Didn't mean to break up the Medway Scandel with Charles II and brother James, it is interesting.

Minette wrote:

All this talk of the flaming Princes in the tower and it's quite possible that hundreds of morons may have watched the younger Prince, Richard of York, being hung. drawern and quartered on Tower Hill! It really is quite possible.

Whoever that handsome, blond boy was who died on the scaffold at Tyburn on Saturday, November 23rd 1499, he was spared the full horrors of a traitor's death: Perkin Warbeck, aka Richard Duke of York, was cut down dead - no doubt a surprise and a disappointment for the crowd. ("They gave him such grace," Molinet wrote.) A confession had been stammered out to the eager spectators just before the hangman set to work - a confession vital for Henry Tudor. Had a deal been struck? A promise of a commutation of the full sentence to a simple hanging would have tempted anyone to "confess" anything the Tudor wanted, surely? And a promise of a merciful death was always such a useful weapon for the Tudors.

Minette wrote:

All this talk of the flaming Princes in the tower and it's quite possible that hundreds of morons may have watched the younger Prince, Richard of York, being hung. drawern and quartered on Tower Hill! It really is quite possible.

I was in my above post assuming you were referring to Perkin Warbeck, Minette, and not to that other unfortunate soul, the Earl of Warwick (who of course really was the Earl of Warwick), the Plantagenet who was beheaded at Tower Hill on November 28th 1499, five days after the hanging of Warbeck at Tyburn. Both Warwick and Warbeck had been sentenced to the gruesome death of hanging, drawing and quartering, but, as was usual for those of higher rank, Warwick's sentence was commuted to beheading. Warbeck, as a common criminal, was taken to Tyburn for the full and terrible ritual, but was, as I have said above, mercifully left to hang until he was dead. But Tudor mercy always came with a price-tag. Just a thought.

Or are you in fact thinking of someone else? I can't for the life of me think who.

Comments about the reaction of Elizabeth of York to the death of Warbeck - how it affected her and her relationship with Henry VII - make for interesting reading, but alas, claiming anything definite about the intrapsychic processes of any individual is always a dubious pursuit, let alone attempting to do so for such processes in a woman who lived and suffered five hundred years ago.

Dear SST,

I can't forgive such a mistake. I shall now crawl away and die. 

I was sitting there one day, not Tyburn, Tower Hill, and watching people feeling so low after the Tower where all the history has been washed away and someone rushed passed me, Oscar had his shield surely the shop must have a plastic sword to go with it?! There were some children standing next to a plastic sheep dressed up as a Beefeater and their father was getting angry because they wouldn't smile, feel like giving up now.
Intersting point though SST. Minette.

But...I really am beginning to believe that, the man we know as Perkin Warbeck may well have been who he said he was. 
Such gruesome sentences and Henry VII is a rational king, Richard III is a blood thirsty tyrant.

Minette Minor wrote:

Dear SST,

I can't forgive such a mistake. I shall now crawl away and die. 

Oh, please don't do that, Minette. I myself have only just emerged from my stone, having crawled away to expire in shame last week. At this rate the whole dramatis personæ of Res His will soon be found dead or dying under various stones or in various holes.

I too wonder about Warbeck: he was apparently incredibly musical, as was the young Richard. So many similarities...

It's also significant that Henry VII made damn sure his wife was kept well away from the young man. I'm not sure they ever met. Will check on this.

We need a Jane Tennison on the job - Helen Mirren, that is, not the new young character.

PS I left you a PM ages ago in reply to your PM query about The Young Pope DVD. You haven't "opened" that reply yet!

Minette wrote:

But...I really am beginning to believe that, the man we know as Perkin Warbeck may well have been who he said he was.  

And so am I - hence my nit-picking above about getting the (known) facts right.

I checked about Elizabeth of York being allowed to meet and talk with Warbeck: "the historical records are silent" on this, according to Arlene Okerlund, the queen's biographer. But what is extremely odd is the way Warbeck and his wife were treated after Elizabeth had met with Lady Katherine Gordon, the woman who claimed to be her sister-in-law. After this meeting (October 21st, 1497) of the two women, the "imposter" who had consumed the king's energies and England's resources for eight years was admitted into the king's court and was, although effectively under house arrest, allowed to live as a courtier, not as a prisoner. The Venetian ambassador reported that the king "treats them well, but does not allow them to sleep together".

