King John died on the night of 18 (or early morning of the 19th) October 1216, during a monstrous thunderstorm. This was probably nothing more than a coincidence, but for his contemporaries it was considered an indication that Hell had opened to received the blackened, twisted soul of this vile king. After all, this was… Read more King John: Lackland, Softsword, and Asshat
On 17 October 1814 beer vats belonging to the Meux and Company Brewery ruptured at the Horseshoe Brewery, inundating the neighboring streets with a tidal wave more than 15 feet high of more than 323,000 gallons (1,470,000 liters) of alcohol. The aptly named London Beer Flood sounds funny at first, but it was an industrial… Read more Poverty, Beer, and an Act of God
I am not a big fan of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. He appears, based on the historical record, to have been a cruel, power-hungry tool. He coldly disowned his sons by his first wife, pimped his sister Jane out to King Henry VIII, pulled some serious shenanigans with the king’s will to make… Read more You Would Think Somerset Would Learn
Divorces weren’t that hard to get for Medieval and Early Modern monarchs and nobility. Just throw enough money at the Pope and … voila! You were never married in the first place. Plenty of high born married couples sought this route to get out of a miserable marriage, or to make a more advantageous match.… Read more Medieval Monarchial Divorce
Mary Tudor, who was most likely born sometime in March of 1496, was approximately 18 years old when she married the 52-year-old King Louis XII of France on 9 October 1514. She was not only young enough to be the groom’s granddaughter, she was acclaimed as one of the most beautiful women in Europe. King… Read more The Autonomy of Mary Tudor, Queen of France
Alys of France was born on 4 October 1160 and her life is an object lesson on how being a princess cannot save you from predation. Alys was only eight years old when her father, King Louis VII of France, sent her to England as the betrothed of King Henry II’s son Richard, who was… Read more No Wonderland for Alys
On 3 October 1283 Dafydd ap Gruffydd was the first British peer to suffer the execution of hanging, drawing and quartering. It wouldn’t have happened if the greedy idiot had been loyal to his brother. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the second oldest grandson of Llywelyn the Great, the Tywysog Cymru who fought off the English and kept Welsh autonomy for… Read more Dafydd ap Gruffudd, a Greedy Idiot
Richard Plantagenet, future Duke of Gloucester and King Richard III, was born on 2 October 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle. He was twelfth child (and eighth son) of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, who was the great-great-grandson of King Edward III via Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence and Edward III’s grandson through Edmund… Read more Richard III
Rhys ap Thomas was born the third son of Thomas ap Gruffydd, and would die the most powerful man in Wales. Neither birth order nor family would have predicted Rhys’s rise to greatness. His paternal grandfather, Gruffydd ap Nicolas, had earned the family fortune, but the family was made more respectable by marriage when Rhys’s… Read more The Descendants of Rhys ap Thomas
Arthur, the firstborn child and eldest son of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, was born on 20 September 1486 about an hour after midnight. He was the longed-for male heir, the tangible sign of God’s favor for the Tudor/York marriage, and the hope of peace in a kingdom long beset by internal wars… Read more Arthur, Prince of Wales