What if Henry Tudor had been a handsome, charismatic challenger….?

    As supporters of Richard III, we find it only too easy to dislike Henry VII. Not only did the churl defeat and kill Richard (not even through his own martial endeavours but through treachery!) but his looks mean we wouldn’t trust him an inch. He looks cold, calculating, shifty and downright untrustworthy, nor…

What did the Kingmaker look like….?

Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, known to posterity as the Kingmaker, was a very prominent figure in the 15th century and featured in one of my very early books. He was born today, 22 November, in 1428. I’ve seen numerous depictions of him, but have just happened upon a drawing (see above) that I…

Might she have been Queen Elizabeth II….?

Well here’s something interesting. I confess that the Stuart period isn’t one of my strongpoints, and I know very little about Elizabeth Stuart, but the above portrait of her is very intriguing. Is she wearing the same crown that appears in the pictures beneath the main portrait? The crown in the little illustration on the…

A lookalike of Richard’s ring….

  Is the modern ring below, found at this site , meant to be one of the three rings in the NPG portrait? See above. If so, which one? To me, the left ring and the one in the centre look about the same…. The one on the right is totally unlike the “star” ring…

A living, breathing Richard III….?

There have been “animations” of Richard before, and mock-ups of what he actually looked like, but I have to admit that this one is the best so far. We’re so accustomed to the “reconstruction” made from the exact dimensions of his skull, but there is no life in it, if you know what I mean.…

Did Edward III, Richard II and Henry VII look like this….?

  My internet travels take me here, there and everywhere…and today I came upon another site about facial reconstructions of past figures of consequence. There have been quite a few of these in recent years, and this one is an interesting addition. Well, addition for me, it may have been around for quite some time.…

The portrait at Hever Castle is more like Henry VI than Richard III….

I’ve seen this (awful!) portrait of Richard before. It just doesn’t look like him, more one of the invented Tudor versions of him, i.e. monstrous and evil, or weak and terrified of all things Tudor. This one fits the ‘weak and terrified’ mould, and if it were listed as a portrait of Henry VI, I’d…

MISIDENTIFIED HISTORICAL PORTRAITS INCLUDING TUDOR QUEENS…

Reblogged from MISIDENTIFIED HISTORICAL PORTRAITS INCLUDING TUDOR QUEENS… Does anyone else like me get irritated by misidentified portraits of historical characters?  Is it that difficult to get correct? It’s quite sloppy to be honest as just a quick glance at them tells you something ain’t quite right here!  It’s particularly common around  16th century portraiture when…

Richard III and the Ancient Egyptian cheese….!

In this intriguing list of twenty , the discovery of Richard III’s remains comes in at number two! He was pipped at the post by an extremely old cheese from Egypt. Eh? Old cheese? Sorry, but can that possibly be more important than Richard? It doesn’t even have King Tut’s fingerprints or teethmarks! 😦 Oh…

It’s all in the blood….

Seeing family likenesses is always irresistible, and few can deny that Henry VII and his mother are practically identical…well, except that as far as I know he wasn’t inclined to dress up to resemble a nun! From this I conclude that Beaufort blood is the key. Just how much Beaufort blood is arguable, of course.…