TWO ANGELS, TWO BUCKINGHAMS

A nice little pre-Christmas break took me to two towns of interest, Buckingham and Grantham. I wanted to see Buckingham museum which is currently hosting a Richard III display featuring the gold Half Angel found in the fields nearby. It was a nice little collection and the info panels were mercifully free of too many…

The Wardrobe, the King’s Wardrobes….er, no The Queen’s Wardrobe….?

  During the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381, when the Tower of London was breached by the rebels and some of those sheltering inside were dragged out and executed, another person of note who was there was widowed Joan of Kent, Princess of Wales, mother of 14-year-old King Richard II. Well, the future Henry IV was…

Weir(d) babies (3): “Philippa of Gloucester”

We have written twice before about non-existent historical children somehow finding their way into works by a certain modern writer, who is often cited on Wikipedia and repeated by others. In these posts, we referred to “Joan of York”, ostensibly a sister of Richard III, together with those attributed to Henry IV and Mary de…

Spreading propaganda works both ways, as John of Gaunt discovered….

As we all know, the Tudors were masters of propaganda. The lies about Richard III poured forth throughout their usurpation, and still persist to this day. If they could say something unpleasant and derogatory about him, they did. Perhaps it was in their blood, of course, because they were descended (one way or another) from…

Two butchers, an archer and a “bourgeois of Tournai”….

“….Consider, for example, the case of John Sperhauk, which came before King’s Bench in April 1402. The plea roll record opens with the memorandum of his confession taken on 13 April by the coroner of King’s Bench, before the king and ‘by [his] authority and command’. In this confession, Sperhauk admitted to publicly repeating allegations…

Philippa de Coucy

One of Edward III’s many grandchildren, Philippa de Coucy (born before April 1367) was the daughter of the important French nobleman Enguerrand, Lord of Coucy, by Isabella, eldest daughter of King Edward and Queen Philippa. Isabella was pretty much the definition of a spoiled princess, and contrary to the usual stereotype, pretty much did as…

What were our medieval kings’ voices like….?

Today I once again heard Henry VIII described as Bluff King Hal. Well, this is usually said almost affectionately, which the Henry VIII we all know does not warrant. He was a monster. I think his voice was probably stentorian. Eventually he was downright nasty and needed to be approached with an excessively long bargepole.…

Was the Black Prince a control freak where his wife was concerned….?

Before I start, I must apologise for the decidedly uncontemporary illustrations. They are an indulgence, I fear. The one above, of the Prince of Wales (known to posterity as the Black Prince) in armour at an army camp, his hands clasped behind his back, seems to me to probably capture him exactly as he was…all…

The Central Line Consort?

Kathryn Warner has been Edward II’s main chronicler for a few years now, writing about the King himself, his times, his great-grandson Richard II, several other relatives the roots of the “Wars of the Roses”. This book is about Edward’s daughter-in-law, although he tried a little to prevent his eldest son’s marriage during his own…

Weir(d) Babies (2)

A while ago, I talked about the non-existence of  a short-lived child of Richard Duke of York and Cecily Neville  called Joan of York, who mysteriously made it into Alison Weir’s  royal genealogies,  despite only ever appearing in someone’s self-made family tree from the 1960’s. Since then I have come across yet another non-existent child…