The Wandering Butler: John, 6th Earl of Ormond

FAMILY BACKGROUND The Lancastrian leader who faced – or failed to face – Thomas, Earl of Desmond, at the Battle of Piltown in 1462 was the fourth of the five children born to James Butler, 4th Earl of Ormond (otherwise known as the White Earl), and his countess Joan Beauchamp, daughter of William Beauchamp, Lord…

Sassanachs don’t Like Mondays (allegedly)

Ormond versus Desmond In addition to the canonical list of battles, the sporadic chaos of the Wars of the Roses spawned one or two encounters between the heads of rival aristocratic families, of which the best known is the battle between the Berkeleys and Talbots at Nibley Green in Gloucestershire in March 1470. What is…

THE ROAD FROM FOTHERINGHAY-New Novel about Richard III’s Childhood

Richard’s childhood frequently gets some coverage in novels of his life, but THE ROAD FROM FOTHERINGHAY is the only novel, to my knowledge, that is ONLY about Richard’s youngest years, set against the wider backdrop of The Wars of the Roses. It is also one of only two in which the story is told from…

JOAN NEVILLE, SISTER TO THE KINGMAKER.

Updated Post at sparkypus.com A Medieval Potpourri https://sparkypus.com/2020/05/14/joan-neville-sister-to-the-kingmaker-2/ The effigies of Joan Neville and her husband William Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel.  On a recent visit to the Fitzalan Chapel, Arundel, I stood transfixed at Joan Neville’s beautiful monument.  Carved from Caen stone.  Joan’s effigy lies next to that of her husband, William Fitzalan Earl of Arundel…

Plantagenet Ireland and Poynings’ Law

It is fair to say that most medieval English kings had little interest in Ireland except as a source of revenue. (The same was probably true about England and Wales but it seems too cynical to say it, and at least they did live there.) Prior to the Bruce invasion, Ireland yielded between £5000 and…

Sweet, sweet revenge….! The White Rose forever….!

Not quite grossly humiliated over the back of a horse, but it’ll have to do. Much better if there’d been a very thorny white rose stuck in the van’s exhaust pipe. Ah, well….

A SWORD OF EDWARD IV IN IRELAND

The House of York  always had a strong connection with Ireland. Richard Duke of York and his family lived there from a while, sometimes at the imposing Trim Castle (beloved of movie makers from Excalibur to Braveheart) and sometimes at Dublin Castle where George of Clarence was born.  Later, after the battle of Ludford Bridge,…

The True History of King Richard III (Part IV)

The sack of Ludlow 1459 Richard’s first teacher was Lady Mortimer, who taught him handwriting and country dancing. As Lady Mortimer’s late husband had been on the very fringe (almost dropping off the end) of Richard’s family tree, she also taught him something of genealogy, and he discovered that he was descended from Lionel, Duke…

TREASON 2 – The Parliament Of Devils, 1459

Introduction This is the second of two articles I have written about treason. In the first article, I wrote about the Merciless Parliament of 1388 at which eighteen of king Richard II’s closest advisors and friends were tried by parliament and condemned as traitors, against the king’s wishes. In this article I am writing about…

The Battles of the Wars of the Roses

The Wars of the Roses was a prolonged period of civil unrest in England, focussed on a period of just over thirty years which saw seventeen battles between rivals, the initiative swinging swiftly between the sides and the crown changing hands four times as a direct result of battles won and lost. One of the…