Mediaeval History

A struggle between rival Royal Houses begins in 1455, after questions are raised about King Henry VI’s capacity to rule.

The ‘Wars of the Roses’ was coined by Sir Walter Scott as a romantic name for an off-and-on struggle for the English crown between 1455 and 1485. The rivals were the ‘white rose’ Dukes of York and the ‘red rose’ Dukes of Lancaster, and both traced their right to the crown to the sons of King Edward III.

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The great-grandson of William the Conqueror, whose knights assassinated Thomas Becket and whose family harried him to an early grave.

Henry II was the grandson of Henry I and the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, and spent much of his life in the French estates he inherited from them. Henry managed to restore order to a country torn apart by almost thirty years of civil war, but is remembered today chiefly for a bitter dispute with Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.

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The loss of the heir to the throne threw England into crisis.

William Adelin was the only male heir to the throne of his father, King Henry I. On a journey back from France in 1120, William was lost at sea, throwing the country into turmoil.

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How hard-pressed Christians on the Welsh border won a battle without bloodshed.

In the 5th century, the spread of Christianity was a growing threat to the pagans’ hold of fear and ignorance over ordinary people. The pagans’ answer was (as always) violence.

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King Harold died at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Or did he?

Harold Godwinson was killed at the Battle of Hastings on England’s south coast in 1066, pierced through the eye by an arrow. But that wasn’t the tale they told up north in the city of Chester...

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A King and Queen gentler than the times in which they lived.

The powerful Earl Godwin, a rough Saxon and an ambitious man, gave his support to King Edward the Confessor on condition that he marry Godwin’s daughter Edith.

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