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 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
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
Yesterday we loaded the three girls into the car and headed out to the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, on the southern end of St Brides Bay, walking all the way out on the Marloes Peninsula to its tip, Wooltack Point, where you can see Skomer Island. Dear Lord, is the coast of Pembrokeshire picturesque. We… Read more Seal Pups and Meerkat Babies!
Again, I exaggerate. The Tinkinswood burial chamber (Welsh: Siambr Gladdu Tinkinswood), which also known as Castell Carreg, Llech-y-Filiast and Maes-y-Filiast, is a few miles away from me here in the Vale of Glamorgan. It is, however, quite near the St Lythan’s burial chamber and the cave at Goldsland Wood, Wenvoe, where Neolithic human remains have been… Read more The OTHER Megalithic Dolmen in My Neighborhood
King Louis XI of France was the original Machiavellian monarch, although ironically Niccolò Machiavelli stoutly criticized Louis in Chapter 13 of The Prince, “calling him shortsighted and imprudent for abolishing his own infantry in favor of Swiss mercenaries”. Nonetheless, Louis had a gift for turning situations to his advantage, duplicity, formulating conspiracies, and laying false… Read more Louis the Cunning, the Prudent, the Universal Spider, the Tudors’ Best Friend
This weekend my husband and I took the kids to Tenby, Wales to see some seals and some historical sights, and it was a richly rewarding experience on all fronts. As to be expected from a seafront village whose Anglicized name comes from the Welsh title Dinbych-y-pysgod, meaning “little fort of the fish”, there was… Read more Geniuses from Tenby, Wales!
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the younger brother of King Edward IV, began his reign as King Richard III on 26 June 1483, although he wouldn’t have his coronation until 6 July. Richard III became king during one of the vicious times in English royal history. Seriously, it makes the fictional Game of Thrones look a… Read more Becoming Richard III
Contrary to popular belief, the Wars of the Roses wasn’t over when the Plantagenet king, Richard III of England, died at the Battle of Bosworth Field and the reign of King Henry VII began. The last pitched engagement of that war was not until two years later, on 16 June 1487, at the Battle of… Read more The REAL Final Battle of the War of the Roses … Almost