Hanley Castle

Hanley Castle is located in the south-western part of Worcestershire, only a short distance from the Gloucestershire border. Today it is a small, agreeable village, notable for a school, an excellent pub, The Three Kings and an interesting church, consecrated in 1325. As the place name implies, there was once a castle here, although all…

Does the name Jack Broom indicate the hero of a new children’s book is one of the princes…?

Well, my title is guesswork, of course, but surely Broom is a reference to Plantagenet (a name taken from planta genista, the Latin for the yellow broom flower). The story (the first in a series by author Andrew Beattie) is about the boys in the Tower, but is Jack Broom one of them? Or is…

Athelstan–Our Greatest Monarch?

A recent poll searching for Britain’s ‘Greatest Monarch’, came up with the surprise winner of… drum roll, King Athelstan. Not that the Anglo-Saxon king wasn’t so great, but the winner is a little surprising since most people seem to have believed the ‘crown’ would go to Elizabeth I. (Yawn!) I hope the voters actually remembered…

Book Review: How to Survive in Medieval England by Toni Mount

This useful guide is a vital accessory when you next visit the Middle Ages. How will you manage without your mobile phone, internet or social media? When transport means walking or, for the better off, horse-back, how will you know where you are or where to go? Where will you live and what should you…

A pedant writes…

In the aftermath of certain historical novels I have read recently, I should like to give the following information, in the hope it will be helpful to authors, editors (if they still exist) and indeed readers. SLAVERY – Although slavery was quite common in England in Anglo-Saxon times, it was became less usual after the…

The Franchise Affair

Josephine Tey is renowned for writing contemporary novels that refer to older mysteries. The Daughter of Time was unquestionably about an injured police Inspector learning about Richard III and the “Princes” – a device borrowed by Colin Dexter. Brat Farrar was about a missing boy who seems to reappear but whose identity is doubted, for…

Princess Cecily of York, a very daring lady….

  Some of you will know that in the 1970s I wrote a trilogy about Cicely/Cecily, daughter of Edward IV. I called her Cicely back then, and have stuck with it, but now she is generally known as Cecily. She had been the third daughter, but on the death of her sister Mary, because second…

‘WE SPEAK NO TREASON’ – Rosemary Hawley Jarman

Richard brought to Greyfriars for Burial.  Artwork  Emma Vieceli Reblogged from Sparkypus.com We Speak No Treason And so once more the awful date has come and gone.  Many fictional Ricardian novels  have been written based on Richard and his life but surely the scenes of the aftermath of Bosworth in We speak no Treason written by the late Rosemary Hawley…

Book Review: Distant Echoes: Richard III Speaks!

Distant Echoes: Richard III Speaks! by Joanne R. Larner In the time following the discovery, beneath a Leicester parking lot, of the remains of Richard III, the last English king to die in battle, the medieval monarch has indeed gained a wider audience as we learn more details of the find. For example, it was…

A New Novel of Richard III

Finally my new novel, Distant Echoes, is available on Kindle for only £2.50 ($2.99 on Amazon.com). The paperback is imminent too! It was inspired by lyrics from a song, Sheriff Hutton, by The Legendary Ten Seconds. Here is the synopsis of the story: A new, innovative invention. The DNA of a mediaeval king. Put them…