After Warbeck's execution, Lady Katherine continued as a lady-in-waiting to the queen, was generously provided for, and was "Chief Mourner" at Elizabeth's funeral in 1503.

Incidentally, have you, as a Welsh woman, heard the story - just a rumour of course - that a child of Perkin Warbeck was brought up in Wales? It is known that Warbeck and his wife had an heir, but their little boy disappeared while they were in Cornwall, and was presumed to have died. But a strange story later surfaced in Wales of all places that this child, perhaps the legitimate grandson of Edward IV and heir to the throne of England, had disappeared, not died. The Perkins family of Rhos-y-gelli traced their descent to the son of "Peter Osbeck of Tournai", and the Perkins family of Reynoldston at the tip of the Gower also claimed him as an ancestor. Anne Wroe, in her superb book about Perkin Warbeck, recounts this odd tale and admits that the Welsh connection could well be "pure fantasy", yet adds that it gains a "strange strength" in coming from Wales where Perkin (or Richard) had never been and was scarcely known. Lady Katherine Gordon, having obtained permission, apparently lived briefly in Swansea, eight miles from Reynoldston, later in her life. The mysterious child's name was apparently Richard, to which was added the patronymic "Perkins" - a little Yorkist ghost perhaps, growing up in the safety of the valleys of Wales?

The other odd thing is the attitude of Maximilian. His earlier support of Perkin Warbeck may be dismissed as the "well, he would, wouldn't he" supportive attitude of a European ruler to any attempt to destabilize England, but Maximilian actually did everything he could to save Warbeck from death - negotiating with Henry and even offering a guarantee that Warbeck (and his "heirs and successors") would give up any claim to the English throne if only Henry would spare the young man's life.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Oh Temperance, Oh Minette, are you saying that the novelist who shall not be named might have got something right for the change (i.e. that Perkin W really was Edward IV's son)? Am I being unnecessarily harsh in my attitude to the novelist that shall not be named? I will admit that I have read some books with a historical theme that are more "romp" than reality and quite enjoyed them. I've said somewhere I'm sure that I did enjoy the old film with Charles Laughton - "The Private Life of Henry VIII" and that was of course not particularly factual. As for whom the unfortunate Mr Warbeck may or may not have been, I cannot venture to guess, though from what has been posted above I do remember the old saying about truth being stranger than fiction.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Oh Temperance, Oh Minette, are you saying that the novelist who shall not be named might have got something right for the change (i.e. that Perkin W really was Edward IV's son)?  Am I being unnecessarily harsh in my attitude to the novelist that shall not be named?  I will admit that I have read some books with a historical theme that are more "romp" than reality and quite enjoyed them.  I've said somewhere I'm sure that I did enjoy the old film with Charles Laughton - "The Private Life of Henry VIII" and that was of course not particularly factual.  As for whom the unfortunate Mr Warbeck may or may not  have been, I cannot venture to guess, though from what has been posted above I do remember the old saying about truth being stranger than fiction.

 Lady in retirement,

do you mean the novelist I mentioned in this thread?

Subject: Re: The Princes in the Tower (Round Two)   Wed 14 Dec 2016 - 21:07 Minette, it seems to be that this is the continuation of the former thread. I recently touched the subject as I read "The Shadow Prince" from Terrence Morgan: https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1046-perkin-warbeck If you want to pick in I promise to read the whole thread part I and II... In the meantime I started reading: "The Captive Queen" from Alison Weir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Weir about Eleonora of Aquitaine, also an acquaintance of you if I remember it well... And she wrote also a non-fiction about the Princes in the Tower...

If it is this book? There is a lot of incredible crap in it...as for the novelist licence...I can give still examples if you want...

Kind regards, Paul.

Paul R, the lady to whom I was referring has a thread dedicated to her here speculating whether she is a historian or a bodice-ripper (you probably know that bodice-ripper is a British slang way of referring to a novel with a historical, or allegedly historical, theme but is more concerned with details of a saucy (in the sense of sexual) nature than in adhering to the facts).  Actually a bodice-ripper refers to the type of book that takes those sort of liberties with history.  Think of a Queen at the time of the Yorks and Lancasters described by a colour* here though I didn't name the writer.

When you mention knowing Alison Weir I think you are addressing Minette.  I certainly have never met Ms Weir myself.  I thought Ms Weir was considered one of the better of historical novelists......

