Ela of Salisbury, Sheriff, Abbess, and Ancestor of Kings

Ela of Salisbury has been called a ‘towering female figure of the 13th’ century by historian Linda  Elizabeth Mitchell. However, outside of some quarters in Wiltshire, she is not terribly well known. What is even less commented on than her accomplishments is her genealogy. She is a foremother to Richard III and Edward IV in…

SARUM LIGHTS–A COMMEMORATION

2020 is the 800th Anniversary of the founding of Salisbury Cathedral. Before ‘New Salisbury’ came into existence, the town stood on the windy cone of Old Sarum, a huge iron-age hillfort with massive earthen ramparts. There was a particularly forbidding Norman castle on the height, with a windswept bridge over a deep moat–here, Henry II…

THE MISSING PRINCES-LOOKING IN LINCOLNSHIRE & DEVON

Philippa Langley has recently been on the road with ‘The Missing Princes Project’ making inquiries in Lincolnshire as to any local legends or folklore (such stories can often  hold a tiny grain of folk memory) relating to King Richard or the two boys. Interestingly, author Sandra Heath Wilson in her novels has the  princes hidden…

BUCKINGHAM’S MYSTERIOUS BURIAL

Where lies Harry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham? No one can say for sure, his final resting place is as elusive and entwined with myth and legend as Richard III’s once was. Stafford, leader of the October 1483 rebellion against Richard, was turned in by one of his own men while hiding in a cottage, apparently…