Persons of royal blood were thought to have the “God given” power of healing by this condition by touch, and sovereigns of England and France practised this power to cure sufferers of scrofula, meaning “Swine Evil” as it was common in pigs form of tuberculosis of the bones and lymph nodes, commonly known as the “King’s or Queen’s Evil” or “Morbus Regius.” In France it was called the “Mal De Roi.” Curiously William the Lion, King of Scotland is recorded in 1206 as curing a case of Scrofula by his touching and blessing a child who had the ailment. Charles I touched around 100 people shortly after his…

Edward was born on 28 April 1442 at Rouen in France, the son of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. the leading Yorkist in the dynastic struggle against the Lancastrians known as the Wars of the Roses, 1455. Richard Plantagenet was killed at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, Edward inherited his claim. With support of the powerful Earl of Warwick,  ‘the Kingmaker’, Edward defeated the Lancastrians in a series of battles, culminating in the Battle of Towton in 1461. With the Henry VI, overthrown, Edward was crowned Edward IV. Warwick believed he could control the new king  and keen to negotiate a foreign marriage, but in 1464 Edward secretly married…

  DURHAM HOUSE by Anthony Travis March 2016 (with reference to Thomas Allen’s study (1839) and the survey of London 1937 by the LCC)   Durham Place was the most easterly of the mansions along the south side of the Strand extending from the boundary of York House on the west to Ivy Lane. Its extensive grounds included river frontage. According to Thomas Allen in his publication of 1839, Antony de Bec (or Bek) built a Town residence for him and his successors, known as ‘Durham Place,’ in the Strand. Bec was Bishop of that See from 1284 to 1310. Notably he was also Titular Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1306…

What was the Money and Currency  like in 1558 to 1603, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I? What was it worth? What were the wages like? The money and currency of the period was all in coins – there was no paper money. During the Renaissance period coins were minted in either gold or silver. The English pound originated from a measure of weight which was used to represent a sum of money. 240 pennies equalled a pound or 20 shillings equalled one pound. The penny was the basic monetary unit of the period. The names of the English units of currency and how they were abbreviated in written…