Tower of London
Robert the Bruce, self-proclaimed King of the Scots, grasped his axe as the heavily armored English nobleman, a member of the vanguard of the 20,000-strong English army, bore down upon him, lance leveled and clods of earth arching from his charger’s hoofs. Read more
Tower of London
King Edward IV could not have asked for better news. On the evening of May 3, 1471, his scouts reported that the army of his Lancastrian archrival, Queen Margaret of Anjou, was camped a few miles south of the abbey town of Tewkesbury with its back to the River Severn. Read more
Tower of London
England’s survival hung in the balance. She had only recently clashed with an imposing Continental alliance, in a futile war characterized by unprecedented slaughter on obscure fields in Flanders. Read more
Tower of London
For nearly a century, England and the Netherlands were longtime allies in the Eighty Years’ War against the Spanish Empire. Read more
Tower of London
Robert Devereux, the third Earl of Essex, was on his way to church in the small village of Kineton in Warwickshire on the morning of October 23, 1642, when he received word that the enemy was at hand. Read more
Tower of London
By the middle of July 1403, a series of seemingly inevitable events had led two armies to a field near the small and hitherto unheralded village of Shrewsbury in Shropshire, approximately 150 miles northwest of London. Read more
Tower of London
Indolent, weak-willed, and prone to periodic fits of madness, King Henry VI had let England slide downhill since coming of age in 1437. Read more
Tower of London
The city of London practically overflows with military history. Predating the Romans, London has been the seat of government ever since it was fortified by William the Conqueror in the 11th century. Read more
Tower of London
In November 1541, roughly three years before the Siege of Boulogne, King Henry VIII of England suffered one of the most severe shocks of his life when he was shown a report alleging that his plumpish 19-year-old queen, Catherine Howard, had been intimate with other men before their marriage. Read more
Tower of London
After the disastrous Battle of Dunbar in April 1296, the Scottish revolt against England stalled for more than a year until a rebel force led by Andrew de Moray and William Wallace rekindled the flames of rebellion with a stunning victory over the English at Stirling Bridge. Read more
Tower of London
On a sweltering evening in early July 1553, the late King Henry VIII’s only legitimate son, the sickly 15-year-old Edward VI, died an agonizing death from tuberculosis, possibly complicated by measles. Read more
Tower of London
The Duke of Monmouth’s rebel army marched briskly out of Bridgwater into the dark of night on July 6, 1685. Read more
Tower of London
By the latter part of the 15th century, armor worn by knights in the field had reached its pinnacle. Read more
Tower of London
The life of Margaret of Anjou was not that of a meek noblewoman content with the companionship of her ladies in waiting. Read more
Tower of London
After successfully concluding the First Anglo-Dutch War, English strongman Oliver Cromwell turned his severe Puritan attentions to Spain or, more accurately, to Spain’s far-flung possessions in the New World. Read more
Tower of London
Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson was not a happy man, and his sour mood was made worse by the weather. Read more
Tower of London
Fought between 1455 and 1487, the War of the Roses was prosecuted by the Houses of Lancaster and York, both branches of the Royal House of Plantagenet, which was of French origin and ruled England for more than 300 years. Read more
