The Traitor’s Arms?

In 1840 workmen carrying out repairs to St Bartholomew’s Church, Ashperton, Herefordshire were collecting stones from the ruins of a nearby manor house when they discovered a heavy stone plaque, carved with an elaborate coat of arms, among the rubble. The stone was taken to the church for safekeeping and has hung on the wall…

The White Rose Of Mortimer?

Originally posted on RICARDIAN LOONS:
Most historians now accept that, while the white rose of York was a heraldic badge used by the house of York during the Wars of the Roses, the origins of the red rose of Lancaster can only be traced back to Henry VII.1 After his accession to the throne in…

Does someone not understand science?

This blog suggests that the failure of Richard’s Y-chromosome to match that of the Dukes of Beaufort doesn’t make him a male line descendant of Edward III through the “illegitimacy” of Richard, Earl of Cambridge. The issue it fails to address is this: The inconsistent chromosome has several other, more likely explanations – that Richard…

The mystery of the Cade key….

There is an interesting article by Sally Self in the Victoria County History, Gloucestershire, Newsletter 8, January 2018. I will repeat it in full, before making any comments of my own. Not to disprove anything, I hasten to say, but to show my own efforts to find out more about this key. I wish to thank…

The meeting of the three Estates, 25 June 1483

It was not the first time that a Convention Parliament had effectively determined the succession. We might look, for example, the precedent of 1399, when just such an assembly deposed Richard II and (in effect) elected Henry IV, who was not even Richard II’s right heir. (He was the heir male, but strangely enough did…

Jack Cade and the Mortimer connection….

In the summer of 1450, Richard, 3rd Duke of York, threw in his appointments in Ireland to return to England to assert his rights as heir to the throne of the inept Lancastrian king, Henry VI. The ensuing confrontation with poor Henry, who really was too gentle to be king, led to Parliament being called…