First, it should be noted that the title to this blog post should be sung like the chorus of the Pet Shop Boy’s 1984 song “West End Girls” because I am old and my mental playlist is mostly 80s hits. If you are older than 40, you too now have “West End Girls” playing in… Read more Cymru Stones and Wessex Girls
March Madness isn’t just the breeding season for hares and the bringing of college basketball tournaments in America (although Go Big Blue!). No, it is also time to enjoy the glorious spring weather in Wales (it has been raining for 2 weeks) and to deal with encroaching sheep. We currently live in a big cottage… Read more Sheep on My Trampoline and a Jack Escape
On 16 March 1190 the Jewish community of York committed mass suicide to escape being tortured to death by a mob whipped into anti-Semitic frenzy by pro-Crusade propaganda. The Norman invaders had brought the first Jewish communities into England to fulfill a special economic role as moneylenders. The Jews were even given a special status… Read more An Atrocity at York in 1190
King Edward I and his first wife, Queen Eleanor of Castile, had their 13th child – a little girl, whom they named Mary – on 11 March 1279 at Woodstock Palace in Oxfordshire. Due to rampant child mortality, the tiny princess was one of only six royal children to live to adulthood out of a… Read more Mary of Woodstock: Life as a Nun Could be Fun
Today is St. David’s Day (Dydd Gŵyl Dewi in Welsh) and it is a hella big deal here in Wales. Dydd Gŵyl Dewi is quintessentially Welsh. The saint’s mother is purported to have been St. Non (or Nonita), a mystic Christian who is still associated with holy wells in Wales and Cornwall. The holy lady conceived… Read more St. David’s Day
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