* I think the reference to the (insert colour) queen is supposed to refer to chess.  I don't know what it is about novels deriving their names from chess but I never seem to like them.  When I was about 19 or 20 somebody urged me to try the works of Dorothy Dunnett - I tried "Pawn in Frankincense" (I always want to call it "Prawn in Frankincense") and that had to go back to the library unfinished, despite the lady who recommended Mrs Dunnett's work urging me to try again.  I believe Mrs Dunnett was a good artist, it some ways a sort of renaissance woman with many talents, but I just couldn't take to her historical novels. It's so long ago that I tried to read anything by her that I couldn't actually say that it was bad, just that it wasn't my cuppa.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Oh Temperance, Oh Minette, are you saying that the novelist who shall not be named might have got something right for the change (i.e. that Perkin W really was Edward IV's son)?

It would indeed be foolish to claim anything for sure in all this, but what I am saying is that the story of Warbeck is worth examining with an open mind. Belief and knowledge and absolute certainty are such slippery issues, in the study of history as in anything else. I am very wary of anyone who claims to be certain of anything these days, even Oxford physicists. Alison Weir has passed verdict on the Princes in the Tower in one of her non-fiction books. Her conclusions are unoriginal, I think.

It's so easy for historians contemptuously to dismiss the claims of Perkin Warbeck: I am merely suggesting that such an approach is perhaps unwise. We do not know the truth about him and it is foolish to pretend we do - one way or another. The examination of all possible explanations for Warbeck's "success" is surely a legitimate approach to what is, after all, a mystery.

Francis Bacon suggested that in the end even Warbeck himself did not know who he really was: "With long and continued counterfeiting," he wrote, "and with oft telling a lie, (he) was turned by habit almost into the thing he seemed to be; and from liar into believer." Yet in his own later Latin translation of this, Bacon dropped the "almost": quae fingeret simul et crederet, "what he feigned, he believed". Warbeck was a work of art - "a curious piece of marble", Bacon said, and used the verb effingere for the work of the boy's alleged "creators" - the same verb as was used for painting or sculpting. So was this Richard Plantagenet simply a work of art "cut from the block in Tournai, sculpted and painted in Burgundy, and then exhibited everywhere"? I don't know. But I'm fascinated by the idea of him, and I'm reminded of a comment by Jean Molinet (French poet, chronicler, and composer who died in 1507) about the painted funerary image of Charles VIII, an image so lifelike that Molinet said of it "by subtle art and exquisite pictures...he actually seemed resuscitated, full of spirit and life". Such an artist's skill could also have been applied to the making of a prince perhaps? If so, Richard Plantagenet, aka Perkin Warbeck, was a masterpiece.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Paul R, the lady to whom I was referring has a thread dedicated to her here speculating whether she is a historian or a bodice-ripper (you probably know that bodice-ripper is a British slang way of referring to a novel with a historical, or allegedly historical, theme but is more concerned with details of a saucy (in the sense of sexual) nature than in adhering to the facts).  Actually a bodice-ripper refers to the type of book that takes those sort of liberties with history.  Think of a Queen at the time of the Yorks and Lancasters described by a colour* here though I didn't name the writer.

When you mention knowing Alison Weir I think you are addressing Minette.  I certainly have never met Ms Weir myself.  I thought Ms Weir was considered one of the better of historical novelists......

* I think the reference to the (insert colour) queen is supposed to refer to chess.  I don't know what it is about novels deriving their names from chess but I never seem to like them.  When I was about 19 or 20 somebody urged me to try the works of Dorothy Dunnett - I tried "Pawn in Frankincense" (I always want to call it "Prawn in Frankincense") and that had to go back to the library unfinished, despite the lady who recommended Mrs Dunnett's work urging me to try again.  I believe Mrs Dunnett was a good artist, it some ways a sort of renaissance woman with many talents, but I just couldn't take to her historical novels. It's so long ago that I tried to read anything by her that I couldn't actually say that it was bad, just that it wasn't my cuppa.

