Identifying another King

The monarch in question is Robert I (Bruce) and the investigation, as part of the Foundation for Mediaeval Genealogy’s Declaration of Arbroath Family History Project, is being carried out by the University of Strathclyde: Graham Holton has reported good progress in this press release: Genetic marker discovered for descendants of Bruce clan, January 2022.A distinct…

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…

More Mythology of Richard III

The Mythology of Richard III was one of the late John Ashdown-Hill’s fine and well-researched books, which tried to dispel some of the ingrained tall tales about the much-maligned King. Unfortunately, ‘MORE Mythology’ seems to come up all too infrequently, and I am not necessarily talking about Thomas More, although his name often arises still…

Will the sequencing of Richard’s genome prove he was good or bad….?

On Tuesday 2nd March a new series commences on BBC2 (9 pm) about what may or may not be revealed by the in-depth study of DNA and sequencing genomes. Of course, this will include Richard. How can it not? Especially when Professor Turi King is involved. Richard is surely the most important and prominent historical…

Another prominent Talbot

Last year, we brought you the news that the developers of the Stanley knife were descended from Thomas, Baron Stanley, subsequently Earl of Derby. Now we can announce that a great scientist and inventor was a Talbot, authentically descended from John “Old Talbot”, Earl of Shrewsbury and posthumous father-in-law to Edward IV. William Henry Fox…

THE EARLS IN THE TENNIS COURT: A VISIT TO BISHAM ABBEY

Bisham Abbey was the burial place of the Earls of Salisbury, and also Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the ‘Kingmaker’ and his unfortunate grandson Edward of Warwick, executed on a trumped-up charge by Henry VII. The Abbey was destroyed in the Reformation, and on the grounds now stands the National Sports Centre, where many professional…

MORE WORK ON ANCIENT DNA

Last year,  ancient DNA was in the headlines  when it was determined  the ‘Beaker People’ who arrived in Britain c 4500 years ago, genetically replaced 90% of the previous population. At that time, studies were saying that the ‘Steppe Ancestry’ found in these people was not found in the Beaker population of Spain, long thought…

Does someone not understand science?

This blog suggests that the failure of Richard’s Y-chromosome to match that of the Dukes of Beaufort doesn’t make him a male line descendant of Edward III through the “illegitimacy” of Richard, Earl of Cambridge. The issue it fails to address is this: The inconsistent chromosome has several other, more likely explanations – that Richard…

Where to find that “Tudor” Y-chromosome?

This very good blog post details the career and planned future of Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, who might have succeeded Henry VIII had he not died suddenly at seventeen and a legitimate half-brother been born a year and a quarterlater. It also states his original and current burial places, the latter being St. Michael’s…

The latest on the hunt for Richard’s Y-chromosome

Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence, was born today in 1338, although he died just before his thirtieth birthday. He is, of course, a mixed-line direct ancestor of Richard III but he is the brother of Edmund of Langley, Richard’s male-line great grandfather. Here, John Ashdown-Hill spoke to Nerdalicious about his attempts to locate Lionel…