Michael Kelly

'The circle of Ulster literary male friendships of author Forrest Reid - Michael Kelly history.org.uk/publications/r…

OTD in 1458 - #HenryVI attempted to end the #WarsoftheRoses by having the main participants in the conflicts of the previous 3 years walk through the streets of London to St. Paul’s holding hands. This was a conventional medieval means of reconciliation known as a Loveday parade. This wasn’t Henry’s first attempt at mediation. In January 1458 he had summoned a Great Council to meet in London. He rightly wanted to bring an end to the escalating conflict between the Lancastrian & Yorkist supporting nobles. However, he seemed not to have realised that his own prolonged presence & active involvement as King was necessary for achieving his desired goal. He had sensibly ordered that the Yorkist nobles & their retinues should be accommodated within the city walls & their Lancastrian opponents outside to keep them from coming to blows. This was largely successful, helped by the King himself having raised additional troops of his own, which served as a buffer. However, no progress was made in the reconciliation talks once Henry made the bizarre decision to depart for Chertsey & to leave his nobles to it. Henry returned in March, presumably finally realising he needed to take a more active role in brokering a settlement. His solution was the Loveday parade of 25 March 1458, but this too showed a touching naivety & a fundamental lack of understanding of the motivations driving the behaviour of the main Wars of the Roses participants. Henry’s wife Margaret of Anjou & his cousin Richard, 3rd Duke of York may have held their noses & agreed to Henry’s request that they walk through the streets holding hands on 25th March, but neither would be satisfied longer term unless they held the pre-eminent position of power in the realm. And the only viable way of Henry bringing an end to their rivalry would be for him to have stepped up & asserted himself as King, which he consistently failed to do. Likewise the sons of those killed by the Yorkist lords at the First Battle of St Albans on 22 May 1455 - Somerset, Northumberland, Clifford et al - felt honour bound to avenge the deaths of their fathers. Ultimately, they wanted blood rather than the endowments which Henry had persuaded the Yorkist lords to make to St Albans Abbey as part of the Loveday. The Duke of Exeter was jealous of the Earl of Warwick & thought that he rather than Warwick should be Captain of Calais & have control of shipping in the Channel. Meanwhile Warwick himself was an ambitious man, who both wanted to increase his own power & needed to do so in order to secure long term victory in the disputes about his wife ‘s inheritance. Predictably, the peace which Henry had brokered for the Loveday Parade did not last for long. It was abruptly broken on 9 November 1458 when Henry’s own household men (likely encouraged by Margaret of Anjou & the Dukes of Somerset & Exeter) attempted to assassinate Warwick, who had returned to London from Calais for a Great Council meeting. The Wars of the Roses was back on with a vengeance.

5am sailing from Tarbert to Lochmaddy was rather fresh 🌊⛴️ #OuterHebrides

Six months ago today that I left London for rural Oxfordshire. Wild horses couldn’t drag me back. If you need me, I’ll be in the local pub.

Every frame of Barry Lyndon (1975) was designed to resemble 18th-century landscape paintings. Kubrick studied works by artists like Gainsborough and Hogarth to determine the lighting and composition.

Paul Henry (Ireland 1876-1958) Windy Day, County Kerry (c. 1934) oil on canvas 40.5 x 63 cm

Blackness Castle on the eastern edge of the Falkirk area with all 3 bridges that span the Firth of Forth to link up Fife with Edinburgh in the background. c.o. @scotdrone 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@Artemisapphire As I say, take good care of yourself. ❤️ You are an important twitter friend. 😊

@Guedella Sending belated hugs for that!!!! ❤️❤️ (Was very relieved I didn't need a transfusion 🥺)

So basically after losing nearly a litre a day, and no longer able to stand up, spent a lovely 2am at Gloucester A&E Not just low iron, there isn't any. It crashed. On a powerful supplement feeling guilty for not being at work but can't stand up or think 🙂 Yay

Inflazione, c’è tensione. E può avere conseguenze ➡️ ift.tt/OhxZWwk ift.tt/kNx7rYn

@ladyanakina This has set me thinking. So I have purchased a space suit and I am ready for lift-off! 👨‍🚀👨‍🚀👨‍🚀 😊

On 25 March 1780, British-Hessian Captain Johann Ewald ordered his men of the Hesse-Kassel Feld Jäeger Korps, 2nd Company, to fire on the flanks of a Patriot cavalry approaching their post between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. Ewald’s men managed to hit only one man, a sergeant of the 3rd Regiment of Continental Light Dragoons under Lieutenant Colonel William Washington (a distant cousin to George Washington). The sergeant was so far in front of the rest that he was an easy target, getting hit in the stomach. Captain Ewald had gone to where surgeon was tending to the sergeant, and asked the sergeant why he had acted so rashly. The man replied: "Sir, Colonel Washington promised me that I would become an officer right away if I could discover whether the Jäegers were supported by infantry and had cannon with them, because if not, he would try to harass the Jäegers." The British surgeon then told the sergeant that his wound was mortal. The sergeant replied, "Well then, I die for my country and for its just cause." Captain Ewald gave the dying man a glass of wine, "which he drank with relish, and then died." **** On the same day in Savanah, Georgia, a detachment under Loyalist Colonel James De Lancey's 1st Battalion of New York Volunteers, rode out of Savannah and was attacked by a force of (reportedly) 300 Patriot militia, commanded by Colonel Andrew Pickens. De Lancey sent a messenger with a request for help from the King’s Rangers and they obliged, rescuing the Volunteers. The Patriot militia quickly retreated to their lines, but before leaving, the militia plundered and burned Royal Governor Wright's rice plantations. The British lost 3 killed and 5 wounded. American losses are not known, but this action has been considered an American victory. revolutionarywar.us/year-1780/ carolana.com/SC/Revolution/… Johann Ewald (Friends of Red Bank), Andrew Pickens and James De Lancey

Why is the Hapenny bridge famous? Half penny Bridge at dusk, Dublin, Ireland

Windows & balconies of Paris...

Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. (...) Nothing outside you can give you any place. In yourself right now is all the place you've got.  Flannery O'Connor Wise Blood

Man in a room #artbots #cezanne

People speak often of what your favorite sword says about you, your favorite helmet and so on. Pick your favorite coat of arms, it says a lot about you.

@JGordonBramer I love it! ❤️

Got some hanging baskets of pansies for my deck 😃❤️

Richard II being confronted by the Lords Appellant