Antoinette of Bourbon was the formidable matriarch of the Guise family in sixteenth century France. She had many children who were instrumental in international politics as well as in religious lif…

Anne of Bohemia, Queen of England King Richard II’s first wife Anne has the distinction of being the only English queen from Bohemia. The marriage was a by-product of the schism within the Papacy i…

James Francis Edward, Prince of Wales, was born under difficult circumstances in St James’ Palace to the Catholic monarchs, Queen Mary Beatrice d’Este of Modena and James II, King of England, in the summer of 1688. All three members of the royal family would end up in exile in France when James II’s Protestant nephew and son-in-law, William of Orange, invaded England in November, resulting in the Glorious Revolution and James II’s deposition/abdication. The Prince of Wales would spend many years in France, and when his father died, his supporters recognized him as King James III, while his opposition called him the Old Pretender.

Herstory · Episode

The mother of one of England’s greatest monarchs, Anne Boleyn holds the tragic distinction of being the first queen of England to ever be executed. And today, it is a pleasure to welcome hist…

There is a letter, preserved in the Calendar of State Papers in Spain (Volume 1, pgs. 78-79) which was purportedly written by Perkin Warbeck to his future wife, Lady Katherine Gordon. It was most l…

In 17th and 18th Century France, there were an extraordinary number of men and women artists that emerged, making a name for themselves. They were poets, fabulists, painters, playwrights, actors, c…

In the early sixteenth century, the balance of power in Western Europe was a delicate dance between France, the Holy Roman Empire and England. There were three strong personalities who each sought …

17 November marks the accession of Queen Elizabeth I in 1558. With many minds turning to the subject of coronations, curator Charles Farris recalls Elizabeth’s dramatic procession from the Tower of…

Eleanor of Provence Due to Eleanor’s fundamentally European mentality, and the political influence of her Savoyard relations at the English court, she would be a dominating political force in the s…

By all accounts, Lady Katherine Gordon was a beautiful woman. She was the daughter of a Scottish nobleman with royal connections and married four times, including to the pretender to the English th…

Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy was a very ambitious man. In earlier medieval times, the area of Burgundy had been a kingdom but in 1004, it was reduced to ducal status. During his reign, Philip …

In medieval London, there were multiple public places of execution, places where death sentences which had been given to prisoners convicted of serious crimes against the monarch or the state, including...

The formation of the Burgundian Empire by the four Valois Dukes of Burgundy would not have happened without the formidable royal and aristocratic women in…

Mary Queen of Scots: Her royal lineage reaches back to the Valois dukes of Burgundy, shaped by formidable women whose marriages and power linked courts across Europe.

In earlier medieval times, the area of Burgundy had been a kingdom. It was reduced to ducal status in 1004 and was given to the House of Burgundy in 1032. In the fourteenth century, Philip the Bold…

Winchester Cathedral is reinterring remains from its famous mortuary chests after more than a decade of scientific analysis, with new findings on early medieval royals and bishops expected in 2026.

Laid Table by Nicholaes Gillis, 1611 (Photo credit: When Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, designated his daughter Margaret of Austria as his procurator of the Netherlands, she bought a complex of …

Anne, Duchess of Brittany had been crowned twice as the Queen of France. She married King Charles VIII and when he died, she married King Louis XII. She suffered through a long and complicated preg…

The Freelance History Writer has written a guest article for the Princess Charlotte of Wales blog in celebration of the 220th anniversary of her birthday, January 7, 1796. Charlotte had a miserable…

Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy had married two women who both died before they had any children. His Estates and subjects were clamoring for him to marry again and have children. Eventually he s…