Awesome Advent: Day 22

Awesome Advent Day 22: Christmas Coronations

As the years have to come to a close in December, several new beginnings have started. Today in 1135 Stephen became King of England, and most famously on Christmas Day in 1066 William the Conqueror was crowned. These Christmas coronations started of the big long line of English monarchs-see if you can learn this off by heart!

Awesome Advent: Day 19

Awesome Advent Day 19: Christmas Kings

Lots of Kings have got into the Christmas spirit throughout the past. Here are 5 facts about some Christmas Kings:

1. Alfred the Great invented the 12 days of Christmas. Alfred’s law said no free Saxon should be made to work between Christmas and the Twelfth Night.
2. King Henry III hated people who made copies of his coins and kept a special punishment for them that was carried out on Christmas Day. They would have their right hand and their naughty bits chopped off-by the Bishop!
3. In Medieval Scotland, on the Twelfth Night, the King gave up his throne and let someone else rule for a day. This was known as Daft Day, and all you had to do was find a bean hidden in the Twelfth Night cake.
4. On Christmas Day in 1454 Henry VI was suddenly cured of his mental illness which he’d had for over a year. His mental illness meant that he would’ve sat in silence like a  statue for hours, lost his memory, didn’t recognise his own family and struggled to move. A happy Christmas for him and his family that year!
5. When George V gave his Christmas speech on the radio, he sat on his favourite chair (not the throne) and it collapsed! He cried out “God bless my soul.”

Not every King was so jolly, though. Good King Wenceslas was quite different to the carol you sing. The truth is…

Silly Saturday: Rowdy Richard

This week, on Thursday 3rd September back in 1189, Richard the Lionheart was crowned King of England-shame he didn’t like England! Richard went off and fought in the Crusades, and spent most of his time in France than in England. He ruled the English from 1189, taxing them so he could buy weaponry and armour. The only thing was he himself didn’t wear any armour, which will explain his sticky ending in 1199, just 10 years after he was crowned…

Singing Saturday: Ruthless or regal?

Recently, Richard III has been re-buried at Westminster.

Richard was the last Yorkist king of England, whose death at the Battle of Bosworth effectively ended the Wars of the Roses. He has become infamous because of the disappearance of his young nephews – the Princes in the Tower – and through William Shakespeare’s play ‘Richard III’.

In 2012, archaeologists began excavating beneath a carpark in Leicester, hoping to find Richard’s final resting place. The search captured the public’s imagination and the remains subsequently found were confirmed as those of Richard.

 

So to remember him, here’s the story… the true story!

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/king_richard_iii

 

Silly Saturday: 1066

In the 1040s King Edward (later St Edward the Confessor) established his royal palace by the banks of the river Thames on land known as Thorney Island. Close by was a small Benedictine monastery founded under the patronage of King Edgar and St Dunstan around 960 A.D.  This monastery Edward chose to re-endow and greatly enlarge, building a large stone church in honour of St Peter the Apostle. This church became known as the “west minster” to distinguish it from St Paul’s Cathedral (the east minster) in the City of London.  Unfortunately, when the new church was consecrated on 28 December 1065 the King was too ill to attend and died a few days later. His mortal remains were entombed in front of the High Altar.

The only traces of Edward’s monastery to be seen today are in the round arches and massive supporting columns of the undercroft and the Pyx Chamber in the cloisters. The undercroft now houses the Abbey Museum but was originally part of the domestic quarters of the monks.  Among the most significant ceremonies that occurred in the Abbey at this period was the coronation of William the Conqueror on Christmas day 1066, and the “translation” or moving of King Edward’s body to a new tomb a few years after his canonisation in 1161.

 

It was today in History, however, when the cathedral opened it’s doors in 1066-the same year as the Battle of Hastings…

Source-http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/abbey-history