Archive for the ‘Events in History’ Category
16 MARCH 1485
Death of Richard III’s wife Anne Neville at Westminster, probably of tuberculosis. She was buried at Westminster Abbey, but the location of her grave is unknown. It is often said that Richard openly wept at her funeral, though the origin of this assumption is unclear. There is a plaque for her at Westminster Abbey donated by the Richard III Society. Unfortunately it does not get mentioned in the audio guide, so you have to look out for it.
The illustration on the left is from the in memoriam card which accompanied the wreath for Queen Anne’s tomb at Westminster in 2007. (© Richard III Society)
12 MARCH 1470
Battle of Losecoat Field, at Tickencote Warren near Empingham, Rutland. The Yorkists were led by Edward IV against Robert Welles, 8th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, and his men who had sided with Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (‘The Kingmaker’). Fast victory for the Yorkists. A popular myth is that as they fled, Welles’ men quickly left their coats behind to avoid identification, which gave the battle its name.
11 MARCH 1471
10 MARCH 1452
5 MARCH 1496
4 MARCH 1461
Investiture of Edward, Earl of March (eldest son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville) as King Edward IV of England. Edward seized the crown on three counts: descent from Edward III through the male line, descent from Edward III through the female line and the nomination of the childless Richard II’s of his Mortimer cousins as his heirs.
1 MARCH 1484
LATE FEBRUARY 1436
Birth of Eleanor Talbot, daughter of John Talbot, 1st earl of Shrewsbury, and Margaret Beauchamp at Blakemere, Shropshire. She is said to have entered probably some time after March 1461 into a clandestine marriage with Edward IV, which made his subsequent, also clandestine, marriage to Elizabeth Woodville bigamous.
More on Eleanor:
John Ashdown-Hill, Eleanor – The Secret Queen, The History Press. ISBN 978-0752448664
Geoffrey of Monmouth was elected to the see of St Asaph in Wales on 24 February 1151. It is assumed that he was born between 1100 and 1110, and died between 25 December 1154 and 24 December 1155.
He is mainly known as a writer of the Historia Regum Britanniae (The history of the kings of Britain), which includes stories of Arthur, Merlin and kings Leir and Coel.
Geoffrey will always remind me of my classes in medieval Latin at university, where we studied his story of King Arthur. Though I had disliked Latin at school and only did the course because it was a prerequisite for graduation, here I discovered that studying a ‘dead’ language could actually be fun.
Reference:
J. C. Crick, ‘Monmouth, Geoffrey of (d. 1154/5)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
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