Richard III

[Emil Miller]

That was a wedding I'd've liked to've gone to (or the party afterwards). I think the wags of the day were ready to call her King Wallis the first. In fact like Richard III the suceeding dynasty did a knocking job on them, Queen Elizabeth ( later The Queen Mother) took great pleasure in "cutting" her and would not have them in the same country. They were all but banished and rumours abounded that she was really a man! Plus ca change and all that.

What was the January Club ? Was it like that Bullingden Club that some of our glorious leaders belonged to.

It's true that they were banished, but sitting it out in the Bahamas while the bombs were falling on England seems like a better option.
It's no secret that after meeting him, Edward was impressed with Der Führer and Germany's stupendous recovery from destitution while
the British empire was at the point of collapse. Wallis Simpson was said to have slept with Ribbentrop the German Ambassador but it's most likely to have been a bit of black propaganda by MI5.

The Bullingdon Club was rather a collection of naughty boys and not to be confused with the January Club, as shown below:

'The January Club was a discussion group founded in 1934 by Oswald Mosley to attract Establishment support for the movement known as the British Union of Fascists.

The Club was under the effective control of Robert Forgan, working on behalf of the BUF. The founders as identified by MI5 were Forgan, Donald Makrill, Francis Yeats-Brown and H. W. Luttman-Johnson.
Members of the January Club included Wing-Commander Sir Louis Greig; Lord Erskine, a Conservative and Unionist MP and assistant Government whip; Lord William Montagu-Douglas-Scott, brother of the 8th Duke of Buccleuch and Conservative and Unionist MP; and Lord and Lady Russell of Liverpool.'

[Zaza]

Documentary on Channel 4 tonight (Sat 16th), at 7pm, 'Churchill and the Fascist Plot' - about the Right Club, fifth columnists working to make an alliance with Nazi Germany and bring down the government.

[Emil Miller]

Reading some of the google entries concerning Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson is rather like reading a cross between P G Wodehouse and the Marquis de Sade but one revealing item shows the state of play vis-a-vis US and British relations during the pre-war period:

Relations between the United Kingdom and the United States were strained during the inter-war years and the majority of Britons were reluctant to accept an American as queen consort. At the time, some members of the British upper class looked down on Americans with disdain and considered them socially inferior. In contrast, the American public was clearly in favour of the marriage, as was most of the American press.

[prendrelemick]

It was the two divorces that was the main problem, especially as she divorced her second husband in order to marry Edward (or David as he was known).

She began the affair at the request of his lover - who was a friend of hers - and was going away for a bit, she asked Wallis to "Look after the little man"while she was gone. Wallis agreed and asked another of her friends to "look after" her husband while she was "looking after" David. It's never like that on Downton Abbey!

Remember when Prince Andrew wanted to marry Koo Stark? She was deemed unsuitable too, though not because she was an American called Koo - but because she had appeared naked in a film. (the awakening of Emily...look it up yourself.)

[prendrelemick]

Richard has emerged once more into the media.

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/...ook-wars-roses


http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/...-princes-tower

No one does wittering quite like the English middle classes.

[Zaza]

War has broken out again over Richard III. They found him, a historical mystery has been solved, but are Richard fans happy bunnies? No. I think this one will run and run.

As for Amy Licence's 'new evidence' about the deaths of the Princes in the Tower, I'm not sure it amounts to much, but I am looking forward to seeing what her new biography of Anne Neville will be like, given the very limited amount of information there is about her. Another candidate for least-known Queen.

[prendrelemick]

.........

[prendrelemick]

Just read an article that mentioned Richard's marriage to Anne Neville was more advantageous for him than her. He was the third son in an insecure monarchy. Because of his deformity he was banned from becoming a priest - which might have been his first choice as he was a devout man. Anne legitamised his Lordship of the North.

[Zaza]

Richard III's marriage to Anne Neville was greatly to his advantage, because it gained him the loyalty of her father Warwick the Kingmaker's followers. They became 'his men' so to speak. He and his brother Clarence behaved less than ethically when they carved up the Warwick lands between them, including lands which rightly belonged to Warwick's widow, Duchess Isabel. This was achieved by declaring her legally dead! She was stashed away in a nunnery, living on a pittance. Anne's 'affinity' was also crucial for Richard when it came to the usurpation.

[prendrelemick]

Here come the lawyers! Richard III's ancestors (14 of them) have asked for a Judicial Review ( whatever that is) of the arrangements for his reburial. They want him in York. Liecester are going to keep him at all costs

Couldn't we just have a good old fashioned battle to sort it out? It'd be cheaper and more fitting.

[kasie]

Looks like they may have found King Alfred. News item on South Today reported that an exhumation had taken place at a churchyard in Winchester and bones removed for archaeological forensic investigation. Apparently a nineteenth century archaeologist had been excavating nearby Hyde Abbey where Alfred is said to have been buried, came upon the bones and asked the then incumbent of St Bartholomew's if he would rebury them in his quiet little churchyard as 'they may be the remains of King Alfred'. The work was undertaken very quietly at the weekend without any prior announcement as the authorities did not want the world and his press descending on the place with all the ballyhoo that Richard's exhumation caused.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Here come the lawyers! Richard III's ancestors (14 of them) have asked for a Judicial Review ( whatever that is) of the arrangements for his reburial. They want him in York. Liecester are going to keep him at all costs

Couldn't we just have a good old fashioned battle to sort it out? It'd be cheaper and more fitting.

I think someone joked a few posts back about splitting him up, but that may in fact be the only option short of another battle of Bosworth.
I'm guessing the spine would be split by equal number of vertebrae, skull cut in half?
St. Cataherine's head was smuggled out of Rome and brought back to Siena while the rest of her remains in Rome.

[prendrelemick]

If we could find Henry I as well then we could have a share-out of all the bones. Two of Richard's ribs, Henry's pelvis and Alfred's fibia to York, Henry's skull, Richard's spine and Alfred's patella To Liecester - and so on. All the spare bits and pieces could go on tour, a leg here a radius there.


There is a stately home near here that has the head of an ancestor in a niche. It was rescued from London bridge where it was on display after he was executed for treason during the Jacobean rebellion. A faithfull servant took a cart down to London, drove onto the bridge reached up and grabbed the head as he passed beneath and returned it to his widow. A brave act, had he been caught he would've joined his master on display.

[Zaza]

It's a bit ridiculous for the descendants of Richard III to take legal action over an ancestor they didn't even know they had until recently. And now there are fourteen of them! There were only two a couple of months back. I'm not sure exactly what a judicial review is, but I bet it doesn't come cheap. I hope they're paying for the lawyers themselves.

One solution would be for the cathedral clergy of York Minster and Leicester Cathedral to fight it out. The medieval king burial rights smackdown. I'd watch that.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Another option is to compromise and bury him at a midpoint between Leicester and York.
I'd suggest Sheffield.