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…

Witchcraft (3): Matthew Hopkins

If the witchcraft trials at North Berwick in the 1590s and later in England, of which Pendle in 1610 is an example, happened because James VI/I fervently believed in witchcraft, as shown by the three characters in Macbeth, it can be argued that the subsequent decline in such cases came because judges and Charles I…

More sport and history – C17 this time

November is upon us and speedway fans in the northern hemisphere are now in hibernation, but at least two or three of the top clubs owe their roots to the events of the seventeenth century. Following our article on rugby clubs and the “Wars of the Roses” , here they are: 2017 PREMIERSHIP: Somerset Rebels…