Lady in retirement,

"When I was about 19 or 20 somebody urged me to try the works of Dorothy Dunnett - I tried "Pawn in Frankincense" (I always want to call it "Prawn in Frankincense") and that had to go back to the library unfinished, despite the lady who recommended Mrs Dunnett's work urging me to try again.  I believe Mrs Dunnett was a good artist, it some ways a sort of renaissance woman with many talents, but I just couldn't take to her historical novels. It's so long ago that I tried to read anything by her that I couldn't actually say that it was bad, just that it wasn't my cuppa"

There rang immediately a bell...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Dunnett

And yes I coincidentally received a book as gift: "The rise of Nicolo" As it was about Bruges to start with and a cannon from the Burgundians, I read the whole story. But already then a bit frustrated while she mixed some "supernatural" phenomena in it. I have had enough "supernatural" in my childhood to...For me a historical novel first of all must be "possible"...the Greeks had of course the interference of the Olympos but that is another story. The Northerners had also a Wodan...but you understand what I mean...
As I was already biased I tried to read some other tomes of the series and had as you to bring them back to the library...not my cuppa too. And in my opinion certainly for the following tomes a bit not to say a lot long-winded...

Kind regards, Paul.

Thanks for your comment, PR.  Now I am wondering if when I said "whom the unfortunate Mr Warbeck may or may not have been" should I have put "who" - 'to be' takes a complement rather than an object if I remember correctly or would the verb with which "who" or "whom" should agree be "may" - none of which has much to do with Perkin Warbeck.

As for superstition in historical novels, it rather depends how it is treated - it is one of the things (not the only thing) that puts me off Mrs PG's novels.  Then again as a light read quite some time ago I read Paul Doherty's "The Plague Lord" which is more a horror story with a historical background than a historical thriller.  That novella featured a supernatural aspect and I didn't mind.  Also, if people are writing of historical persons as people of their time who literally did believe there might be an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other shoulder putting good or bad ideas in their minds respectively,  I don't mind if a book reflects that fact as long as it is setting the fictional historical person in their time and not stating it as fact (like PR's references to Olympos and Woden in their respective settings).  I know one lady who is in her 90s who says when she was at school the children were told that every time a girl whistled an angel cried and she thought it was a load of rubbish even when she was a little girl.  Another lady I knew (no longer with us) thought God was rude because she had been told he watched you everywhere and that if God watched her in the lavatory he was a very naughty person.  I have still hung on to my Christianity over the years but I know I'm in a minority here and I dislike the silly things that used to be said to children - not so much now I think even in Catholic schools.

Minette, if you chance upon this, as you are Welsh, did it ever cross your mind (getting terribly off topic here I'm sorry) that in the Disney film "Lady and the Tramp" the incident where Lady gets sent to the Pound for allegedly trying to harm the baby when it was in fact the Siamese cats was based upon the Welsh legend of Gelert - Gelert being the loyal dog who killed some rats who were trying to kill his master's baby but the master slew Gelert when he saw the blood round the dog's muzzle and didn't realise his mistake until too late though he gave Gelert a magnificent tomb.  The town of Beddgelert I believe takes its name from the tale.

LiR wrote:

 



Now I am wondering if when I said "whom the unfortunate Mr Warbeck may or may not have been" should I have put "who" - 'to be' takes a complement rather than an object if I remember correctly or would the verb with which "who" or "whom" should agree be "may" - none of which has much to do with Perkin Warbeck.  

Crikey, LiR that's a tricky one. I suppose you put "whom" because it came after preposition in your original sentence:

LiR wrote:

 As for whom the unfortunate Mr Warbeck may or may not  have been, I cannot venture to guess, though from what has been posted above I do remember the old saying about truth being stranger than fiction.

I certainly didn't notice, but now you've pointed it out it's really bugging me! (Not because I think you are wrong, but because I don't know what's "correct" any more!!!) But does it matter these days? (Discuss.) Perhaps we should think of Winston Churchill's remark when someone told him he shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition: he agreed, adding, "It is a practice up with which I will not put." (There are many variations of what he did actually say, but whichever version it was he probably snorted in contempt as he said it.)

I still giggle when I think about MM's glee when I put an apostrophe in the wrong place - it was actually the beginning of the New Free Me.


“Churchill” on Prepositions


The saying attributed to Winston Churchill rejecting the rule against ending a sentence with a preposition must be among the most frequently mutated witticisms ever. I have received many notes from correspondents claiming to know what the “original saying” was, but none of them cites an authoritative source.


