The outcome of the Battle of Bosworth Field was incredibly unlikely. People forget, now the the event is history and seems set in stone, how discombobulating everything must have been at the time, not least of all for Harri Tudur. You see, the man we think of as King Henry VII, founder of a dynasty and… Read more Bosworth, with Betrayal and a Brandon
One of the most interesting things about the Regency Era, to me, if how universally loathed the Prince Regent was, and how much he set the fashion for the Glittering Throng nonetheless. One of the things the future George IV brought into style was going to Brighton for a bit of time by (and in)… Read more Brighton, By George!
The Battle of Shrewsbury occurred on 21 July 1403 between the forces of King Henry IV of England (AKA Henry of Bolingbroke) and those of the rebelling Henry “Harry Hotspur” Percy, the 1st Earl of Northumberland. Henry IV had made Henry Percy a whole bunch of promises about how Hotspur would be rewarded if he backed… Read more The Battle of Shrewsbury
The longest-lived of Henry VIII’s sons, Henry Fitzroy, was born on 15 June 1519. Unfortunately for the king, this son was born on the wrong side of the blanket. Bessie Blount, a minor nobleman’d daughter, had given Henry what his queen, Katherina of Aragon, had tried to give him so many times in the past — a… Read more Henry Fitzroy Is Born
One of the best things about the Georgian Era was the 1807 Act suppressing the slave trade. King George III, die-hard conservative Tory and intermittently insane though he may have been, agreed with the majority of the Tories and Whigs that the slave trade was a disgusting affront to God and Humanity and Decency and… Read more Huzzah for the HMS Pickle!
Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon, Viscount Lisle and future Duke of Suffolk, wed for a third and final time on 13 May 1515. The Tudor princess seems to have loved Brandon since she was a girl, and she was as determined as the rest of her siblings to marry for love. Since she was as headstrong and brave… Read more Happy Anniversary to Mary and Charles
Many people are aware that Queen Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of Henry VII via his eldest daughter, Margaret Tudor, who was the sister of King Henry VIII and the Queen of Scotland upon marrying King James IV of Scotland. Not as many people, however, are aware of the convoluted history that lies behind that genetic legacy.… Read more Gene of Thrones, and a Merlin’s Prophesy
Some people have argued that Henry VIII was clearly a psychopath, since psychopaths evince a “glib and superficial charm, grandiose (exaggeratedly high) estimation of self, need for stimulation, pathological lying, cunning and manipulativeness, lack of remorse or guilt, shallow affect (superficial emotional responsiveness), callousness and lack of empathy, parasitic lifestyle, poor behavioral controls, sexual promiscuity,… Read more Gee, WHY was Henry VIII so egotistical?
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