Éire agus an Bhreatain🇬🇧🇮🇪

War of the Roses The son of Thomas Langstrother of Crosthwaite, Sir John, like his elder brother William, joined the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (also known as “the Hospitallers”), a military religious order established in the eleventh century to provide hospital care and military protection to pilgrims in Jerusalem during the Crusades. Ruled by a grand master, who by the fifteenth century was headquartered on the island of Rhodes, the order’s various national provinces were headed by grand commanders or priors. In 1467, after spending most of his early years in the eastern Mediterranean serving as castellan of Rhodes and grand commander of Cyprus, Langstrother won election as prior of the order in England, a position that had been held by Robert Botyll, a noted Yorkist. Because Langstrother’s Lancastrian sympathies were well known, EDWARD IV, in an unprecedented act, refused to sanction the Knights’ selection and suggested that they accept Richard Wood...

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 ha...