One of the most notorious and maligned figures of the Tudor Court was George Boleyn’s wife, Lady Jane Rochford. She has been decried through the ages as a horrible, spiteful bitch who got her husband and sister-in-law deliberately murdered by telling Thomas Cromwell lies about George and Anne Boleyn’s supposedly incestuous relationship. Cromwell is often… Read more The Rochford Files
I am always a bit tentative when I read a book by an author I have never read before. I am such a raging bibliophile that I get easily bored and/or frustrated with writing that doesn’t enthrall me like I want to be enthralled. This wariness is multiplied exponentially when it is a book of… Read more An Incredibly Good Historical Read
There was no trick or treating, but the Tudors did recognise the night before All Soul’s Day (All-Hallows-Eve) as a particularly spooky time, a time when the uneasy dead or spirits could pass between the thinned veil of this world and the next, so this is a good time to talk about Anne Boleyn’s very… Read more Heads or Tales
Falconry, or the art of hunting using birds of prey, was a hugely popular sport among the wealthy and noble during the Tudor era. It continues even today, perpetuated by small but devoted groups of enthusiasts. A lot of the terms for the birds or the equipment used are the same as they were in… Read more Henry Hawking
When the original research about the possibility that Henry VIII had a Kell positive blood type was published in The Historical Journal it created a certain amount of interest in a wider audience, thanks to the enduring public fascination with such a dramatic king. Thus, both Dr. Whitley and myself were interviewed by reporters. Imagine… Read more Media Ineptitude and Science
*(Since this blog post was written, there has been an article published in the Journal of Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh the posits the same theory of transmission from Jacquetta of Luxembourg. Follow the link and you can read the whole thing.) From the earliest days of research on the theory, I wondered which… Read more From whence came the Kell gene?
In Blood Will Tell I talked about the theory that Henry VIII had a Kell positive blood type, but in my quest to prevent innocent readers from slipping into an over-science coma I didn’t go into deep detail about it. . This post will provide a tad more information as to what it is exactly… Read more A little bit about the Kell positive blood type