Archaeologists are DNA testing some bones they've found to see if they might be the remains of Richard III. Are there any other members of the Royal Family....

[seeker]

where DNA testing might produce interesting results?

thanks vagaceratops i will have a look but I think thats about her grandmother, I mean Matilda Henry II 's child. But I will probably read this one too, love this period of history.

One of the other things I always wonder about is why Henry part recognised Henry FitzRoy but none of his other illegitimate children.

Was it just that he had real feelings for Bessie Blount, or because he was a boy?

Sorry Fanjo.

I think because he was a boy.

I read somewhere he was really sad when he died. I wonder what would have happened if he'd lived, if Henry would have legitimized him in the end? Or even if he could have?

I've read Lady of the English fanjo. It's a good read, although Matilda (Maude) isn't a very likeable character, it's hard to feel much sympathy for her dilemma.
I prefer Chadwick to either Penman or Gregory to be honest. The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion are among my all time rave about books.

Why did Edward 1 have his nieces blinded? Was it to do with succession?

Just loving this thread.

I assumed because Fitzroy was his first son to live and so the one that proved he was capable of fathering healthy boys.

ive been lurking reading this with almost manic intrest, but now have to reveal my lurking to say lrd that has got to be the funnyest post ive seen in ages

I'll say thanks on behalf of Elizabeth Knyvett, then!

fanjodisfunction - I read Lady of the English and would recommend it. I am now working my way through all of Elizabeth Chadwick's books and am really loving them.

I'm intrigue to about Edward I nieces google search didn't being anything related up.

Well it brought up who they married and the DC they had but nothing about him blinding them.

I've found an obscure reference to Edward I keeping Robert the Bruce sister in a cage which had privies, and him and his cronies biting of a man's ear when he was young - but he also forgave his daughter and husband when the eloped and seems to have been kind to his wives.

Wow - I really don't blame Juliane.

LRD No I doubt it, I've been out of that whole world a while now and I was always more into the constitutional/political side of things. Don't actually know anything much about Handlyng Synne beyond the title!

schmaltzing - that reminds me of the dramatic bit in Braveheart where Wallace storms down from Scotland and takes York by nightfall - all of which comes as a great shock to Edward Longshanks, whose crack team of spies somehow failed to notice the large army of Scots making their way down more than 150 miles of Northern England and past several large towns ...

I have realized that lots of non-British people who've seen the film but wouldn't know UK geography think that York is a town on the Scottish border.

I cross posted with you mad. Whew! It always occurs to me, just too late, that if my supervisor stumbles over this thread she will tease me mercilessly.

God, I LOVE this thread!

Vagaceratops Henry VIII only had one illigitimate child - Henry Fitzroy, son of Bessie Blount, born during his marriage to Katherine of Aragon.

It was Katherine's downfall really - Henry was faced with the reality that his wife was unable to provide him with a living male heir and yet his mistress could. In an era of great piety and a belief in the power and judgement of God, Henry perceived that God was showing to him that his marriage to Katherine was unlawful. In fact, Leviticus (20:21) implied as such:
"And if a man shall take his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother's nakedness; they shall be childless". Henry conveniently chose to ignore the passage in Deuteronomy (25:5) that contradicted this: "If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her" but although Henry was extremely pious - he was given the title 'Defender of the Faith' by the Pope after his 'Defense of the Seven Sacraments', a title which British monarchs have held ever since - he was also imbued with kingly arrogance and able to ride roughshod over any scriptural potholes.

One of the many sadnesses of Katherine of Aragon's life is that she had a son with Henry VIII. He lived a month and died suddenly and unexpectedly, as infants in the 16th Century often did. Had he lived it is very unlikely that a man as pious and sanctimonius as Henry would have divorced Katherine. Which means there would have been no Edward VI, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I.

There have been rumours about others, including IIRC Mary Boleyn's children. But I guess, by definition, if he didn't acknowledge them we can't know for sure what he thought (which isn't necessarily the same as the truth, even, is it?).

Katherine had three sons who died, poor woman.