The alt.english.usage FAQ states that the story originated with an anecdote in Sir Ernest Gowers’ Plain Words (1948). Supposedly an editor had clumsily rearranged one of Churchill’s sentences to avoid ending it in a preposition, and the Prime Minister, very proud of his style, scribbled this note in reply: “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” The American Heritage Book of English Usage agrees.


The FAQ goes on to say that the Oxford Companion to the English Language (no edition cited) states that the original was “This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.” To me this sounds more likely, and eagerness to avoid the offensive word “bloody” would help to explain the proliferation of variations.

Temperance wrote:

I still giggle when I think about MM's glee when I put an apostrophe in the wrong place - it was actually the beginning of the New Free Me.

Glee? .... Schadenfreude surely!

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Thanks for your comment, PR.  Now I am wondering if when I said "whom the unfortunate Mr Warbeck may or may not have been" should I have put "who" - 'to be' takes a complement rather than an object if I remember correctly or would the verb with which "who" or "whom" should agree be "may" - none of which has much to do with Perkin Warbeck.

As for superstition in historical novels, it rather depends how it is treated - it is one of the things (not the only thing) that puts me off Mrs PG's novels.  Then again as a light read quite some time ago I read Paul Doherty's "The Plague Lord" which is more a horror story with a historical background than a historical thriller.  That novella featured a supernatural aspect and I didn't mind.  Also, if people are writing of historical persons as people of their time who literally did believe there might be an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other shoulder putting good or bad ideas in their minds respectively,  I don't mind if a book reflects that fact as long as it is setting the fictional historical person in their time and not stating it as fact (like PR's references to Olympos and Woden in their respective settings).  I know one lady who is in her 90s who says when she was at school the children were told that every time a girl whistled an angel cried and she thought it was a load of rubbish even when she was a little girl.  Another lady I knew (no longer with us) thought God was rude because she had been told he watched you everywhere and that if God watched her in the lavatory he was a very naughty person.  I have still hung on to my Christianity over the years but I know I'm in a minority here and I dislike the silly things that used to be said to children - not so much now I think even in Catholic schools.

Minette, if you chance upon this, as you are Welsh, did it ever cross your mind (getting terribly off topic here I'm sorry) that in the Disney film "Lady and the Tramp" the incident where Lady gets sent to the Pound for allegedly trying to harm the baby when it was in fact the Siamese cats was based upon the Welsh legend of Gelert - Gelert being the loyal dog who killed some rats who were trying to kill his master's baby but the master slew Gelert when he saw the blood round the dog's muzzle and didn't realise his mistake until too late though he gave Gelert a magnificent tomb.  The town of Beddgelert I believe takes its name from the tale.

Lady in retirement,

"Also, if people are writing of historical persons as people of their time who literally did believe there might be an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other shoulder putting good or bad ideas in their minds respectively,  I don't mind if a book reflects that fact as long as it is setting the fictional historical person in their time and not stating it as fact"

Of course I have the same attitude as you. If it is a historic person or a fictive person in a historic context and he is described as believing in whatever, then it is normal that the novelist can take it in his narrative. What I mean is the case when the novelist himself believes in supernatural powers and let them interfere in the history. For instance I have no problem with a novel, where for instance some Spaniards entering in South America had the real conviction that it was a task given them by God to convert the heathens to christianity...but I have a problem if some supernatural phenomena interferes to change the course of one's life...with other words "a wonder"

Kind regards, Paul.

Meles meles wrote:

Temperance wrote:

I still giggle when I think about MM's glee when I put an apostrophe in the wrong place - it was actually the beginning of the New Free Me.

Glee? .... Schadenfreude surely!

Nothing quite like a nice, healthy dollop of the old schadenfreude is there, MM - even if it's not Christmas.

Alas, if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves...

Just going through what everyone has written here and thought how much I love this place.
Young May was unsure of her welcome...Crumbs. How you put up with me. I'm going through the posts but just needed to say this. 
I've been having real problems with technology SST BUT I have managed to get at the, "Young Pope" and the link you sent, you are so good at this! Thank you. You're right the whole thing was pretty amazing but I still can't get over the nerve it must have taken to "dis" John Paul II and Mother Theresa! Extraordinary. Now I'll read through the posts but can I ask one thing? Did you find Wroe's prose style...pompous? It's the only word I can think of! All the people she thanked, I'd have to say that I was the love child of the British Library and the the Arundal Collection to top that! I'm distracted by the fact that I went off piste and am know hearing about Trump's (hopeful) indictement on a loop. But thank you SST! You're wonderful.
Happy Cheers, Minette.

