Phoebe
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Assassination of Tsar Nicholas II and the Romanovs
Born on May 18th 1868, at the Tsarskoye Selo near St Petersburg, the former home of Empress Catherine I, wife of Peter the great at the beginning of the 18th Century, Nicholai Alexandrovich Romanov was the oldest child of the heir to the Russian monarchy, Alexander III and his wife Marie Feodorovna (Princess Dagmar of Denmark). At the age of twelve in 1881, whilst staying at the Winter Palace, Nicholas’ grandfather Tsar Alexander II was assassinated by a bomb. Having already survived several assassination attempts, that day Alexander had been out in his carriage followed by two sleighs full of Cossacks and when a member of the Narodnaya Volya (People’s…
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William Wallace
William Wallace’s birth and early life are very much shrouded in mystery. Some sources state he was the younger son of a minor Scottish land-owner, Malcolm Wallace, born in Elderslie near Paisley. Sir Malcolm was documented to have had three sons, Malcolm Jr, William and John. However, based on his seal on a letter sent to King Philip IV, a Crown tenant, Alan Wallace was his father, he was from the similar sounding Ellerslie near Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, and this is backed up by Alan Wallace’s signature on the 1296 Ragman Roll, which William refused to sign. His age is also disputed with a birthdate range of 1270 to 1276. The…
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Sophia of Hanover
Sophia of Hanover was born on 14th October 1630, in the Wassaener Hof in The Hague, where her parents were exiled during the thirty years war. Her father, Frederick of Bohemia and mother, Elizabeth Stuart, only surviving daughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England already had eleven children. During her young years, Sophia was courted by her cousin King Charles II in the hope of a betrothal but nothing became of the courtship. Sophia instead married Ernest Augustus of Brunswick at the age of 27, quite late for a woman of the period. The marriage was successful, although Ernest was known to have a bad temper and…
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Hanging of Mary Dyer
Mary Barret was born around 1611 in England although where exactly isn’t known. A probate document remains from 1633/4 from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury concerning the estate of what appears to be the estate of her brother, William Barret, leaving his assets to Mary and her husband, which suggests that their parents were deceased and that William had no heirs. It could also highlight that Canterbury was close to the area in which Mary and her brother were born or lived. Mary married William Dyer, a milliner, in 1633, original from Lincolnshire, in St Martin in the Fields on 27th October 1633, and a child, William Jr was born…
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Historical Towns Series- Stamford, Lincolnshire
It came to my attention, during casual chit-chat that many people go about their lives, doing the usual things: go to work, take the kids to school, shop. You know the sort of thing. But we seem to go about it half the time with our eyes painted on, as my Nana used to say. So I decided to start a new series, about local history, and the things under our noses that we take for granted or simply hadn’t realised. I’m going to start with a look at a town which is well-known to me, and is steeped in history, more than many people realise. Stamford, in Lincolnshire. Due…
