John's mother died in 1394 when he was but five years old, in 1399 his father Henry of Bolingbroke, a grandson of Edward III, usurped the throne of his cousin Richard II and was crowned Henry IV. The ...

Isabella of Valois the second wife of Richard II was born in Paris on 9 November 1389 and was the daughter of King Charles VI of France and his wife Isabeau of Bavaria. Isabella was born at a time of ...

The Act of Supremacy, passed in 1534, established King Henry VIII as the Supreme Head of the English Church. The Reformation Parliament of 1529-1536 approved the king's break with the see of Rome, as ...

The child was christened at Winchester Cathedral, his godfathers were John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby and Lord Maltravers, Elizabeth Woodville, widow of Edward IV ...

News that shocked all Christendom arrived from the East in late 1187, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, established in 1099 during the First Crusade, had fallen to the Moslems. Baldwin IV, the Frankish King ...

Queen Mary I, or 'Bloody Mary' as she became known, the first Queen Regnant in English history, was born on 18th February, 1516 at the Palace of Placentia at Greenwich, the only surviving and fifth ...

Philip II of Spain was the only son of the Habsburg Emperor Charles V and his cousin Isabella of Portugal and was born in the Spanish capital of Valladolid on 21 May 1527. Philip had two sisters with ...

The Act of Supremacy, passed in 1534, established King Henry VIII as the Supreme Head of the English Church. The Reformation Parliament of 1529-1536 approved the king's break with the see of Rome, as ...

No other ruler in England's long and varied history has been honoured with the title the Great. Alfred once declared his intention "To live worthily as long as I live and after my life to leave to ...

The posthumous son of Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, (fourth son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine) and his wife Constance of Brittany (daughter and heiress of Conan IV of Brittany and Margaret of ...

Henry seized England's crown on the death of his brother, William Rufus on 2 August 1100. He had been present on the hunting expedition in the New Forest which resulted in Rufus' death, either by ...

One of the most outstanding female figures of the Middle Ages and a fascinating character in her own right, Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine and Countess of Poitou was born around 1122, the daughter of ...