Henry, Count of Anjou and Maine, the second born son of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, came into the world on 28 February 1155. He was the much welcome ‘spare’ son to follow his elder brother, William, who was still a toddler. Alas, little William died a few months after Henry’s first birthday,… Read more Henry the Young King
(I have a guest post up in the form of a video chat over on Just Jane 1813! Be sure to stop by!) On 27 February 1812 the famous poet Lord Byron gave his first speech in a debate of the House of Lords, and it was a doozy. It caused all sorts of social… Read more Mad, Bad, and Devoted to Human Rights
Peter III was born on 21 February 1728, the only child of Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and Anna Petrovna, one of Peter the Great’s older daughters. Anna Petrovna died just a few months after her son’s birth. The baby, who was baptized Karl Peter Ulrich, was heir to Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and probable heir… Read more Happy Birthday Peter III of Russia
Happy Birthday to Queen Mary I of England! She came into the world on 18 February 1516, and was the only one of Henry VIII’s six children with Katherina of Aragon to survive past early infancy. Mary was a pretty little girl, with her father’s strawberry-blonde hair and ruddy cheeks, and she spent her early… Read more Queen Mary I of England
Sex sells. Ask any modern advertiser and he or she will be the first one to tell you that making something seem sexual – overtly or subtly – is still seen as the best way to get people to pay attention to a product. Humans, caught as we are between apes and angels, are interested… Read more Happy Lupercalia
Henry VII’s fifth wife, Katheryn Howard, was beheaded in the Tower’s icy courtyard on 13 February 1542. In spite of her youth, she was said to have made a “most Godly and Christian end”. The former queen had even asked that the headsman’s block be brought to her in her rooms, so that she… Read more Katheryn Howard’s Death
Deposed queen, Jane Grey Dudley, and her husband Guilford Dudley were executed on 11 February 1554. As I have mentioned before, Eric Ives wrote an excellent book, Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery, which provides ample evidence of Mary’s perfidy and Jane’s lawfulness, which I recommend that you read if you want all the gritty… Read more The Murder of Queen Jane I and Her Consort Guilford Dudley
One of the most used methods of fat shaming and justification for fat hate is tell fat people you are only mocking and/or insulting them for their health. You’re not participating in the sociocultural punishment of fat because you’ve been culturally conditioned to view fat as a physical manifestation of sloth, gluttony, and lack of… Read more How Dare Fat People Be Healthy
Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, was born on 3 February 1393 to Henry “Hotspur” Percy and Elizabeth Mortimer. He was just a 10 year old boy when his father died at the Battle of Shrewsbury on 21 July 1403, but if Hotspur had not been killed by a rogue arrow to the face during… Read more The Percys — Aphids on the Yorkist Rose
On the morning of 2 February 1461, as two armies prepared to fight the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross in the Wars of the Roses, three “suns” appeared in the sky. The extra suns were obviously the astronomical phenomena known as a sun dogs, caused by light refraction off particulate ice crystals in the air. However,… Read more When Sun Dogs Changed England