Death in Drogheda: Thomas Fitzgerald, 7th Earl of Desmond

FAMILY BACKGROUND The FitzGeralds of Desmond traced their descent from Maurice FitzGerald, son of Gerald of Windsor and the Welsh princess Nest. The original Norman conquests were confined to the eastern parts of Ireland, and the Anglo-Norman lordship as created by Henry II was based on a clear division of authority between this area and…

Thomas Seymour, Princess Elizabeth and hanky-panky….

Was Thomas Seymour guilty of any hanky-panky with his young stepdaughter Princess Elizabeth (to become Elizabeth I)? Well, yes, I don’t think there’s any doubt of that, but there has to be doubt about the extent of the hanky-panky. She was very young, around thirteen, and he was thirty-eight, so it certainly wasn’t runaway youthful…

St. Philip Howard and the greyhound in the Tower

Philip Howard, lived from 1557-1595. He was the only son of Thomas Howard 4th Duke of Norfolk by his first wife, Lady Mary Fitzalan who was, of course, the Arundel heiress. Philip’s father was executed for treason against Queen Elizabeth I in 1572, which explains why Philip was not allowed to succeed as Duke of…

WAS LAMBERT SIMNEL A TUDOR HOAX?

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri @ sparkypus.com ‘So rude a matter and so strange a thinge,  As a boy in Dublin to be made a kinge..’ * Old St Paul’s where the tragic Edward Earl of Warwick was displayed in February 1487 and with ‘Lambert Simnel’  on the 8 July 1487.  ‘Old St Paul’s Cathedral Seen…

WILLIAM CATESBY, GOOD GUY, BAD GUY, TRAITOR? THE CLUES IN HIS WILL

REBLOGGED FROM A MEDIEVAL POTPOURRI sparkypus.com Brass of William Catesby,  Ashby St Ledgers Church.   Commissioned by William’s son in 1507.  Date of death 20th August is incorrect, predating Bosworth,  perhaps in an attempt to cover up his inglorious end.  Note the damage across the neck.  Photo Aidan McRae Thomas Flkir As no doubt can be seen…

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…

The living Henry VII married the late Mary of York….!

“….Edward III’s great-great-grandsons then fought in the 15th century War of the Roses which put infamous King Richard III on the throne…. “….Henry VII eventually took over from him, backed by his marriage to Mary of York, and produced Henry VIII, who created Protestantism via the 16th-century reformation….” The above is an extract from this…

Today in 1441….

An unusual witchcraft case in Ipswich

Originally posted on Mid Anglia Group, Richard III Society:
Mary Lackland, or Lakeland, was burned on the Cornhill on 9th September 1645 but why? The heresy laws had been repealed in 1558/9 although they were invoked later, up to 1612/3. This execution took place at the peak of the Matthew Hopkins witch mania but those…

An Obscure Lady of the Garter

Recently, for the purposes of writing fiction, I had cause to check who was admitted to the Garter in 1387. (This is the sort of weird stuff I do all the time and helps explain why for me to write a book takes aeons.) Anyway, the simple answer is Edward of York (later 2nd Duke…