Without John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, there may have never been a Tudor reign. John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, was born on 8 September 1442 to John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford and Lady Oxford, Elizabeth Howard. The Oxfords were devout Lancastrian loyalists, determined to fight to the death for… Read more The Oxfords and the Tudors
I think we all know the old saw about how for the want of a nail a kingdom was lost. Well, it became a proverb because it is true. It is the little things on which history often pivots. Lewis of Caerleon is one of those small things on which the arc of history depended. Lewis… Read more Lewis of Caerleon
Geoffrey V of Anjou was born on 24 August 1113, the eldest son of Foulques V d’Anjou and Eremburga de La Flèche, daughter of Elias I of Maine. He was the heir to several important titles and properties, and he grew into a good-looking, strapping young lad as well. He was often called Geoffrey le… Read more The Man Who Sired the Angevin and Plantagenet Dynasties
King Edward IV died on 9 April 1483, a man still in his prime, which came as a surprise to everyone except his astrologers. Lewis of Caerleon, the renown Welsh mathematician and astrologer who predicted the solar eclipses of 7 April and 3 September 1483, also served as a physician in King Edward IV’s… Read more Eclipse of the Sun in Splendor
Elizabeth Tilney, Countess of Surrey, was the wife of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey and the mother of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. She was also grandmother of two of King Henry VIII’s queens, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, and two of his known mistresses, Elizabeth Carew and Mary Boleyn Carey. Moreover, through her… Read more Elizabeth Tilney, Countess of Surrey, Grandmother of Queens
Harri Tudur, heir to the (7th) Earldom of Richmond, was born to the frighteningly young Margaret Beaufort on 28 January 1457. Through his paternal grandfather, Owain Tudur, the baby was a descendant of of Llywelyn the Great, and through his paternal grandmother, Catherine of Valois, a great-grandson of King Charles VI of France. Those lineages,… Read more Henry VII: Better King Than Kingly
The bastardized daughter of King Henry VIII and one of the wives he murdered, Anne Boleyn, was crowned Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland on 15 January 1559. The crowning of the queen was merely one part of the grand pageant of putting her on the throne. The occasion took several weeks of elaborate… Read more The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth I
Anne de Mowbray, 8th Countess of Norfolk, was born in December of 1476 and was only a toddler when her father, John de Mowbray, 4th Duke of Norfolk, died on 14 January 1476, leaving her an immensely wealthy heiress. Her mother, Lady Elizabeth Talbot, would be able to have very little say in how her… Read more The Rise of the Howards After the Death of Anne de Mowbray, Duchess of York
Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu. was a living, breathing threat to the Tudor throne. He was the grandson of George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence and thus the nephew of the York kings Edward IV and Richard III. In his veins flowed the blood of King Edward III’s second surviving son, Lionel of Antwerp, Duke… Read more Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu
John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England, supporter of King Henry VI, eventual ambassador for Edward IV, ardent foe of King Richard III, and crucial ally of King Henry VII, passed away on 15 September 1500. Although Bishop Morton was a devout Lancastrian, when all hope was gone – after the deaths… Read more Archbishop John Morton