Blog
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Audio excerpt – Men of the Cross – read by Angel Martinez
Listen to Angel Martinez read an excerpt from Men of the Cross I want to thank Angel for offering authors like me an opportunity to introduce Sir Henry & Sir Stephan to her listeners. This excerpt is from chapter 17 of the novel, hours after the horrendous massacre of 2,700 prisoners ordered by King Richard […]
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Richard I, the Lionheart, died #OTD 6 April 1199
Richard was born in Oxford in 1157, the third son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He became King of England in July 1189 on the death of his father, with whom he’d been fighting, and not for the first time. He inherited an empire that stretched from the Scottish border across the English […]
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Richard the Lionheart wounded at Châlus-Chabrol – an excerpt from Swords of the King
#OTD 26 March 1199 Châlus-Chabrol was bleak and cold that twenty-sixth day of March. Days of nasty weather and the recalcitrant traitors inside the castle were trying the king’s patience. Hammers beat steadily throughout the day, and siege machines loosed one barrage after another. While the sappers dug ever closer to the walls, messengers from […]
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Richard the Lionheart and the Siege of Nottingham, 1194
25 March 1194The chronicler Roger de Hoveden tells us “that those who were in the [Nottingham] castle…were astonished, and were confounded and alarmed, and trembling came upon them; but still they could not believe that the king had come, and supposed that the whole of this was done by the chiefs of the army for the […]
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99c/99p sale – Men of the Cross
November 26 – December 3 Get Men of the Cross (ebook) for 99c/99pon US and UK Amazon ><><><><><><>< Charlene Newcomb recently published Book III of Battle Scars, 12th century historical fiction filled with war, political intrigue, and a knightly romance of forbidden love set during the reign of Richard the Lionheart. There will be more to come, so […]
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Research snippets: “In the year of grace 1194, being the second year of the captivity of Richard, king of England…”
King Philip of France and John, brother of King Richard I (the Lionheart), colluded to keep Richard a prisoner of Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor. Sounds like fiction, doesn’t it? Something out of Hollywood? Hard to believe, but it’s true. Roger de Hoveden, a contemporary chronicler, wrote about the evil conspirators’ offer to the […]
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Men of the Cross – 99c/99p sale
Monday, Sept 10 – Friday, Sept 14 Get your ebook copy of Men of the Cross for 99c/99p at US and UK Amazon ><><><><><><><
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Joanna Plantagenet
Joanna Plantagenet was Queen of Sicily, and the Countess of Toulouse. She was the daughter of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, born in October 1165. She died on 4 September 1199. At age eleven, Joanna (or Joan) wed William II, King of Sicily. Widowed at 24, she was held under house arrest for […]
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#OTD 8 June 1191 – King Richard I’s fleet arrives in Acre
What a momentous day it must have been when Richard the Lionheart’s fleet finally sailed into the harbor at Acre in the Holy Land. Many of the crusaders (called ‘pilgrims’ in their own time) had been on the journey for more than a year. King Richard’s troops had gathered in Tours in present-day France to […]