I haven't been taking notes as I should have to answer this properly but...now that I'm in London I realize how odd Wales is. It's not considered to be a country, now it's a unit of measurement or a holiday destination. The Archers went to Tenby! Just over three million people who could sit in the pocket of the Borough I live in here in London with wriggle room. It's madness. Just a thought...it is ten to to eight and a wonderful Blackbird/Robin is singing, I stopped that Trump loop. Wonderful.

But to the points raised, sorry, everyone in Wales knows about Gelert! That wonderful Wolf Hound! Bedd Gelert is a place of sad pilgramage. We had noble dogs and princes once....who were actually Welsh! Imagine that, a Prince of Wales who was actually Welsh...Why don't people know more about Owain Glyndwr? Far more interesting than William Wallace. It's all to do with geography and supply lines... Edward I had to get to Scotland via the Northern English, another country. Wales is a sitting duck for the Anglo Saxons. The draconian laws Edward I and then Henry IV piled upon the Welsh (and weren't repealed until 1624 and James I) were eye wateringly terrible. No way could Katherine de Valois and Owain Twdwr have been married. He wasn't given the rights of an Englishman until long after her death and so they could not have "married". David Starkey would not not "do" mated, nor would the tradition.    

As for a Welsh story about a son of "Perkin Warbeck", brought up in Wales, nothing like that has ever  crossed my radar and we talk about such things. I really believe I'd have noticed. For example Lucy Walters from Roche Castle, Pembs., and Charles II's son, Monmouth, is everywhere, but they  weren't married she just went off the rails and murdered a maid! Tried to come back during the Protectorate to sell him too! That is still gossip. I've really never heard anything about a Welsh connecetion and Warbeck. The prevalent perception of the English Boarders is very strange. The Scots are Picts, the Irish are dangerously Gaelic but the Welsh are strangely Celtic and British. We don't dance violently or puff through pigs' stomachs, we assimilate, too well! The Captain of the Mayflower was Welsh as was the ancestry of many of the USA's "Founding Fathers". George Washington said, "give me a good Welshman and I'll show you a good American". Bugger it!    

Everyone wants to be Irish in the USA and yet our impact on the USA, the universities etc, is forgotten. March 17th and all go mad and yet Wales is the only country where we have a Cathedral, St. David's, with the bones of a real saint, St. David, a Welsh prince. Sorry been doing the laws against the Welsh and it hurts. Oddly enough my youngest daughter now works in Westminster and  we meet up for lunch and we had a picnic just before the problems there. She was annoyed by the disruption to the tubes and I went to the Abbey and stupidly fell down some stairs looking at the ceiling! Varifoculs now? What is the point of hysteria and I still had to pay. But it's fascinating to see things so easily, though I did lose my Oyester card card yesterday! Oh to be in London now that Spring time is here! Dame Anna Neagle or that lovely man who just died, "Spring time for Hitler and Germany"! The Producers! Gene Wilder! I shall return with something more sensible. Sorry.
Cheers Minette.

My late mother was from north Wales (and spoke Welsh), Minette. I'm afraid apart from 'Nos da' - goodnight - 'bore da' - good morning and 'iechyd da- - good health (people seem to say it 'yakky da' - not the Welsh though) and 'bach' little and I may have misspelled those. Somebody I know from my time working in London now works for an MP and he was in an office in Portcullis House when it all kicked off. I fell over in my bedroom the other day - I didn't have to go down to London to fall over. I've a feeling that sometime in the past Catigern (who hasn't posted for ages) said something about there was a school of thought in latter years that some of the original British people (who I suppose were of the same blood as the Welsh) had interbred with the Saxon invaders rather than being ethnically cleansed lock, stock and barrel to what is now called Wales (and Brittany and Cornwall also I suppose). I think there is an eminent college (university?) called Bryn Mawr in the USA?

There was something on the BBC news about some dragon statues on St David's Day. They weren't full dragons, heads and necks and a bit of upper body - I thought they looked a bit like the dragons on the TV show "Game of Thrones" (which are actually wyverns) rather than the Welsh red dragon though.

