The Epping hunting lodge of Queen Elizabeth I….

If, like me, you’re puzzled by this unusual, rather stark old building (which doesn’t look real or even English!) then this article explains: “….Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge is a Grade II* listed building that has been saved as a museum. This old timber-framed and plastered building is a unique example of a Tudor ‘grand stand’.…

Death in Drogheda: Thomas Fitzgerald, 7th Earl of Desmond

FAMILY BACKGROUND The FitzGeralds of Desmond traced their descent from Maurice FitzGerald, son of Gerald of Windsor and the Welsh princess Nest. The original Norman conquests were confined to the eastern parts of Ireland, and the Anglo-Norman lordship as created by Henry II was based on a clear division of authority between this area and…

CROSSBONES – BURIAL PLACE OF WINCHESTER GEESE AND ‘THE OUTCAST DEAD’

    REBLOGGED FROM A MEDIEVAL POTPOURRI @ sparkpus.com   Shrine of many ribbons at the entrance to Crossbones Cemetery.  Photo Kay Nicols.  It’s harder to find a more sadder place in South London than the site of Crossbones Burial Ground, Redcross Way,  which is a side street tucked away off the busy Borough High Street,…

Laser scans of the Alps and Becket’s murder….

  What, you might ask, do laser scans of part of the Alps have to do with the murder of Thomas Becket? Well, if you read this article you’ll find out. Lead-smelting and royal conscience-grovelling get a look-in as well. Huh? Well, yes, that was my reaction too, but believe it or not, it seems…

Rebellion in the Middle Ages

This is the latest of Matthew Lewis’ books and covers a longer period than any of the others, from Hereward the Wake’s emergence after Hastings to the beginning of the Wars of the Roses, almost as long a period as this book. Lewis is already an expert on “The Anarchy” (chapter 2) and the Roses…

A new discovery at what was once Woodstock Palace….

  “….Archaeologists have made an exciting discovery in the Queen Pool at Blenheim Palace prior to dredging work….They believe they have uncovered the remains of a 14th century watermill complex….” So reads the opening of this article. A new discovery at somewhere as historic as Blenheim is very exciting. But maybe it was its Woodstock Palace…

The stained-glass windows at Canterbury Cathedral are among Europe’s oldest….

Thanks to a TV documentary involving student stained-glass glaziers this viewer was taken to Canterbury Cathedral to see its astonishingly beautiful windows, some of which we learned have now been dated as early as the mid-1100s, maybe even the 1130s.. Léonie Seliger, the head of stained glass conservation at the cathedral, and part of the…

Would YOU include some of these in a list of all-time best historical films…?

  Here’s an interesting list of the “best historical royalty” films. Interesting….and peculiar. As well as some excellent period-based movies we have the likes of The King and I, the animated Anastasia musical and the Taylor-Burton Cleopatra. Maybe the latter will be acceptable to many, but to me it was a circus because of what…

The Maldon Embroidery

The first thing to notice about this is that is an embroidery not a tapestry, although the “Bayeux Tapestry” is also an embroidery ie hand-stitched. It was constructed to mark the millennium of the 991 Battle of Maldon, at which Vikings, possibly under Olaf Tryggvason, defeated and killed the Saxon Earldorman Brythnoth. It is displayed…

Richard the Lionheart….or Richard the pain in the you-know-what….

Well, my first introduction to Richard the Lionheart was in the 1950s…one of the many Robin Hood movies of that period, He was noble and chivalrous (George Sanders, as I recall, see below), while Prince John was a Blue Meanie of the highest order. Nothing much has changed since then. My opinion of both men…