The bells ring for Cardinal Wolsey

On Friday, I was in St. Lawrence’s Church, now a cafe, in the town centre when the meeting I was at was punctuated by the ringing of bells just above the front door. We assumed at the time that this was practice for the for the forthcoming coronation. However, as this article shows, it was… Continue reading The bells ring for Cardinal Wolsey

IPSWICH IN MEDIEVAL MINIATURE

Some people create just for fun, others to have fun AND to inform. Suffolk modelmaker Colin Patten plans to do both in a large-scale model of the entire town of Ipswich in late medieval times, before the abbeys and priories were swept away in the Reformation. Mr Patten has already done a similar model of… Continue reading IPSWICH IN MEDIEVAL MINIATURE

Borman on Thomas Cromwell

This two part series was originally shown on 5Select during December 2021, presented by Tracy Borman from the Tower of London. It went beyond the cliched story of: the brewery in Putney, service to Wolsey, surviving him, the Dissolution, outmanoeuvring Anne Boleyn, setting up the Cleves “marriage” and being sent to the block to encounter… Continue reading Borman on Thomas Cromwell

This Union: The Ghost Kingdoms of England

This is an excellent series on BBC4 about the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that eventually evolved to fill the vacuum left by departure of the Roman legions. In the first episode, Ian Hislop visits East Anglia, particularly Colchester, Ipswich and Sutton Hoo, viewing some coins with Philip Wise and hearing about the Wuffingas, apparently descended from a… Continue reading This Union: The Ghost Kingdoms of England

The tapestries of Thomas Wolsey

We have recently come across this rather interesting article, extracted from Reyes y Prelados, by Emma Luisa Cahill Marron (excuse the missing accent) about Cardinal Wolsey and some of his artefacts. The original is in Spanish and here is a translation, by ladychaol.

An unusual witchcraft case in Ipswich

Originally posted on Mid Anglia Group, Richard III Society:
Mary Lackland, or Lakeland, was burned on the Cornhill on 9th September 1645 but why? The heresy laws had been repealed in 1558/9 although they were invoked later, up to 1612/3. This execution took place at the peak of the Matthew Hopkins witch mania but those…

So where exactly was Holy Trinity Priory?

Originally posted on Mid Anglia Group, Richard III Society:
This rather interesting article shows that it was in the south-eastern part of Christchurch Park, possibly exactly under the Mansion? The “Withypoll slab” of Tournai marble, which seems to lie near the back gardens of Bolton Lane, may be a significant clue – note how Edmund…

The Staple

In early medieval times, ‘the staple’ meant England’s staple export: wool. But it was inconvenient and inefficient for the king’s men to collect the customs duties that were payable on the exported wool from every one of the hundreds of little English ports all around the country. London, Bristol, Ipswich and Sandwich were major ports… Continue reading The Staple

Scoliosis treatments at the time of Richard III

After centuries of slanders about Richard III, always named as “the hunchbacked king”, it was finally proved that he just suffered from scoliosis. He was not born with this condition but he probably started to suffer with it in his adolescence between 10 and 15. This is the so-called idiopathic scoliosis that can be, in… Continue reading Scoliosis treatments at the time of Richard III