Historical fact and fiction
Those of you who are following me on this know that I had decided to use both Thomas Armstrongs in my story. But I have tried - and I just cannot get interested in the war history! I'm a social historian and I just can't bring myself to read one more thing about who was... Continue Reading →
Been flat out like a lizard drinking lately! But I did manage to read this story from Greg Manuel The Twilight Man - it was so wonderful I just had to share it. Cheers Kerry
I am finally getting back to my research for The Parting Glass after a little detour writing for an anthology submission (more on that as information comes to hand). It is a little difficult getting back to writing something, even if you find it intriguing, after a biggish break. So I needed to get back... Continue Reading →
As a writer, I know that a thousand words are sooo important. But, even I have to admit, that sometimes a picture can tell a thousand words.
Choosing 300 images for Picturing England, a book featuring photographs from our Archive, was both a joy and a torment. It was a joy because my colleagues in the Archive unearthed so many fascinating and unfamiliar pictures from our holdings and a torment because we had to leave out so many wonderful photographs.
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The HIstory Jar: always an interesting read
By 1460 rivalries between Richard of York and Henry VI’s favourites had descended from political hostility into open warfare. Having fled to Calais in 1459 in the aftermath of the Ludford Bridge disaster, the earl of Warwick, his father the earl of Salisbury, his uncle Lord Fauconberg and his cousin Edward earl of March arrived back in England at Sandwich with 2,000 men in June 1460. Their numbers snowballed. The city of London fell to the Yorkists with only the Tower of London remaining in Lancastrian hands.
The Lancastrians moved out of their stronghold at Coventry intent upon confronting the gathering white rose host whilst the Yorkists came north with their artillery along Watling Street. Jean de Waurin, the Burgundian chronicler, explained that the Lancastrian army awaited their foes outside Northampton, in a park by a little river (the Nene). The English Chronicle identified the battle as taking place between…
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Between 1571 and 1783, over 1000 people, predominantly men, were executed at Tyburn. During the same period, there were also executions at Smithfield and Tower Hill. Imagine what it would be like to be taking the journey to the gallows: crowds jeering - sometimes numbering as many as 30,000, all manner of insults and objects being... Continue Reading →
In 1457 Margaret Beaufort, shown here in later life, along with her brother-in-law Jasper Tudor left Pembroke Castle. They were on their way to arrange a marriage. The groom in question was Henry Stafford. He was the second son of the Duke of Buckingham.
The pair married on the 3rd January 1458 at Maxstowe Castle. The marriage had been agreed by April at the latest the previous year but there was the inevitable dispensation to apply for and besides which Margaret possibly didn’t want to hurry the match because when she started married life as Mrs Stafford she relinquished the care of her infant son, Henry, into the care of Jasper Tudor.
Henry was twenty years or so older than Margaret who was nearly fifteen when she married for the third time. This means that Henry was born in 1425 (ish). He was a second son of Ann Neville (daughter…
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John de la Pole born in 1442 was the only son of William de la Pole, earl and then duke of Norfolk and Alice Chaucer, granddaughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. William de la Pole was Henry VI’s key adviser during the 1440s. It was he who arranged the marriage between Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou in a bid to bring the Hundred Years War to an end, on Henry’s orders it should be added – it didn’t end the war with the French and it didn’t make William popular with the English who blamed him for a French bride who had no dowry but who had cost England large areas of France: Maine and Anjou. It probably didn’t help that he was descended from a Hull wool merchant rather than being tied by blood to the ruling families.
John de la Pole is technically Margaret Beaufort’s first husband…
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According to the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of medicine is: the science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease (in technical use often taken to exclude surgery). a drug or other preparation for the treatment or prevention of disease: a spell, charm, or fetish believed to have healing, protective, or other power... Continue Reading →
