MEDIEVAL POSY RINGS – GIVEN WITH LOVE…

Reblogged from MEDIEVAL POSY RINGS – GIVEN WITH LOVE… ‘Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?’ ‘Tis brief, my lord’ * This beauty is reputed to have been given by John of Gaunt (1340-1399) to his mistress and subsequent third wife, Katheryn Swinford (1350-1403).  The inscription reads ‘alas for fayte’ which was probably…

More Royal ancestry

Who do you think you are? has now completed eighteen series as British television’s predominant genealogy programmes. In that time, with an average of eight episodes per series, they have uncovered many celebrities with interesting lineage and some unexpected royal descendants, including Alexander Armstrong, Clare Balding, Danny Dyer, Frank Gardner and Sir Matthew Pinsent. Now…

History and cultural history (III)

We have already shown how Shakespeare was inadvertently influenced by contemporary or earlier events in setting details – names, events, badges or physical resemblance – for his Hamlet, King Lear and Richard III. What of Romeo and Juliet, thought to have been written between 1591-5 and first published, in quarto form, in 1597? The most…

SHAKESPEARE’S RICHARD III: HERO OR VILLAIN?

” Never let it be said that fate itself could awe the soul of Richard.            Hence babbling dreams, you threaten here in vain;            Conscience avaunt, Richard’s himself again” (The tragical history of King Richard the Third)[1]   Richard’s himself again: or is he? There is a moment in Olivier’s film of Shakespeare’s play…

The “naughty” corpse of Henry VI….

The link below concerns an exhibition entitled ‘Costuming the Leading Ladies of Shakespeare: From Stratford to Orange County’ at UC Irvine’s Langson Library, West Peltason and Pereira drives, Irvine; http://www.lib.uci.edu/langson. The exhibition is there through to the end of September. Several amusing anecdotes are described in the article, including one about Lady Anne’s apparent effect…

History and cultural history (II)

In this piece, we introduced the idea that Shakespeare, although a very inaccurate historian, accurately reflected the cultural history of his time with respect to the political execution of women. We have also discussed how the Bard’s Richard III may actually have been a portrayal of Robert Cecil. Another piece showed the uncertainty as to…