by David West | Feb 8, 2025 | News
On 8th February 1587 Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringay Castle. I have posted about Mary before, because she knighted my ancestor, Elizabethan Spy, Sir Anthony Standen. The execution itself was rather a gruesome mess. Mary was led to the Great Hall of...
by David West | Feb 7, 2025 | News
On the 7th of February 1812, Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) made his maiden speech in the House of Lords. He spoke in defence of the Luddites. The trial of the Luddites took place during the height of the Luddite movement, a workers’ rebellion against mechanisation...
by David West | Feb 6, 2025 | News
On the 6th February 1918 women over the age of 30 were granted the vote in the United Kingdon. The suffragettes were a group of women activists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who fought for women’s right to vote. Their movement, which emerged primarily in...
by David West | Feb 5, 2025 | News
On the 5th of February 1428 King Alfonso V ordered Sicily’s Jews to attend conversion sermons. Yet he was, for the time, relatively supportive towards his Jewish subjects. King Alfonso V of Aragon, also known as Alfonso the Magnanimous, was a prominent figure of the...
by David West | Feb 4, 2025 | News
On 4th February 1555 John Rogers, a reformer and bible translator, was the first Protestant to be burnt at the stake at Smithfield by Queen Mary I, Bloody Mary, as she has come to be known. I have finished reading A Woman of Noble Wit, by Rosemary Griggs, and posted a...
by David West | Feb 3, 2025 | News
On the 3rd of February 1576 Henry of Navarre escaped from Paris. Henry of Navarre’s escape from Paris is a tale of political intrigue, religious conflict, and remarkable cunning during a time of turmoil in France. Henry, a Protestant (Huguenot) leader and heir to the...
