One of the best things about the Yuletide in Britain is the opportunity to take your children to see a Christmas panto. We don’t have them in America, because attending a panto became a “Christmas Tradition” in Britain in the Regency era, when all things British were being spurned by Americans with jingoistic fever. Frankly,… Read more A Christmas Panto
T’is the Season for yummy yuletide foods! There are tables groaning under the weight of roast turkey or ham, brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, roasted potatoes, stuffing and assorted vegetables. Mugs of hot buttered rum or apple cider are clutched and glasses of cold eggnog are passed around. Not to mention the multitudes of desserts. Mince… Read more Gingerbread Houses to Keep You Warm
Did King Henry VIII marry Anne Boleyn on 14 November 1532? The argument that Henry VIII wed Anne Boleyn in a clandestine ceremony on St. Erkenwalds/Earconwalds/Erconwalds Day of 1532, when they landed in Dover after the political summit in Calais between Henry and King Francis I of France, is not a new one. Edward Hall’s chronicle, which was… Read more Happy Anniversary to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn?
Horatio Nelson, hero of the Battle of Trafalgar, was born on 29 September 1758, the sixth child of Reverend Edmund Nelson and his wife Catherine Suckling in a rectory in Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk. Horatio, called Horace by his family, was the fifth son born to Edmund and Catherine, but two of his elder brothers tragically… Read more Horatio Nelson, Hornblower Prototype and Hero of Trafalgar
Some lives change history. Some deaths change history. If Margaret, Maid of Norway, had lived, the entire history of Great Britain would have been altered and thousands of lives would have been spared from subsequent warfare. Margaret, Maid of Norway, was born on 9 April 1283, the daughter of the 15 year old King Eric… Read more Margaret, Maid of Norway, Queen of Scots
John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England, supporter of King Henry VI, eventual ambassador for Edward IV, ardent foe of King Richard III, and crucial ally of King Henry VII, passed away on 15 September 1500. Although Bishop Morton was a devout Lancastrian, when all hope was gone – after the deaths… Read more Archbishop John Morton
Of all the pointless, useless, ruinous wars ever fought in Europe (and they were legion), some of the most expensive and the most ineffectual were the Italian Wars, which leagued Francis I of France and Ottoman sultan Suleiman I against the combined team of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Henry VIII of England. The… Read more The Completely Worthless Treaty of Crépy
Henry Stafford was born on 4 September 1454, the only son of Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Stafford and Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Stafford, (a cousin of Margaret Beaufort, Henry Tudor’s mother). When his father died of the injuries he sustained fighting for the House of Lancaster at the First Battle of St Albans in 1458, the… Read more Why Did Buckingham Turn on Richard III?
King William IV of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as well as the King of Hanover, was born the third son of King George III and Queen Charlotte just before dawn on 21 August 1765 at Buckingham House. He only came to the throne due to the deaths of his second oldest brother,… Read more The Last Georgian King
The Battle of Sampford Courtenay, the fifth and final battle of the Prayer Book Rebellion, took place on 17 August 1549. Centered in Devon and Cornwall, the Prayer Book Rebellion was spurred by the Catholic and West Country dislike of the new Anglican Book of Common Prayer they were forced to adopt. Archbishop Cranmer’s liturgical… Read more The Last Battle of the Prayer Book Rebellion