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On 11 December 1282 Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales, was lured to a meeting near Builth, mid-Wales, and assassinated. Shortly afterwards his leaderless army was ambushed and routed – or 'discomfited', to use the contemporary term. When the slaughter was complete, the victorious ...
Over the winter of 1282-3, a new kind of soldier arrived in the British Isles. These were men of Gascony, part of the ancient duchy of Aquitaine in south-west France. They had been summoned by the King of England, Edward I, who was also (among other titles) the king-duke of Gascony. The Gascons
Among the knights of Edward I there was a certain Pascual de Valencia, called the 'Adalide'. Pascual, a knight of Aragon in modern-day Spain, was just one of several foreign knights serving in the household of the English king. There were also several Germans, any number of Gascons (from ...
16 June is the anniversary of the Battle of Llandeilo Fawr in 1282. Piecing together the various accounts of this battle was quite fun: there is no lack of chronicle and administrative evidence, though as usual we are left with gaps and speculation.In April 1282 Edward I met with his nobles
Robin Hood and the DisinheritedThe story of Robin Hood as we know it today is usually set in the reigns of Richard the Lionheart (1189-1199) and King John (1199-1216). This tradition goes back no further than 1521 and the work of John Major, a Scottish theologian, who in that year, ...
In the autumn of 1266 Henry III was bogged down at Kenilworth castle in Warwickshire, besieging the Montfortian garrison. While focused on crushing the revolt in England, the king also had other pressing business to attend to. While the siege was in progress, he agreed to the King of France's ...
In July 1274 the Little Battle or Little War of Chalon took place on the Saone in Burgundy-Franche-Comté. This was a tournament that turned nasty when the host, the Count of Chalon, tried in vain to unhorse Edward I. The tourney at Chalon was a strange affair. Walter of Guisborough identifies ...
The Oak Door of AberffrawIn spring 1283 the armies of Edward I stormed into Gwynedd. This was the final drama in a very long war: for 200 years, the princes of Gwynedd had attempted to forge a united Wales in the teeth of resistance from the English crown. They almost succeeded until Prince
In 1066 Harold Godwinsson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, was killed at the battle of Hastings. Yet England was not conquered in a single day. The victor, Duke William of Normandy, had to fight tooth and nail for several years to hold onto his conquest.To begin with, the most serious
Book Reviews
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Darren Baker's latest book is a narrative history of the Montforts, one of the most famous noble families of the medieval era. It follows on from his previous works on Simon de Montfort and Henry III and their consorts, the two Eleanors.This is an ambitious work, and covers the history of ...
David Pilling is a prolific author of historical fiction. With interests ranging from the Byzantine Empire, the post-Roman period in Britain and the British and Irish Civil Wars, he has written numerous tales of blood and chivalry across these eras. Caesar’s Sword: The Red Death is one such ...
Edward I & WalesAfter two centuries of conflict between the Welsh princes and the English crown, Edward I finally conquered Wales in the latter half of the 13th century. Edward – better known to many by the epithet ‘Longshanks’ – had accomplished something which had eluded English ...
In less assured hands, this could have been a turgid and thoroughly bewildering read. Thankfully, Don Hollway knows his subject inside out and neatly picks his way through the convoluted history of the late Roman Empire. As the title suggests, the focus is on events leading up to the climactic ...
Author Interview
What prompted you to choose the period that you wrote your first book in?My first book was a short detective novel set in England during the time of Edward II. I had always wanted to write a historical novel and had been reading quite a lot of medieval crime fiction, especially Ellis Peters (Brother ...
David, congratulations on your latest book, Sword of Aragon: A Champion Tale. This is a prequel to your Champion series, which is set in France and Spain – what is it about this area of Medieval Europe that fascinates you?My interest stems from a childhood dragging my unfortunate parents about castles in Wales. These included the famous 'Iron Ring' built by ...
We think we know about Robin Hood, but your story doesn’t follow the narrative in Robin Hood The First Arrow, does it? You know, the one about Robin Hood speaking with an American accent, or wearing tights.My version is based on the early medieval ballads of Robin Hood, mixed with a few slivers of historical record. The ...