Minette Minor wrote:

Just going through what everyone has written here and thought how much I love this place.
Young May was unsure of her welcome...Crumbs. How you put up with me. I'm going through the posts but just needed to say this. 
I've been having real problems with technology SST BUT I have managed to get at the, "Young Pope" and the link you sent, you are so good at this! Thank you. You're right the whole thing was pretty amazing but I still can't get over the nerve it must have taken to "dis" John Paul II and Mother Theresa! Extraordinary. Now I'll read through the posts but can I ask one thing? Did you find Wroe's prose style...pompous? It's the only word I can think of! All the people she thanked, I'd have to say that I was the love child of the British Library and the the Arundal Collection to top that! I'm distracted by the fact that I went off piste and am know hearing about Trump's (hopeful) indictement on a loop. But thank you SST! You're wonderful.
Happy Cheers, Minette.

Well, it's nice to know someone thinks I'm wonderful, Minette - any positive comment is welcome these days.

I'm afraid I rather think Ann Wroe is wonderful too: it's a toss-up as to whether I'd rather be her or Hilary Mantel.

She's got a first-class degree and a doctorate from Oxford, so perhaps we must forgive any little pomposity that creeps into in her style: I rather like, in the circumstances, a judicious bit of pomp - or gravitas rather? - I think her books on Perkin and Pilate are superb, but strangely unsettling.

Glad you're back posting here - we need something or someone to liven us all up. Time to start a row with someone, perhaps - that always gets the punters in.

Richard III, God and/or the Scottish War of Independence should do it.

Here is some information about Ann Wroe - she's certainly rather higher up in the Great Chain of Being than I am - depressing.


Ann Wroe is the Obituaries Editor of The Economist.

After taking a first-class degree in History and a doctorate in medieval history (Oxford, 1975) she worked at the BBC World Service, covering French and Italian politics.

She joined The Economist in 1976 to cover American politics, and has held the posts of Books and Arts editor (1988-1992) and US editor (1992-2000). She has edited the Obituaries page, usually writing the obituaries herself, since October 2003.

She has written six books: “Lives, Lies and the Iran-Contra Affair” (I.B. Tauris, 1991); “A Fool and His Money: Life in a Partitioned Medieval Town” (Cape/Farrar Strauss, 1995; based on her Oxford thesis), “Pilate: The Biography of an Invented Man” (Cape, Random House, 1999; published in America as “Pontius Pilate”; shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize and the W.H. Smith award); “Perkin: A Story of Deception” (published in America as “The Perfect Prince”) (Cape/Random House, 2003); “Being Shelley: The Poet’s Search for Himself” (Cape/ Pantheon, 2007) and “Orpheus: The Song of Life” (Cape/ Overlook Press, 2011), which won the 2012 Criticos prize.

Minette Minor wrote:

Why don't people know more about Owain Glyndwr?

There was quite a bit of interest in him I remember when I worked in Cardiff at the turn of the millenium. This co-incided with the 600th anniversary of the beginning of his revolt and timed in with the advent of the new Welsh Assembly which was then only a year old. There was also a raised profile in the press and media of Glyndwr's old parliament house in Machynlleth. Around that time I managed to get hold of a copy of Owain Glyndwr, Prince of Wales (1978) an eminently readable book by BBC journalist Ian Skidmore. And since then there have been other more scholarly works produced by historians Rees Davies and Glanmor Williams.

It's certainly a fascinating period. I often suspect that the romantic appeal of the 15th century, whether it be the 1400s with Owen Glendower and Harry Hotspur or the 1480s with Richard III and the Princes in the Tower (and a good deal in between), is in large part down to the Bard.

Oh dear, Philippa L is 'shocked and disappointed'  at RIII being staged in Leicester Cathedral and thinks that 'no future performances of any play or film that might be considered derisive or humiliating to the memory of the king be contemplated where, it is important to remember, the man himself now lies'

That poor old nun, her story is the gift that goes on giving: I wonder if Kim Jong-Langley will now suggest how large the blasphemy-free exclusion zone around the grave should be? Or perhaps she would prefer that all productions should come with a fake news warning?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/08/richard-iii-staging-in-leicester-cathedral-condemned

The lady doth protest too much, methinks ...

Or, sticking with Scottish wisdoms as written by sasanachs -
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!"

