This Month in History
March

Once March comes around, the worst of the winter is over, my head is brimming with history and I can't wait to get out to explore.

March marks the birthday of one of my favourite English kings, Henry II. Together with his wife, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, he tops my fantasy dinner party guest list.

There also seems to have been more than a fair share of Royal deaths, both murders and accidents, when 'Good Queen Bess' died and Ethelred the Unready benefited from his half-brother's murder.

In addition, March also marks the anniversary of the bloodiest battle ever fought in England - and we learn that cricket can be highly dangerous to your health.

Count Geoffrey and his wife Matilda had a stormy marriage. Matilda - daughter of King Henry I of England and widow of the German Emperor - had been a reluctant bride and her husband seemed to resent that. But on this day at Le Mans in France she gave birth to their eldest son.

Henry would support his mother in her bid for the English crown and would finally - at the death of King Stephen - end England's first bloody civil war.

18th March 978
A Royal Murder

Most people have heard of King Ethelred the Unready. But few know that he owes his crown to a murder. On this day, fifteen-year-old King Edward went to visit his stepmother and half-brother at Corfe Castle.

It is said that he was stabbed while still in the saddle and that his stepmother Elfrida was at the bottom of the plot. The young king was buried at Wareham, before being transferred to Shaftesbury Abbey where he was revered as a saint and martyr.

20 March 1751
Cricket kills a Prince

It's not a laughing matter, but this is one of the stories that makes history so surprising. I've found it in Monarchs, Murders and Mistresses by David Hilliam.

And because of this event, England never had a King Frederick, even though we had a crown prince so named. Prince Frederick, eldest son of King George II died after being struck in the chest by a cricket ball in the summer of 1748. The injury never healed.

21 March 1556
Archbishop Cranmer is burned to death

Queen Mary - the one whom history has named 'Bloody Mary' - took her revenge on that day. Archbishop Cranmer was burnt at the stake on her orders.

His crime?

He had dissolved the marriage of her mother Catharine of Aragon to her father Henry VIII and had declared Mary herself illegitimate. This, the queen could not forgive.

24 March 1603
Death of Queen Elizabeth I

One of England's most famous and most successful monarchs, Queen Elizabeth I was sixty-nine years old when she died. She suffered from tonsillitis or flu, but refused to take any medicine or even go to bed.

An era ended when she died. And the English crown passed to King James VI of Scotland.

29 March 1461
The Battle of Towton

Towton, at the heart of the Wars of the Roses, has the dubious distinction of being the bloodiest battle ever fought in England.

Edward of York, only 20 years old and only recently crowned as King Edward IV, personally led his forces against the Lancastrian army. Confusion reigned as a blizzard obscured the field of battle. Banners and tokens were mistaken and the Lancastrians attacked their own soldiers, as well as Edward's Yorkist army.

Twenty-eight thousand men were killed and the Lancastrian army was annihilated.