The appointment of women to the Garter. (Medieval era).

I have been trying to make sense of the method by which women were appointed to the Garter in the middle ages, and have concluded there was no system. Of course, as with the knights, who were nominally ‘elected’ by the other knights, it all came down to royal favour. But with the knights, there…

Joan/Joanne/Joanna Holland, Duchess of York

  Joan Holland was born about 1380, one of the many children of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent and his wife Alice Arundel (aka Fitzalan) and the second-eldest daughter. It seems to have been Kent’s policy to marry his daughters into every family that could conceivably inherit the throne. Accordingly, towards the end of…

Edmund of Langley

  Today marks the anniversary of the death in 1402 of Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, an undervalued and almost forgotten prince. Edmund deserves his place in history. Without him the House of York itself would never have existed, and its later members, who everyone finds so interesting, would never have been born.…

Heraldic “devices” of the House of York

The origins of these devices is set out in Richard III as Duke of Gloucester and King of England by Caroline A. Halsted, volume 1, pages 404-5. The source quoted is Archoelogia vol. xxii, p.226. The main change here is to convert the text into modern English: The dukedom of York – the falcon and…

A further selection of Scropes….

The name “Scrope” was usually pronounced, and sometimes spelled, as “Scroop”.am To follow yesterday’s post: – William, Earl of Wiltshire c1351-1399 William was the second son of Richard Scrope, first Baron Scrope of Bolton. In his younger days he was sometimes associated with John of Gaunt, who made him Seneschal of Aquitaine in 1383. Subsequently, he…