A joust involving two Scottish lords who don’t seem to have existed….

Excerpt from The Brut or The Chronicles of England, ed. Friedrich W.D. Brie (London, 1906), pp. 343-4, 348. “….[1393]….And in the seventeenth year of his [Richard II‘s] reign, certain lords of Scotland came to England to win renown through deeds of arms.   And these are the persons:  The Earl of Mar, who challenged the Earl Marshal of…

Sir Bevis Bulmer – son of Smithfield

Bevis Bulmer certainly didn’t have a good start in life. He was about one when his parents were executed for high treason on the same day in May 1537, having been caught up in the Pilgrimage of Grace. Sir John, from a prominent Yorkshire family, was hanged and beheaded whilst Margaret, his mother who may…

Today in 1441….

Oh where, Oh where, has Chaucer’s “Foul Oak” gone….?

    According to Project Gutenberg, on 6th September 1390 Geoffrey Chaucer was mugged at a place called the Foul Oak, but not the Baginton Oak. Rather was it on what we now call the Old Kent Road but was originally the Roman Watling Street, leading out of London, on the way to Canterbury and…

Epiphany – medieval and now….

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the following two definitions refer to the use of the word epiphany:- The manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (Matthew 2:1–12). Definition (1) A moment of sudden and great revelation/realisation. Definition (2) Epiphany has been a recognised feast of the Western Church since the 5th…

It’s Alice Perrers’ biography, but the author puts the boot into Lionel of Clarence….!

Given her huge notoriety at the time, it’s odd that Edward III’s mistress, Alice Perrers, has (as far as I can ascertain) only garnered one biography. This is Lady of the Sun by F George Kay, 1966 (and seemingly never reprinted). There are no surviving contemporary likenesses of Alice, nor even a description of her.…

The great house Richard III granted to John Howard….

There was once a royal house, sometimes referred to as a palace, in the street named The Riole in London’s Vintry Ward, and Richard III granted it to his good friend and ally, John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk. The great house was called the Tower Royal, and, like so much of medieval London, it…

Quite an unfortunate family

Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, cannot be called unlucky. The story of his revolt against Richard III, ending in Salisbury at the start of November 1483 is so well known that even Shakespeare has the right end of this particular stick. However, his family suffered fates that they didn’t always deserve so obviously: 1)…