english history

Mary of Guise

Marie de Guise was born on 22 November 1515 in Lorraine, France. She was the eldest daughter of Claude of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, and quite the matrimonial catch. A tall and lithesome woman, she was also intelligent and brave, and proved her worth many times over as both a duchess and the Queen of… Read more Mary of Guise

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Radicalization is always political, and any religion can serve as a metaphorical base camp for terrorism. Thanks to both public amnesia and sociopolitical eliding of some forms of terrorism once the terrorists are rebranded “freedom fighters”, people don’t seem to know much about historically recent occurring in Europe. For example, the 20th century Fight for… Read more Sunday, Bloody Sunday

The Battle of Hastings: Making England French in 1066

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

Saving 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

Surrender, Somerset!

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!

The Battle of Poitiers

King Jean II of France met Edward, the Black Prince of Wales in battle at Poitiers on 19 September 1356 in one of the most decisive English victories of the Hundred Years’ War. It really sucked to be French during the Hundred Years War, and the decades before and after the Battle of Poitiers were… Read more The Battle of Poitiers