We continue our exploration of the historical events that inspired HBO’s series House of the Dragon with a brief account of the Civil War between Stephen and Matilda. Because we are considering it in as much as it inspired a television show, this is hardly a detailed and academic account of the historical equivalent of… Read More The History Behind: The House of the Dragon Pt II – The Anarchy
The history that inspired HBO’s House of the Dragon albeit with less incest and fewer dragons.… Read More The History Behind: The House of the Dragon Pt I – A Prelude to Anarchy
Reign season three continues to give us a wildly entertaining and dramatic life of Mary, Queen of Scots. This time we have a new antagonist; Queen Elizabeth I of England. Historically, Elizabeth was Mary’s natural rival. They both had a claim to the English throne and being of opposing religions gave the people an obvious… Read More Everything Wrong with Reign (Season 3)
Babe wake up, new Starz drama just dropped. That’s right today (at time of writing) the much anticipated Mary and George is appearing on screens. Last time out I provided some background on the titular characters and the king they schemed to get close to. This time we’re continuing with the story of King James’… Read More The History Behind: Mary and George Part II
New historical drama alert! Early March will see the mini-series Mary and George find our screens and it looks like it’s going to be dramatic. For a start, it’s produced by Starz so we can expect a liberal disregard for history in favour of ridiculous and way over the top drama. The story follows George… Read More The History Behind: Mary and George Part I
Anyone who spends more than five minutes on this blog will see that I’m really interested in ghosts. Not so much the proving of them or anything like that; I’m not interested in trying to persuade anyone of their existence or otherwise. But ghost stories are one of the constants of humanity. When we think… Read More Creepy History: Ghosts in History
Season 4 of the notoriously innacurate but eminently watchable The Tudors ends with the breakdown of Henry VIII’s marriage to his German bride, Anne of Cleves. We see the marriage dissolve, it’s chief engineer Thomas Cromwell go to the block for his role in it, and Henry marry his fifth wife; Catherine Howard. But in… Read More Mary I and her First Philip
And lo, we come to the third and final sister in our exploration of the extremely unhappy marriages of the Grey ladies. Of the three Grey sisters, Lady Mary Grey was deemed the least likely to assume the role of Tudor heiress. Technically, it was hers to assume; like her sisters, she was the granddaughter… Read More The Unfortunate Marriages of the Ladies Grey Pt III: Mary
Many moons ago, in the long-distant days of 2004, historian John Guy published My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary, Queen of Scots. It was a comprehensive biography of Mary, Queen of Scots and for some of us [read: me] it would become required reading for the various school work on Mary, Queen… Read More Everything Wrong (and sometimes right) With Mary, Queen of Scots (2018)
Recently, I wrote about Lady Jane Grey and her extremely unhappy marriage to a man she despised. By contrast, her sister Katherine would have two marriages to men she loved deeply, and who loved her back, but by dint of her place in the succession, and Elizabeth I’s seeming determination to snuff out love among… Read More The Unfortunate Marriages of the Ladies Grey Part II: Katherine
