Happy Halloween! We are now only a couple of weeks away from the US Presidential Election, which the whole world is watching with genuine terror lest Donald Trump become POTUS and get access to the nuclear codes. Since little is more horrifying than monsters and politicians, today is an excellent day to discuss the zeitgeist… Read more Monstrous Politics
The future King Edward VI of England was baptized at Hampton Court on 15 October 1537, with all the holy pomp his father, King Henry VIII, could muster. Every caution was taken to preserve the baby from illness or cold, and no expense was spared on ceremony. As Margaret Beaufort had dictated decades before, the… Read more Baptizing Edward VI
Up until 1066 most of England was Anglo-Saxon and proud of it. There had been a few decades of Danish rule on and off, but for the last 24 years the King of England had been Edward the Confessor, the son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, who had been given the throne… Read more The Battle of Hastings: Making England French in 1066
Edward of Westminster, the disputed Prince of Wales, was called by that name because he born at the Palace of Westminster on 13 October 1453. He was the only child of King Henry VI of England and Margaret of Anjou, and his birth infuriated Richard, 3rd Duke of York and plunged England into a civil… Read more The Short Life of Edward of Westminster
King Edward VI of England was born on 12 October 1537 to the great rejoicing of the populace and profound relief of his father, Henry VIII. Few children have been welcomed into the world with the eagerness in which an entire nation awaited the birth of Edward VI. The pregnancy of Jane Seymour, the third… Read more Happy Birthday to Edward VI!
On 11 October 1549 King Edward VI was rescued from Windsor Castle, where his uncle, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, had taken him after kidnapping the young king in an attempt to keep the Privy Council from deposing Somerset’s reign as Lord Protector. Somerset had done such a good job of convincing Edward that the… Read more Saving Edward VI
The first week of October in 1549 was a tumultuous time in the reign of the young King Edward VI, who was just shy of 12 years old. The Privy Council was trying to un-throne Edward Seymour, the 1st Duke of Somerset and the king’s maternal uncle, from his de facto kingship and Somerset was… Read more Surrender, Somerset!
Netflix has released a new documentary entitled Audrie and Daisy that is an “unflinching account of high-school sexual assault and trial by social media”. This documentary was important to me for several reasons, including because I have written about these young rape victims in my book The Jezebel Effect. In the book I explained that:… Read more Audrie and Daisy and Slut Shaming