Thou shalt not spread porkies….

  “….[A] proclamation to tackle unrest, 1487… stated that any person found to be spreading rumours was to be put into the pillory….”  (from this  site ) Oh dear, Henry VII didn’t like doses of his own medicine! I speak of rumours and lies. What’s the word….? Um, calumny. That’s it. You know, the rumours…

Edmund of Rutland – a life cut short – his burial at Fotheringhay.

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri sparkypus.com Fotheringhay Church and  Yorkist Mausoleum 1804.   Watercolour by unknown artist. Described by Simon Jenkins as ‘the church that seems to float on its hill above the River Nene, a galleon of Perpendicular on a sea of corn…’ Edmund, son of Richard Duke of York and Cicely Neville was born…

Medieval Jewish Settlements in Oxford

Originally posted on Giaconda's Blog:
The Crypt at Oxford Castle – built on Anglo-Saxon foundations The first Jewish settlers arrived in Oxford not long after the Norman Conquest, around 1075AD residing in the commercial heart of the city at St Aldates which became known as Great Jewry Street, close to the original C8th oxen…

Athelstan–Our Greatest Monarch?

A recent poll searching for Britain’s ‘Greatest Monarch’, came up with the surprise winner of… drum roll, King Athelstan. Not that the Anglo-Saxon king wasn’t so great, but the winner is a little surprising since most people seem to have believed the ‘crown’ would go to Elizabeth I. (Yawn!) I hope the voters actually remembered…

Did a volcanic eruption somewhere in the world affect England in 1391….?

  Huge volcanic eruptions have always affected parts of the world that are often far, far away from the centre of the event. A famous (to me) example of this was in 1815 with Mount Tambora (in what is now Indonesia) which created such clouds and darkness that it made 1816 “the Year Without a…

Rob Bell explains …

“Walking Britain’s Lost Railways” is back, for a fourth series, starting in Yorkshire. As well as walking the former York to Hull route, Bell explains why the East Coast Main Line, as it now is, passes through York and not Leeds, although the latter is now more than four times larger. This situation, in which…

The story of Queen Margaret’s Gate, York….

  “….[Queen Margaret’s Gate, Bootham Bar] was supposedly intended as a short-cut for King Henry VII (the man who had defeated Richard III) when he was visiting York and stayed at the Abbot’s Lodging, now King’s Manor. The short cut would have made it quicker for him to get from the abbey to the Minster….”…

Richard III: Coming Home – to the Yorkshire Museum….

The following extract is from site this site, which concerns various attractions in York. I have picked out the paragraphs that apply paricularly to Richard III. “….The Yorkshire Museum, meanwhile, is scheduled to re-open in late July – by which time it will have been closed for 16 months, thanks to the Covid pandemic. “….It…

Richard only became king because of the Council of the North. Got it….?

Something caught my attention in this article about the role York has played in our history. Here is the relevant extract:- “….In 1405, the Percys seriously proposed to create a separate Northern kingdom forever. The Wars of the Roses was at heart all about that divide. Richard III became king only because he had his…

The prospect of an exciting new dig at York….!

The York Archaeological Society is hoping that an important new dig in the city is going to attract thousands of tourists. It will be an excavation into the city’s Roman history, and being outdoors will be an advantage in these times of Covid 19 restrictions. This can only be a good thing when so many…