Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt is remembered as a seductress and man-eater. What she SHOULD be remembered for is her devotion to her nation and her children. From the evidence, Cleopatra’s main goals were to keep her kids safe and keep Egypt independent of Roman control. She seems to have genuinely fallen in love with Mark Antony… Read more Cleopatra Selene
Sophia of the Palatinate, the 12th of 13 children born to Frederick V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth Stuart, missed becoming Queen of Great Britain by just a few weeks. Her parents were called the “Winter King and Queen of Bohemia” because they only ruled Bohemia for one short season. They fled to the Dutch… Read more Sophia of the Palatinate and Hanover, Almost Queen of England
Georg Ludwig, future King George I of England, came into the world on 28 May 1660 in Hanover, the eldest son of Duke Ernest Augustus of Brunswick-Lüneburg and his wife, Sophia of the Palatinate, who was the Protestant the granddaughter of King James I of England through her mother, Elizabeth of Bohemia. No one thought of baby George as a possible… Read more King George I
On 27 May 1541 the Countess of Salisbury, Lady Margaret Pole, was executed by order of Henry VIII. This was shocking, even for a populace who had become accustomed to the murder of famous and popular people by their increasingly despotic king. First and foremost it was shocking because of her social status and royal… Read more The Beheading of Margaret Pole
On 26 May 1830 the Congress of the United States passed one of the worst legislative acts in human history, an act so breathtakingly vile that it would serve Hitler as a prototype for his own Holocaust in Germany. I speak, of course, of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Basically, a bunch of white… Read more Legalized Theft and Murder
Lady Jane Grey, who was briefly Queen of England before being deposed by her cousin, Mary I, married Guildford Dudley, the youngest surviving son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, on 25 May 1553. Why did Jane, great-granddaughter of King Henry VII, marry a relative nobody like a recently made duke’s youngest boy? Because… Read more Jane Grey Weds Guilford Dudley
Depression isn’t a modern disease. It’s been recorded throughout history, and many English kings – including Henry VIII – were believed to have suffered from what their doctors would have called “excessive melancholy”. Shakespeare immortalised the symptoms of depression in Hamlet, wherein the titular Prince of Denmark complained that, “I have of late, but wherefore… Read more Be of Good Cheer
Henry VIII became engaged to Jane Seymour on 20 May 1536, one day after beheading his second wife, Anne Boleyn. On the morning of Anne’s death, he had a barge waiting for him in order to whisk him downriver to Jane as soon as the former queen’s head was off, and while Anne’s body cooled… Read more Funeral Food and Wedding Feasts
It’s May 19th, the anniversary of Anne Boleyn’s execution, so let’s talk about Anne’s enduring and unjustified reputation as a home-wrecking whore. Bearing the historical facts in mind, what exactly did Anne do to be slut shamed for more than five centuries? She refused to date a married man until she knew he was getting… Read more For Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn was beheaded on 19 May 1536. When this maligned and falsely accused queen walked her last steps to the scaffold where a swordsman waited to take her head, four ladies accompanied her. I agree with historian Eric Ives (no surprise there) that the ladies with her were probably the ones assigned to spy on… Read more The Ladies Upon the Scaffold