Tag: Charles II

Royal Autopsy returns for Series II….

On 7 September last year on the Sky History channel was the first series of Royal Autopsy. It dealt with Charles II and Elizabeth I, and was excellent, if a little gory. I reviewed it on the following link: https://murreyandblue.org/2023/09/07/royal-autopsy-a-documentary-series-dealing-with-the-recreated-post-mortems-of-charles-ii-and-elizabeth-i/ Now the second series is soon to commence, and there are four monarchs having the… Continue reading Royal Autopsy returns for Series II….

A new miniseries about Charles II and his search for revenge….

For those of you who like to see anything to do with Charles II, or just historical drama or docudrama of most sensible kinds, there’s a new miniseries starting tonight on Sky History. It’s called Royal Kill List and concerns Charles’s determination to punish those responsible for his own exile and for the execution of… Continue reading A new miniseries about Charles II and his search for revenge….

10 feet deep

Another problem for traditionalists is those famous bones in Westminster Abbey. First, they are by no means the only bones to have been found in the Tower. Not by a long chalk. To give but one example (1) in 1965 a complete skeleton of a youth aged 13-16 was found quite close to where the… Continue reading 10 feet deep

I wonder …

We all know that Sir John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, was descended from Thomas of Brotherton, a younger son of Edward I. Several branches of the Howard family have held the title ever since, except for periods under attainder from 1485-1514, 1547-53 and 1572-1660. Were any of them descended from more recent monarchs? Henry… Continue reading I wonder …

The royal and noble descent of Jane Birkin

The late actress and singer Jane Birkin, who would have been 77 today, had some interesting ancestors. As this first table shows, these were all through her father David, a naval Lieutenant Commander with a Russell mother, through whom Jane was descended from the Dukes of Bedford, along with several other peers: the van Keppels,… Continue reading The royal and noble descent of Jane Birkin

The adventures of the coronation chrism oil….

I was quite enjoying this article until I came to: “….‘Kings whose claims were disputed were accordingly anxious to be consecrated as quickly as possible,’ writes Zaller. ‘Both Edward IV and Richard III rushed to be crowned, and the Yorkist kings claimed to have been anointed with chrism conveyed directly to Thomas á Becket by… Continue reading The adventures of the coronation chrism oil….

Royal Autopsy, a documentary series dealing with the recreated post-mortems of Charles II and Elizabeth I….

  I confess to having doubts about watching this two-part series on the Sky History channel because I envisaged CGI overkill with odious (but hopefully by then dead) parasites etc., and so I started viewing with the firm intention of stopping the moment it became too horribly wriggly and gory. No wriggles, but the gory… Continue reading Royal Autopsy, a documentary series dealing with the recreated post-mortems of Charles II and Elizabeth I….

William Rufus died because of a tree? But which tree? And where was it….?

Charles IIeems to have specialised in “supposed” records. We all know he’s responsible for That Urn, the contents of which are “supposedly” those of Richard III’s nephews. The fact that there are animal bones in there as well as human is always passed very quickly. So quickly the point has become a blur! As a… Continue reading William Rufus died because of a tree? But which tree? And where was it….?

Found: The state bed of Charles II….

When I saw a headline about a family who bought a king’s bed, my first thought was of the marriage bed of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, which was found at auction in 2010 in Chester. But no, this is a different bed, and only dates back to Charles II. Nor is it a… Continue reading Found: The state bed of Charles II….