MacCullogh on Cromwell

Last Monday, BBC repeated Sir Diarmaid MacCullogh‘s excellent documentary Henry VIII’s Enforcer: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell, from 2013. Please watch it soon as you can it is only available until mid-January. Actually, excellent is rather an understatement as it is better than others you may see. In telling Cromwell‘s story from “the…

SIR JAMES TYRELL – CHILD KILLER OR PROVIDER OF A SAFE HOUSE ?

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri sparkypus.com  15th century stained glass from  great east window St Nicholas Chapel, Gipping.  Did Elizabeth Wydeville gaze up at this very window if the family tradition is correct.    Photo thanks to Gerry Morris @ Flikr While there is much information on Sir James  Tyrell, c.1455-1502  available,  unfortunately some of…

Another clue to the mystery of the “Princes”?

On the left is Gipping Chapel in Suffolk, attached to the Tyrrell property of Gipping Hall. It is a tradition within the Tyrrell family that the “Princes”, the sons of Edward IV who were technically children, lived there during 1483-4 “with the permission of the mother” . To the right is St. Nicholas of Myra,…

More Tyrrells, this time in Oxfordshire. One family or two?

This (below) is Shotover Park in Oxfordshire, formerly part of the Wychwood royal hunting forest. It became the property of one Timothy Tyrrell in 1613, the year after the death of Henry Stuart,  Prince of Wales, whom Tyrrell had served as Master of the Royal Buckhounds. Tyrrell was further honoured with a knighthood in 1624…

Uncle Richard?

A long time ago, I posted a short article about one of my ancestors, Thomas Snellgrove, who was a portrait artist and painted an actor portraying Richard III. Here is the link. I have been researching my family history for over thirty years and it used to be a very slow and painstaking process. The…