com Picture this…a young lad of about thirteen or thereabouts.   Royal Plantagenet blood coursing through his veins.  His father is dead and no longer able to neither protect nor  save him.  His mother is also no longer around to help or comfort him.    Life has changed for him…

Edmund of Rutland – a life cut short – his burial at Fotheringhay.

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri sparkypus.com Fotheringhay Church and  Yorkist Mausoleum 1804.   Watercolour by unknown artist. Described by Simon Jenkins as ‘the church that seems to float on its hill above the River Nene, a galleon of Perpendicular on a sea of corn…’ Edmund, son of Richard Duke of York and Cicely Neville was born…

Edward IV’s “weird” death is listed…but his pointy shoes are even weirder…!

  An interesting article  which includes George of Clarence and that butt of Malmsley. It also includes a (modernish) illustration of Edward IV that I hadn’t seen. I know I’ve written about pointy shoes before, but boy, those are SOME examples he’s wearing!

L’Erber – London Home to Warwick the Kingmaker and George Duke of Clarence

My latest A Medieval Potpourri @sparkypus.com post London before the Great Fire and much as Richard Neville ‘The Kingmaker’ and his family would have known it…  L’Erber stood  slightly to the north west of Coldharbour which is the large house seen here in middle of the picture  and facing the Thames.  No depiction of L’Erber…

Edward II’s nieces: The Clare Sisters

… and so to the dark green volume in Kathryn Warner‘s series about Edward II, his family, his associates and his era. This one details the lives of three sisters with seven husbands between them and a lot of interesting descendants, including Richard III (and siblings), his wife and his sisters-in-law. The eldest, Eleanor de…

Bad grammar and untruths, not just about Richard III….

  Oh dear, Gloucestershire Live has been very sloppy. In this article about Dukes of Gloucester, Richard of Gloucester did away with George of Clarence! Then we get “When Henry IV dies, his brother Richard becomes protector and puts the two princes in safekeeping in the Tower of London. And they are never seen again.” If…

Sassanachs don’t Like Mondays (allegedly)

Ormond versus Desmond In addition to the canonical list of battles, the sporadic chaos of the Wars of the Roses spawned one or two encounters between the heads of rival aristocratic families, of which the best known is the battle between the Berkeleys and Talbots at Nibley Green in Gloucestershire in March 1470. What is…

William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke

William Herbert, otherwise ‘Black William’ was born in 1423, the son of Sir William ap Thomas ‘the Blue Knight of Gwent’ and Gwladys ferch Dafydd Gam the ‘Star of Abergavenny’. His main claim to fame is that he was the first Welshman to become an earl in the peerage of England, except for Henry VI’s…

The Three Estates – and a useful comparison

In June 1483, as we all know, the Three Estates of England met, declared the throne vacant due to the illegitimacy of Edward IV’s offspring. They also decided that the Duke of Clarence‘s children were barred by his attainder, thereby offering the Crown to the Duke of Gloucester. The usually hostile Gairdner, as we know,…