Posted by: Dorothea Preis in News
As the emblem of Richard III was the white boar, anything on boars attracts my immediate attention. I also “like” the facebook page of my alma mater, the University of Bonn, and today this brought both interests together.
In the UK there have been no boars living wild for a long time, it is thought that the original British wild boar were probably extinct by the 13th century. There were attempts to re-introduce them, but even these became extinct during the 17th century. However, in 1998 two populations of wild boar were found to be living in Britain.
While the situation in the UK is rather dire for boars, it is anything but on the continent. In Germany they are thriving a little too well, so much so that they are regarded more as a pest. The latest incident was the one in Bonn, which I found mentioned on facebook. Read the rest of this entry »
The latest branch meeting of the Richard III Society of New South Wales was convened on Saturday, 13 August 2011, at the Sydney Mechanics Institute of Arts. Opening remarks were made by Chair Judith Hughes, who then informed us of the sad news of the passing of Reginald Fulford, husband of member and former chairperson Carol Gerard. There was a minute of silence to mark our respect and shared sorrow at this news. A card was passed around for all to add their own comments which will be sent to Carol.
Continuing with the meeting, Judy Howard, our new Treasurer, assured us the Branch was solvent. Those happy few who attended the recent Richard III conference in Melbourne spoke informally about the excellent speakers, the appealing package with Richard III designs handcrafts, and how worthwhile it had all been. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Anne Neville, NSW Branch, Richard III, Tewkesbury
The following report on the convention of the Australasian branches of the Richard III Society, which took place 5 – 7 August 2011 in Melbourne, is by long time Society Member Ann Chandler. Thank you, Ann, for your entertaining report of what must have been an interesting weekend!
The date finally arrived and we all converged on the Victoria Hotel in Melbourne’s Little Collins Street in the early evening of Friday, August 5. The hotel is a lovely old building with much charm and character, recently renovated and the perfect venue for the convention. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Conventions, NSW Branch, Richard III Society
Posted by: Dorothea Preis in News
Several friends brought a short clip on YouTube about Richard III to my attention and I would like thank all of them, not least the facebook page of the Richard III Society.
The clip is from the children’s TV show Horrible Histories, which is based on the books by Terry Deary. While Deary may be mainly known for his children’s books, he also presented the fascinating BBC programme on The Battle of Towton 1461, which is available on DVD with many extras from rkproductions.
Horrible Histories takes a rather unconventional look at history. The live-action TV series was first shown in 2009 on British CBBC Television and has been hugely successful, winning an array of awards. The last was in January this year, when it won best sketch at the Comedy Awards, the first children’s programme ever to do so.
In this clip Richard III puts the record straight in a song. Because “there’s a lot of people spreading nasty rumours about [him]” and because “the history books have been telling it wrong”, it’s now “time to tell the truth about King Richard the Third”. And certainly we all agree with his assessment that there was a “special ruler – King Richard the Third”, who was a “nice guy”.
Have a look at the clip of the ‘Richard III Song‘ and enjoy it. And if it helps getting the idea across that Richard was a real person and not the synonym for evil of the widespread misconception – well, that’s not so horrible, is it?
For more info on the TV series you may like to read an article published by The Guardian on 17 March 2011.
Tags: Richard III
Book Review: Queen by Right
Anne Easter Smith, Queen by Right. Touchstone, New York, 2011. ISBN 9781416550471 (paperback)
The queen of the title of Anne Easter Smith’s latest novel is Cecily Neville, the mother of Edward IV and Richard III. Many readers of historical fiction will shared the experiences of her sons in novels, but this has been much less the case for Cecily. And after meeting Anne Easter Smith’s Cecily I can only wonder why.
Queen by Right covers Cecily’s life from 1423, when she is eight years old, until her son Edward’s coronation in June 1461. And while the events of the remaining 34 years of Cecily’s life would easily provide enough material for at least one other novel, I welcome her decision to limit this one to the earlier – and at least for me – less well-known period. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Cecily Neville, Ricardian Authors, Richard Duke of York, Wars of the Roses
So the saying goes, but this is definitely true for the next general meeting of the NSW Branch of the Richard III Society on 13 August.
Volume 4 of our branch journal, The Chronicles of the White Rose, is at the printers and should be ready later this week or early next week. All members of the NSW branch receive a copy as part of their subscription. Members attending our general meeting on 13 August will be the first to receive their copies – they will be handed out at the meeting. Copies for those, who are unable to attend, will be mailed later.
That is one good thing for our August meeting.
Good thing no. 2 is that the meeting is our “Scrabble Speakers Day” when 3 speakers will be revealing the subjects they have chosen for the session. Once a year members draw Scrabble tiles out of a bag and then prepare a short talk on a topic starting with their letter. This year Judy will present something starting with the letter “T”, Jane will talk on “N” and Xavier drew “D” .
And the third good thing is that we’ll hear from our travellers who went to the biennial convention of Australasian branches of the Richard III Society, which is taking place in Melbourne, 5 to 7 August. These gatherings are always enlightening and enjoyable – and frequently give ideas for how develop our own activities, so it will be interesting to hear what those attending can report.
Looking forward to seeing you all at the meeting!
