William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke

William Herbert, otherwise ‘Black William’ was born in 1423, the son of Sir William ap Thomas ‘the Blue Knight of Gwent’ and Gwladys ferch Dafydd Gam the ‘Star of Abergavenny’. His main claim to fame is that he was the first Welshman to become an earl in the peerage of England, except for Henry VI’s…

Katherine Plantagenet, her burial in St James Garlickhithe.

Reblogged from here The Great Fire of London. The devastating conflagration that consumed so much of medieval London including St James Garlickhythe.  Artist  Lieve Verschuier This post will of necessity prove to be short there being a dearth of information on both Katherine and the  pre-Fire St James Garlickhythe Church where she was buried.  The church…

Anne Herbert Countess of Pembroke, Yorkist widow & mother in law to Katherine Plantagenet

Reblogged from sparkypus.com A Medieval Potpourri Anne Devereux, John Lydgate’s Troy Book and Siege of Thebes @British Library Well that old wheel of fortune could certainly whizz around and no more so than in the lives of the noble women from the turbulent times we now know as the Wars of the Roses.  An example…

A Welsh family for St. Crispin’s Day

We start with Dafydd Gam (c.1380-1415), who fought against the Glyn Dwr rebellion at the beginning of the fifteenth century, apparently trying to assassinate the leading rebel and being imprisoned by him. He may have saved Henry V’s life at Azincourt but was definitely killed there. His daughter, Gwladys ferch Dafydd Gam, married twice and…