The June Ricardian Bulletin, the quarterly magazine of the Richard III Society,  and the annual journal, The Ricardian, have arrived in Sydney and will be posted to our members in the next few days.  Both publications form part of a full membership of the NSW Branch of the Society, and as every member can tell you, are always a source of inspiring reports and new insights.

This time the one focus of the Bulletin is on Richard’s biographer, Paul Murray Kendall, commemorating his birth on 1 March 1911.  The other is on the recent study weekend of the Society at York on the de la Pole family.  Summaries of two of the talks are included, the other talks will follow.  Peter Hammond’s ‘Chaucer and de la Pole heraldry’ from the tombs in Ewelme brought many happy memories.

The most interesting article for me in The Ricardian was the one touching on Queens’ College, Cambridge.  Other articles investigate the Yorkist effigy in the church of Minster in Kent, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Edmund de la Pole and ‘The Library of John Austell’.  Add to this reviews of many new books (my wish list is getting longer and longer!) and you get an idea of what to do during the long, cold evenings.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Society’s new Business Manager, Stephen York, on taking on the job and to congratulate him on the way it was handled without any hiccups.  We are hoping for a long and successful cooperation.  And it was especially nice to recognise, when I saw Stephen’s photo in the Bulletin, that I knew him from the ‘Blood and Roses’ weekend in Oxford.

Tags: NSW Branch, Richard III Society