So exhausted, they were unable to run fast enough to escape the swords and battle axes of their pursuers. Continue reading Today in History: Death of Sir Francis Cosby in the battle of Glenmalure
The young Mortimer was left in charge, assisted by William Scrope. Like Strongbow and De Lacy after Henry II, they were kept busy putting down rebellions, burning and plundering, especially in Ulster. Continue reading The Marauding Mortimers #4: Roger Mortimer, Heir to the Throne
Roger and Joan are the parents of the woman whose body was discovered in the church at Much Marcle in Herefordshire in January 2014. Later descendents reputedly include Sir Winston Churchill, the present British Royal Family, and George Washington. Continue reading The Marauding Mortimers #3 – Hanged or Beheaded?
Roger’s epitaph, engraved on his tomb at Wigmore Abbey reads: Here lies buried, glittering with praise, Roger the pure, Roger Mortimer the second, called Lord of Wigmore by those who held him dear. While he lived all Wales feared his power, and given as a gift to him all Wales remained his. It knew his campaigns, he subjected it to torment. Continue reading The Marauding Mortimers #2 – Scourge of the Welsh
This Roger was the first of four men with the same name whose influence on English and Irish history were to be considerable over the next two centuries Continue reading The Marauding Mortimers #1 of 4
William has been called ‘The Greatest Knight’. Among several books about him, by far the most realistic and thoroughly researched is the two-volume series by Elizabeth Chadwick, The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion. Continue reading Strongbow’s Son-in-Law
For us in the twenty first century it is hard to imagine the feelings of a young woman, newly widowed, having her children removed to a “place of safety”. In modern parlance those words reek of intervention by state welfare services. Continue reading The Girl in the Tower
Margaret founded the Hospital of St. John at Aconbury in Herefordshire in her mother’s memory. Continue reading The Herefordshire Contingent – #2 de Braose
Whilst Hugh was supervising building work there in July 1186 he was decapitated by an Irish man posing as a labourer but who had a battle axe concealed in his clothing. Continue reading The Herefordshire Contingent – #1 de Lacy
Henry was promoting the Church’s insistence on monogamous marriage. What makes him a right royal hypocrite is the fact that he was at the time estranged from his wife and conducting an affair with the Herefordshire heiress Rosamund Clifford. Continue reading Henry II – a Right Royal Hypocrite
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