Tuesday 22 September 2015

The Society of Antiquaries, London



King Edward IV and King Richard III Matching "Arch" Portraits
 
 

Here's where I went today, to attend a free public lecture by John Ashdown Hill.  What an immense privilege.

I already have two of his books on my Kindle.

 Eleanor the Secret Queen,

and

The Last Days of Richard lll and the fate of his DNA.

This lecture gave the kernel of his new work, "The Dublin King" and was a fascinating and concise indication of all the relevant points about who the "Dublin King" really was.  Very persuasive.

I don't know how the man's able to sleep at night, with all that research and delving into hitherto undisturbed archives, swimming about in his head.  He is already at work on two further books, one for next year called "The Wars of the Roses" and one for the year after, about Edward IV.

Curiously, he doesn't seem interested in Perkin Warbeck.

Still, it was a great British day out.  Free education, history, the conservation of the past.  All wonderful.

And the two pictures above were hanging on the wall right above my head.  You can see all the Society's picture collection online, but nothing beats the real thing.

3 comments:

  1. I think if your job overlaps with your passion - and I suspect his does - he finds it easy to have all that research swimming around in his head.
    I remember studying Perkin Warbeck at school for my history GCSE; I always thought it was a marvellous name!

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  2. All sounds a bit high-brow for me but I'm glad you got so much out of it. Thank you for popping over to mine. It's always great to see you there and I'm chuffed that you would want to.

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  3. How fascinating.... due to an educational glitch in the 80s I did a lot of geography and no history so know all I know from BBC dramatizations and Hollywood movies, as in 'Gee is that Bonny Prince Charlie?'
    Oxbow Lake anyone???

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