The art that made us

This is another fascinating BBC2 series, illustrating English and British history through the evolution of our art. The eight one-hour episodes, narrated by David Threlfall (Men of the World), feature:The Roman and pre-Roman periods, Beowulf, the Norman conquest and the Bayeux Tapestry;     The Black Death, Wilton Diptych, Piers Plowman, Chaucer, Julian of Norwich,…

A Visit to Richard III’s Book of Hours

As you may know, Richard III’s Book of Hours is housed in the Library of Lambeth Palace, the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which is located just across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament. It was put on display for a limited period in the spring and I managed to find time to…

Richard III and the Ancient Egyptian cheese….!

In this intriguing list of twenty , the discovery of Richard III’s remains comes in at number two! He was pipped at the post by an extremely old cheese from Egypt. Eh? Old cheese? Sorry, but can that possibly be more important than Richard? It doesn’t even have King Tut’s fingerprints or teethmarks! 😦 Oh…

Walking “Tudor” England

Suzannah Lipscomb has just completed another series on Channel Five, this time visiting the sites related to the “Tudors”. In the first episode, she concentrated on Henry VIII and the naval power he inherited from John Howard, Duke of Norfolk. The second was principally about the penultimate “Tudor”, Mary I, as well as Edward VI…

King James VI of Scotland, James I of England podcast….

  Here is a link to a BBC podcast about King James VI of Scotland, who, of course, became James I of England and was the first of our Stuart monarchs. I can’t say I’m a Stuart expert, being much more interested in the Plantagenets, but a monarch is a monarch!

Rosary of Mary, Queen of Scots, stolen from Arundel Castle….

The theft of items of great historical importance aren’t common, thank goodness, but they do come along…and this time—on Friday, 21st May, when a burglar alarm went off at 22:30 BST—it was Arundel Castle that was raided. To read all about it, go to this site.  The stolen treasures were worth more than £1 million,…

A rogue detectorist strikes at Fotheringhay….!

“….A man with a metal detector was spoken to just hours before two holes were dug at the East Northamptonshire site where Mary, Queen of Scots was tried and executed. “….An investigation has been launched after the criminal incident within the grounds of Fotheringhay Castle – which is protected as a scheduled monument – overnight…

HENRY “TUDOR” IN THE 21ST CENTURY?

With advanced computer technology, more artists and other interested people are doing their own ‘facial reconstructions’ of famous historical figures, often giving them modern hair styles and clothes to let people see how they might have looked if they lived in the present day. The following article has 30 such images, and is interesting because…

The truth about the Christian New Year’s Eve….

New Year’s Eve now and New Year’s Eve in the mediaeval period actually refer to two different calendar days. Old New Year’s Eve was 24th March. For an easy-to-understand explanation, please go to here, but whichever the day, it was still New Year’s Eve. We now celebrate it with much fun, laughter and hope, but…

Seeking another Scottish consort

(Saint) Margaret of Wessex, great-granddaughter of Ethelred Unraed, granddaughter of Edmund Ironside and great-niece of (St.) Edward the Confessor, died just three days after her husband, Malcolm III was killed at Alnwick in 1093. She, as eventual heiress to the House of Wessex, was the ancestor of every subsequent Scottish monarch except Donald Bain, Malcolm’s…