Tags: Chronicles of the White Rose, Meeting, NSW Branch
Instead of our usual Coronation of Richard and Anne anniversary lunch this year, the New South Wales Branch opted for a visit to Parramatta Park on July 3rd for the annual Medieval Winterfest. It was cold and windy, but the sunshine helped the enjoyment of the event at the Coleman Oval, despite the roundabout route we had to take to get there.
There was a lot of medieval merriment going on: jousting, combat and arms displays, birds of prey in full flight, a chance to test your skills at arms – and a plethora of stalls selling books, leatherwork and some wonderful costumes; there were displays of armour with some slashingly shining swords, as well as more tranquil activities such as intricate weaving and spinning of fine wool.
And of course food stalls to keep us nourished throughout the day! Being really picky, we wished for more benches to sit on instead of lowering our tired and, let it be said, the ageing bones of some of us on to the grass. Our lunch was enhanced as we sat in front of the members of the Orion Consort who entertained us with a wonderful selection of music of the times on an equally wonderful selection of instruments.
The Orion Consort (Photo by Hannah Bruechert)
Many of the hundreds attending wore medieval dress, but those of us travelling by public transport limited our finery to Ricardian scarves and pendants and one wore a striking top announcing “Richard III Rules OK”.
Indeed he does!
Tags: Medieval Life
Posted by: Dorothea Preis in News
Helen Cox, the author of The Battle of Wakefield Revisited and Walk Wakefield 1460, attended the recent conference “Interpreting Battlefield Finds: Making the Most of Museums”. Here she tells us her experiences from this interesting conference. Thank you, Helen, for sharing this with us!
Conference Review: Interpreting Battlefield Finds: Making the Most of Museums
Royal Armouries, Leeds, Saturday 11th June 2011
Productive partnership was very much the theme of Interpreting Battlefield Finds: Making the Most of Museums, jointly run by the Leeds Royal Armouries and the Battlefields Trust.
Proceedings were opened by Dr. Jonathan Riley, Director General and Master of the Armouries, who welcomed delegates and paid tribute to the late Richard Holmes.
Alex Hildred, Curator of Ordnance for the Mary Rose Trust, then gave the first paper on ‘Interpretation of a Shipwreck Assemblage from the Battle of the Solent, 1545’. Finds from Henry VIII’s flagship, the Mary Rose, included 91 guns of varying size made from cast bronze, cast iron and wrought iron, complete with gun carriages, and thousands of stone, cast iron and lead projectiles. The Royal Armouries and Mary Rose Trust created working replicas of several types of gun, and undertook test firings to demonstrate the firepower of Tudor artillery. Armouries staff also identified a cartridge former and gunner’s rule (for checking cannonball sizes) in the assemblage – and, by recognising a maker’s mark, showed that Henry VIII’s army was using matchlock muskets imported from Gardone in Venice. The assemblage also contained more than 2000 arrows and 172 longbows – almost equalling the total number of firearms – indicating that archery was still important at this date. Archers could achieve a more rapid rate of fire and greater long-distance accuracy than musketeers, and longbows were a useful fall-back if gunpowder was spoiled at sea; however, within a few decades developments in firearm technology would render this traditional English weapon obsolete. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Battles, Conference, Ricardian Authors
Posted by: Dorothea Preis in News
While I sit here writing this, it is just past 14h30 – that is here in Sydney, where – at least when it comes to time – we are ahead of most of the rest of the world. In about 9 hours, when it is 14h30 in the UK, a new walking trail will be officially opened at the Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre.
The new trail takes the recent discoveries about the actual site of the battle into consideration. It runs in a loop around Ambion Hill with views across the relocated battlefield at two points. Along the way there is information on the lead up to the battle, an introduction of the main protagonists for the casual sight-seer (Ricardians visit because of one of the protagonists) and an explanation of the events of 22 August 1485 including reconstructed images of what the battlefield may have looked like on the day.
This trail is the final element of developments at the battlefield funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. And of course we all voted for the Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre in the recent National Lottery Awards, though it seems that it did not make it to the finalists.
The new trail is open all year round and entry is free.
The opening of the new trail was announced on About My Area. You can find the results of the National Lottery Awards here.
Illustration of Richard III: © Andrew Jamieson, www.jamiesongallery.com
Tags: Books, Bosworth, Ricardian Authors
Posted by: Julia Redlich in News
Ashfield, that active Sydney suburb, has just opened its brand-new state-of-the-art Library. To mark this spectacular addition one of the regular speakers at the “Authors at Ashfield” programme, David Millar came to give a talk on “The Medieval World of Geoffrey Chaucer”.
And after the extremely interesting articles on Chaucerian connections by Lesley Boatwright and Peter Hammond in the June 2011 Ricardian Bulletin, this was a talk that couldn’t be missed.
David is a well-loved speaker, blending his knowledge of travel, history and architecture to cover a multitude of subjects. On Wednesday, June 22, he travelled, like Chaucer’s pilgrims, to Canterbury and his photography showed us much of England’s green and pleasant land, the delightful town of Canterbury which has happily remained mainly untouched by too much development – although as he remarked when showing a picture of an old inn where Queen Elizabeth once slept (yes, another one!), she would have found it hard to understand the prominent banner-style notice about Espressos being available. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Books, Chaucer, Church
