Although we don't call it that, do we
Published at 7:32 pm on October 13th, 2020
Filed under: In With The Old.
It’s time for an anniversary! Nine hundred and fifty-four years ago tomorrow, give or take a calendrical change in the meantime, was the Battle of Hastings. An all-day affair, it is famously that One Date That Everyone Knows from all of British history. If you believe the more mouth-frothing end of the political spectrum, England has not been successfully invaded since, although that arguably isn’t really true.
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Keyword noise: Battle of Hastings, alternate timeline, anniversary, counterfactual, England, English, Hastings, Battle, history, William the Conqueror.
In which we pose an anniversary question
Published at 8:17 pm on October 14th, 2010
Filed under: In With The Old.
Today: the anniversary of the one date in English history that just about everybody knows. It is – as you’ve probably realised – the 944th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, which occurred on October 14th, 1066. And, of course, all that: the death of King Harold II at the hands of Duke William of Normandy, which led to the duke’s coronation as King of England on Christmas Day that year.
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Keyword noise: alternate timeline, Battle, Battle of Hastings, counterfactual, England, Hastings, history, Norman Conquest, Normandy, William the Conqueror, Yorkshire.
In which we’re descended from great men
Published at 11:44 pm on January 11th, 2007
Filed under: In With The Old.
Today’s top news* story: English Heritage have been putting out newspaper adverts around the world announcing that they are searching for the descendants of Edgar Aetheling, claimant to the English throne in 1066. As the closest relative of Edward the Confessor, under modern law he would have received the crown; but under Saxon law kings didn’t automatically inherit their position, so he didn’t. Everyone remembers the other kings of England from 1066, but everyone forgets the teenage Edgar.
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Keyword noise: 1066, ancestry, descendants, Edgar Aetheling, Edward The Confessor, English Heritage, genealogy, genetics, history, Niall Nine Hostages, Niall Noigíallach, O'Neil, William the Conqueror.