When looking through the old Beeb Boards link you posted the other day ferval I noticed a whole topic on how Richard didn't have a crook back at all, it was all lies and myth apparently. Richard was a tall, straight backed wonder hero so surely they could give the nun from the carpark up, let the poor thing rest in peace and find another suitable skeleton candidate that fits the narrative?

We all make tiny little mistakes, ID: no need to gloat.

I myself always thought he had a bit of a hump - but I could never believe he'd had a tattoo done on it: "Nobody's Perfect", in bad Latin, done in red ink. Thomas More just made that up to be nasty.

Oh I'm going to gloat until the cows come home Temp and Philippa and the Richard III Society deserves every bit of it. That was where the nonsense began, no?

But the cows have come home, ID! They are in their shed!

Goodness!  My sister has just gone to work for the diocese of Leicester.  I wonder if she knows about this.  Apparently there is a woman who comes in pretty much every day to talk to Richard.  Whether he replies (possibly something along the lines of "Clear off!  Some of us are trying to rest in peace!") is a moot point.  Possibly she thinks he does.  Possibly she thinks he just wants the company.  Or maybe she just wants to pour out her troubles to someone who won't interrupt or, say, smother her in her sleep and bury her under a staircase.

This is quite interesting - something on the "nerdalicious" website about Roger Ashdown-Hill trying to get some male line of descent DNA proof on the King/nun in the carpark. He hasn't had any luck as yet if my understanding is correct - http://nerdalicious.com.au/history/the-problems-of-richard-iiis-y-chromosome-the-problems-relating-to-the-burials-at-clare-priory-and-the-problems-of-working-with-historic-england/

nordmann wrote:

And this brilliant programme from 1984, the 500th anniversary of the disappearing prince trick ...

The introduction ...



Watch out for a young David Starkey appearing as witness for the prosecution.

Potter is the star of the show.

But I'll shut up now for fear of spoiling it for people.

I’ve only just got round to watching this (today's stormy weather put paid to other plans I had for this afternoon). It is indeed brilliant and I agree that Jeremy Potter’s supremely confident performance in the witness stand is exceptional. The young David Starkey (whom I normally like even though not necessarily agreeing with his historical interpretations) really does come across as a wind-up merchant in this and he does the prosecution no favours. But, nevertheless, his performance too is hugely entertaining for that. Pamela, Lady Wedgwood also came across as a very credible expert and a seemingly unlikely witness for the defence considering her family name, Tudor-Craig.

In the end credits London Weekend Television stated that the ‘Prosecution and Defence Q.C. cannot be identified for reasons of professional etiquette’. That was no doubt appropriate in 1984 but, more than 35 years on, it now seems reasonable to try to identify who they were. Temperance identified ‘Mr Dillon’ Q.C. for the Defence as being Richard Dillon du Cann who bears a close family resemblance to his more famous brother Edward, the former MP. In fact, with his dark, flattened-down, Brylcreemed hair, severe side-parting, half-rimmed glasses and black gown, Richard more than reminds me of a formidable senior house master we had at my school. And (despite his received pronunciation) he even has traces of an underlying Kentish accent (e.g. dropping the letter ‘h’ before the letter ‘i’) to complete the similarity.

But the avuncular ‘Mr Russell’ Q.C. for the Prosecution has (as far as I’m aware*) yet to be identified. My guess is that he’s Sir William Russell Lawrence who (like Richard du Cann) was also of Gray’s Inn. Lawrence served as Queen’s Remembrancer from 1970-75 and was also President of the Medico-Legal Society between 1971-73. The only thing is, that I can’t find a picture of him to try to confirm this suggestion either way. He could, of course, be someone else entirely.

*The introductory blurb on the YouTube posting claims that it's John Mathew QC although that's unsubstantiated.

Some recent research suggests:


https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/richard-iii-murdered-princes-in-tower-after-new-evidence-solves-greatest-mystery/ar-AARoOO6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531#:~:text=Richard%20III%20%E2%80%98murdered,watched%20on%20My5.


Dirk

We Knew He Didn't Do It!


Crikey - Coldridge is only a few miles up the road from here!

Then again, this report is in the Daily Mail (that said, other articles about this are appearing elsewhere) - and it's the Car Park lady at it again.

Nevertheless, I'll be doing some sleuthing in Coldridge church tomorrow - if it's open, that is. It all looks jolly interesting.