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?

When I read The Load of Unicorn I always get terribly upset about the loss of Paternoster Row in the Blitz... it was amazing and so full of history and character and now it's just a bland office block :(

Now there's a thought Poetsarepoor!

Family legend has it that we are related to the Manners' of Belvoir.It was where our land came from originally and we had 3 farms,one at Redmile close to the castle,within living memory.Only one left now though.Wrong side of the blanket as my grandmother used to delicately put it.

I've loved reading this thread (especially as I live under a rock, and the dig hasn't been mentioned much on cbeebies) but keeping up with it has been a challenge!

I've read/got all the Sprig of Broom/Lark and Laurel series [smug] but am always disappointed by the later titles - she seems to have tailed off Gregory-like (although I still enjoyed the Red/White queen books)

Scanty, can I ask - who was/were Matthew Hopkins and his witches?

Thank you all for the recommended titles, my Christmas list is now looking much more helpful than usual!

This thread is brilliant! I was going to go on a different thread and moan about morning sickness but thought I'd stop by to see what people were saying about this exciting dig. An hour later I am still reading and the sickness is all forgotten . Totally made my day!

Matthew Hopkins was the Witchfinder General. Appointed by James I. He was responsible for an awful lot of the hangings for witchcraft in this country. He was an EVIL man. He was paid a fee for every witch he found and hanged. He was corrupt. He used torture to get people to confess their sins. walking them back and forth for days on end. He looked for witches marks, moles, scars etc which witches used to suckle their familiars, and then stabbed the marks with a retractable spike, to prove that witches marks felt no pain!
He pitted friends and neighbours against each other, and killed many innocent people. He lived here in Mistley, in Essex, owned the Thorne Inn, which is still going today, and is said to haunt the area!

Thanks Saggy, he sounds like a nightmare

I used to work at Kimbolton school, built around Kimbolton castle, where Katherine of Aragon died, and is supposed to walk (although iirc she walks in an area which wasn't built when she was there )

The Leicester Mercury website is reporting that Buckingham Palace have said that they will not request that the remains [if they are Richard III] are buried at Windsor or Westminster.Leicester and York seem to be the main contenders.

York would be a good idea. I've heard that Richard didn't like London, and preferred the north.
I've been having some nice chats about this with my Yorkist archer friend. It's lovely to meet a kindred spirit in real life too!

York would be nice, they could do a ceremony for him in the minster.

(Totally off-topic, but I went to York earlier this summer to do touristy stuff and someone was getting married in the Minster. I was well impressed.)

Love this thread!

Currently having an Eleanor of Aquitaine love in, reading Alison Weir (love her! Innocent Traitor left me sobbing, even though I knew how it would pan out) and Anne O'Brien Devil's Consort.

For Anne Boleyn fans try Alison Weir's The Lady in The Tower, also The six wives of Henry VIII

Sort of off topic ? Absolutely loved the series "Eternal Law" earlier this year which showcased York Minster, which remains, more or less as Richard would have known it. Perfect.

Jean Plaidy's The Plantagenet Prelude was the first historical novel that I ever read. I was early teens, and it started a lifelong passion! Eleanor of Aquitaine was quite remarkable, although I found it really sad that she just left one family behind. She had daughters in France with her first husband.

But I want him to be buried with Anne .

Noooo! I know it's only made up, but I can't get rid of the idea of Anne really hating him and him being a creepy stalker-type.

saggy - I never knew that, that is so sad. I do find it terrifying that you'd do that - and all the women whose daughters married into different countries so they'd never see each other again. That would be really hard, I think.

Saggy There is no record of Eleanor ever meeting up with her daughters again, however, both Alix and particularly Marie were known to have a deep affection with and for their half brother, Richard the Lionheart.
In fact, the Lionheart's famous poem, J'a nuns hons pris, written while he was being held for ransom, was dedicated to Marie of France. Countess de Champaign

LRD, I think they were in love. Didn't Richard rescue her from the cookshop?

Well if he hadnt buried Edward (his Son) in secret he could have been buried with him.

Did he? Why was she in a cookshop?

Happy, that's lovely. It always makes me sad to think that she forgot them.

George basically kidnapped Anne and sent her to work as a skivvy in a cookshop/inn in order to stop her marrying Richard and therefore costing him a huge swathe of the Neville lands.

Both Sharon Penman and Rosemary Hawley have it in their novels so I guess it's rooted partly in fact.

Best book about Anne Boleyn by far is Eric Ives' biography. Fantastically well researched and written. I like Alison Weir, but Ives' work is phenomenal.

Crikey. Poor Anne.