Éire agus an Bhreatain🇬🇧🇮🇪

Buckingham finds the Severn impassable, 18 October 1483  © The Stapleton Collection / Bridgeman Images Buckingham’s Rebellion is the name given to a series of uprisings that occurred in England in the autumn of 1483 in reaction to RICHARD III’s seizure of his nephew’s throne, to the disappearance of that nephew and his brother, and to the growing belief that both boys were dead.    Buckingham’s Rebellion comprised two independently organized conspiracies against Richard III that, despite some incompatibilities of purpose, joined together to achieve their shared goal of overthrowing the king. The first conspiracy was planned and led by Henry STAFFORD, duke of Buckingham, heretofore Richard’s chief ally. The exact reasons for Buckingham’s desertion of the king he had helped to make are unclear. The traditional reason, used by William Shakespeare in his play RICHARD III, is the king’s refusal to keep a promise to restore to Buckingham certain lands to which he had a claim. Mos

Illuminated depiction of the first two letters of Christ's name in Greek, chi and rho; from the Book of Kells,  c.  800 AD. Photos.com/Thinkstock The Book of Kells is one of the most famous and magnificent illuminated manuscripts in the world. It was produced around 800 somewhere in the British Isles. The vellum manuscript contains the four Gospels, with prefaces and the “Eusebian canons”—tables containing concordances to the Gospels. The manuscript comprises 340 vellum pages, each page containing 16 to 18 lines of text in a handwriting known as “insular majuscule.” But the chief interest in the book lies in its lavish illuminations. Three elaborate full-page miniatures of the symbols for the evangelists Matthew, Mark, and John appear before the openings of those Gospels. Directly facing the opening texts of each Gospel are portraits of the four evangelists themselves. There are, in addition, full-page illuminations illustrating Christ in majesty, the Virgin and Child,

Nennius is the traditional author of the early Latin compilation known as the ' Historia Brittonum,' which purports to give an account of British history from the time of Julius Caesar to towards the end of the 7th century A.D. In the preface he describes himself as a disciple of Elvodugus, who died in A.D. 809, with the title of ' chief bishop in the land of Gwynedd.' We may infer that Nennius held the same more cosmopolitan views of Christian practice as his master; but apart from his own disclaimer to any literary or intellectual pretensions, to which his poor latinity and total lack of any critical acumen bear ample witness, virtually nothing further is known of him. It may be that he was a native of the eastern districts of South Wales, as the internal evidence of his work indicates. It is unlikely that the ' Liber Commonei ' at Oxford (Bodl. Auct. F. 4. 32) was written by him personally, but a reference in it shows that his name and probably hi