Newport and the lucky/unlucky Staffords….

It seems to me, looking at the list in this article about Newport Castle, that a few members of the Stafford family came to sticky ends, some deserved, some apparently not. They may have been unlucky, but the family was wealthy and titled, so perhaps not that hard done by. In 1377 Hugh, Earl of…

Sassanachs don’t Like Mondays (allegedly)

Ormond versus Desmond In addition to the canonical list of battles, the sporadic chaos of the Wars of the Roses spawned one or two encounters between the heads of rival aristocratic families, of which the best known is the battle between the Berkeleys and Talbots at Nibley Green in Gloucestershire in March 1470. What is…

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…

Henry of Derby’s “family” wasn’t his family at all….

  Research has recently taken me all over 14th-century Europe, and in the course of this I happened upon the information that wives did not accompany embassies. Well, I’ve now acquired a book entitled Expeditions to Prussia and the Holy Land made by Henry Earl of Derby, published by The Camden Society. The future Henry…

Was 29th March a day of retribution for a certain 14th-century lord….?

  For the past two/three years I have been grappling (off and on, so to speak) with some defiant dates. No doubt I’ve bewailed this particular problem before because my interest in the lord concerned is quite considerable. Not least because he may have had great significance for the House of York. So here goes…

A mystery man named Avery Cornburgh….

  “….Cornburgh, originally from Cornwall and later of Gooshayes (Essex), was yeoman at the Lancastrian, Yorkist, and Tudor courts and a man of considerable power….” The above extract is from this article I confess I had never heard of Avery Cornburgh (died 1487) who was apparently a close friend of John Howard, Duke of Norfolk.…

ANOTHER MISSING QUEEN: JOAN OF SCOTLAND

The village of Tarrant Crawford really isn’t a village anymore. If you type the address into your Satnav, it will vanish from the screen while driving down the nearby main road–there are no signposts and the only other road visible is a simple farm track fringed by thick trees. However, here at one time was…

A MEDIEVAL BIRTHING GIRDLE ANALYSED

Medieval childbirth was a fearful time for women. Dangers were many, and little could be done if there was any kind of medical problem. Women routinely wrote their wills prior to going into labour as the death rate was so high. Out of this fear came the use of many charms and rituals meant to…

How did those Canterbury pilgrims hear at the back…?

There is something that has always puzzled me about Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: if there were up to thirty pilgrims (which is what’s reckoned) how on earth could one of them (at a time)tell a tale that the other twenty-nine could hear? In the text Chaucer has his pilgrims point out places they’re passing, so it…

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…