The Lost Tragedy of Anne Boleyn January 28, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
An entry in the burning libraries catalogue… In 1536 Anne Boleyn was executed for sexual betrayal and for plotting the murder of the king, her husband Henry VIII. Beach has examined these extraordinary claims in another post, sufficient to say for now that there was almost certainly no substance to them, but that Henry VIII […]
Anne Boleyn Loses It October 16, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
Anne Boleyn was, of course, the second wife of Henry VIII, who ended her short life with French steel interposing between her chin and her shoulders, 19 May 1536. Her execution came after a travesty of a trial in which she was found guilty of high treason against the king (a man of unusual psychology): she […]
Scooby Doo Crime 1#: Headless Coachmen and Crime August 7, 2012
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval, Modern
In the Middle Ages they had the wild hunt, the insanely nasty cavalry that rode across the sky. Then, come the early modern period, when everyone had ‘grown up a bit’ and men with shag and swords were so, well, ‘medieval’, that they moved on. They started seeing, instead, headless horsemen out on the toll […]
Rhyming with Death December 8, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Medieval, Modern
Death concentrates the mind wonderfully and, at least in the east, a longstanding custom has been to pen a final poem: a last communiqué to the world. This custom stretches far back into the Middle Ages and perhaps the greatest thing to recommend it is the brevity of the works in question So we […]
