Which duke? And which hill was marched up and then down again….?

  We all know the Grand Old Duke of York marched his 10,000 men up a hill and then down again. But which Duke of York was it? If you go here you’ll find there are a number of candidates, including the 3rd Duke, father of Edward IV and Richard III. In general, however, my…

A tale of monarchs and national anthems

Anyone who has watched a Scottish rugby or association football match will be familiar with the Corries’ folk song O Flower of Scotland, which is played before their matches. The second line of the chorus (“Proud Edward’s army”) refers to Edward II, defeated at Bannockburn so that he never actually ruled Scotland although he may…

Wenceslaus Hollar, by Gillian Tindall…

  Until now, I have not encountered any of the books of Gilliam Tindall, but some of them look as if they may be of interest to us. The one I came upon is here, which I intend to get, because I have always loved the beautifully detailed work of Wenceslaus Hollar, about whom I…

A new tool uses DNA to predict eye, hair, skin colour…

A new tool uses DNA to predict eye, hair, skin colour … Quote from the above article: “The tool has been used by law enforcement in the Netherlands, Poland, and Australia, but it has not yet been adopted in the United States, Walsh said. It has also been used on ancient DNA, and it was…

A new interpretation of 1580s events

We all know that Mary Stuart was beheaded at Fotheringhay on 8 February 1587 and that the Spanish Armada sailed to facilitate a Catholic invasion of England in the following year, leaving Lisbon on 28 May and fighting naval battles in late July, at Plymouth and Portland. The traditional view is that Mary Stuart’s execution…

Sad news Down Under

In memory of Leo van der Pas, the Dutch-born cyber-genealogist who died in Canberra earlier this year: http://www.genealogics.org/index.php

TREASON 3 – The Long Parliament 1649

Introduction “ The scaffold was hung round with black, and the floor covered with black, and the axe and block (were) laid in the middle of the scaffold. There were divers companies of Foot and Horse on every side of the scaffold, and the multitude of people that came to be spectators were very great.”[1]…

THE MALIGNED RICARDIANS

Part 1 – Sir William Cornwallis the younger “ His virtues I have sought to revive, his vices to excuse” (The Encomium of Richard III, Sir William Cornwallis) It is conceivable that historians do not take the early revisionist histories of king Richard III seriously owing to an assumption that the authors were not themselves…