The downfall of Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester.

I have been trying to understand the downfall of Eleanor Cobham. Not because I plan to write about her (life is too short) but purely because I like to understand events clearly. Eleanor was, of course, the wife of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, Henry VI‘s youngest and last surviving uncle. I have no doubt at…

Who’s coming to dinner (a guest post)

How did this happen? Am I dreaming? Is there some sort of Time-slip? Yet here I am, somehow “transposed” from my 21st century self to a Lady-in-Waiting, helping to host a secret dinner. I cannot understand how or why it has occurred, all I know is that it is the end of February 1485, after…

THE THREE HUNDRED YEARS WAR – PART 3 : the dogs of war

Preface This is the third of three articles charting the course of continual Anglo-French conflict from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. The first, covered the rise and fall of the Angevin Empire, and the Treaty of Paris (1259). The second, continued my narrative from the accession of Edward I until the Treaty of Bretigny…

Joan of Arc or Boudicca? Boudicca every time for me, I fear….

Joan of Arc means a great deal to France, but I’m afraid I have never really cottoned on to her. Perhaps because I’m a little uncomfortable when it comes to people who “hear voices”. Not that I’m saying she deserved her horrible death. Far from it. No one deserves that. But when it comes to…

The black widow that bit herself

Since John Ashdown-Hill’s iconic Eleanor was published eleven years ago, we have seen some desperate attempts to contradict his proven conclusion that Lady Eleanor Talbot contracted a valid marriage to Edward IV before his contract to Elizabeth Widville and many such attempts have rebounded on the denialist in question. Now a troll naming herself Latrodecta…

What was a Mattins of Notre Dame….?

When my research unearthed a will in which the lady left her “Mattins of Notre Dame” to her daughter, I had pause to halt. I’m not well versed in such matters, and had no idea what, exactly, a Mattins of Notre Dame was. I did know, of course “….the canonical hours of Matins (after midnight),…

Henry VI: saint or sinner?

A gentle and devotional life About seventy years ago, the historian John Harvey wrote this in an essay about King Henry VI: “The life and death, and the thwarting of his noble designs are one (sic) of the sorriest tragedies of English history. He was a victim of forces outside his control, for whose existence…

War, English Delusion, and the effect on the Economy (4)

It was fortunate for Henry V that someone on the Orleanist side of politics decided to murder the Duke of Burgundy. This persuaded the new duke, Philippe the “Good” to take Henry’s side, a development which led to the Treaty of Troyes and Henry’s marriage to fair Catherine of France. Henry had by this time…

Richard III And The Tudor Genealogy — RICARDIAN LOONS

It is generally acknowledged by historians that Henry Tudor, who defeated Richard III, the last Yorkist king, at Bosworth and went on to be crowned Henry VII, wasn’t the Lancastrian heir to the throne of England he claimed to be. His mother, Margaret Beaufort, was descended from John of Gaunt, the third surviving son of […]…

Joan of Arc and Les Soldats

    Today marks the 587th anniversary of the death of Joan of Arc, burned at the stake at Rouen, France.  As the flames engulfed her, she clutched a cross made of sticks to her bosom, fashioned by an ordinary English solder.  “Jesus!”  was her last word.  She was 19 years old.  In 1920, almost…