Thomas of Woodstock was an unpleasant, supposedly pious bully….

This article Thomas of Woodstock and Shakespeare’s Twisted History | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net) begins as follows:- “….William Shakespeare wrote ten history plays. Of these, one of the most famous is  Richard II . The play  Richard II , written around 1595, is based on the rule of King Richard II (reign 1377-1399), but one of the main characters in…

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…

The Cotswolds and the Wars of the Roses….

“What role did the Cotswolds play in the 30-year Wars of the Roses?” A good question. There wasn’t a specific War of the Cotswolds, but there was (still is) a connection to the Wars of the Roses, as you’ll see in this article . For instance, there’s the wonderful Church of St John the Baptist…

Richard’s other Anglo-Saxon ancestry, inter alia

Richard’s ancient ancestors was composed a few years ago to illustrate Richard III’s descent from heroes of the home nations: Alfred the Great (many times over, but two divergent lines soon afterwards), Malcolm III (Canmore), Llewellyn Fawr and Brian Boru.Slides 2-3 show not just the well-known connection through Edmund II (Ironside), St. Margaret of Wessex and…

The complete, utterly biased dissing of the House of York….

  When I recorded the first episode of the Sky series Royal Bastards: Rise of the Tudors, I watched it on 23rd November, which is the anniversary of the day in 1450 when Richard 3rd Duke of York returned to London [and Parliament] with his sword unsheathed to claim his right. The docudrama series kicks…

A mystery at the Swan Inn at Clare, Suffolk….

On reading the February 2021 edition of the Mortimer History Society’s publication, Mortimer Matters, I was intrigued by an article (by Hugh Wood) about a curious piece of carved and painted wood. “….Brightening up the front of the Swan Inn in Clare in Suffolk is this colourful piece of carved wood. Its shape suggests that…

John of Gaunt by Kathryn Warner

This is a very valuable new biography of John of Gaunt. As usual with this author, the incredibly complex network of family relationships is successfully navigated. There is a fair amount of ‘correction of the record’. For example, Duchess Blanche did not die of plague in 1369, but of unknown causes in 1368. Duchess Constanza…

Wars of the Roses Delights in Suffolk

After over a year, I have finally been able to go on another holiday in which to indulge in my passion of church and castle crawling. I haven’t spent much time in Suffolk before–it’s just a little too far–but there were some places I really wanted to visit, so off we went, braving a crazed…

Two butchers, an archer and a “bourgeois of Tournai”….

“….Consider, for example, the case of John Sperhauk, which came before King’s Bench in April 1402. The plea roll record opens with the memorandum of his confession taken on 13 April by the coroner of King’s Bench, before the king and ‘by [his] authority and command’. In this confession, Sperhauk admitted to publicly repeating allegations…

Chaucer was a “hot” young man in tighter than tight tights….?

  As the author of this Guardian review points out, when we think of Chaucer, we visualise a rather chubby, light-hearted, witty, somewhat cheeky middle-aged man as portrayed in the few portaits we have of him, such as the one above. Well, it would seem that as a younger man he was indeed cheeky! And…