The Sisters Neville – Isobel, Duchess of Clarence and Queen Anne Neville, Daughters to the Kingmaker.

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri sparkypus.com Warwick Castle birthplace of both the Neville sisters.  Photo with thanks to Scotty Rae @Flkr. Richard Neville and Anne Beauchamp, Earl and Countess  of Warwick had in their long marriage just two daughters.  If there were any initial disappointment about that there was always Plan B,  that illustrious marriages could…

What I’m Reading: An Interview with Historian Matthew Ward….

  “Matthew Ward is a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow, researching “The Culture of Loyalty in Fifteenth-Century England.” The project constitutes the first major attempt to define and understand political loyalty to the crown and secular lords in England, 1400-1500: how it was manifested; how it developed and how it was discussed in political and…

SIR WILLIAM STANLEY – TURNCOAT OR LOYALIST

UPDATED POST AT sparkypus.com A Medieval Potpourri https://sparkypus.com/2020/06/26/sir-william-stanley-turncoat-or-loyalist/ It is well documented how, through the treasonable and treacherous actions of Sir William Stanley at Bosworth, Richard lost his crown and his life. He was hacked to death after Stanley, who brought 3000 men with him, intervened at the crucial point when Richard, with his household…

Not a book to be taken seriously….

Would you like a few sniggers and outright guffaws? Yes? Then I have just the book for you—Lives of England’s Monarchs by H. E. Lehman. I was searching for something specific, and for some reason Google took me first to page 182… “…Edward [IV] was a large man possessed of great leadership ability and personal…

LORD OF THE NORTH

Richard duke of Gloucester: courage, loyalty, lordship and law[1]   “ Men and kings must be judged in the testing moments of their lives Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because, as has been said, it is the quality that guarantees all others.” (Winston Churchill 1931)   Introduction I do not suppose…

THE TOMB OF THOMAS COCKAYNE, YORKIST

In my many travels I once came upon a very fine effigy in Youlgrave Parish church, high in the Derbyshire Peak District. Exquisitely carved from alabaster, with great attention paid to detail, it shows the small figure (only about three or four feet long, crafted in such a manner because Thomas died before his father)…

The Tragedy of King Richard 111 (not by William Shakespeare)

  Part 2: The hearts of men are full of fear “ My Lord, whoever journeys to the Prince, For God’s sake let us two not stay at home; For by the way I’ll sort occasion As indexed to the story we late talked of, To part the Queens proud kindred from the Prince.” (Shakespeare:…