Mote Park
Mote Park is a multi-use public park in Maidstone, Kent. Previously a country estate it was converted to landscaped park land at the end of the 18th century before becoming a municipal park. It includes the former stately home Mote House together with a miniature railway and a boating lake. A ground of the Mote Park (cricket ground), same name within the park has also been used as a first-class cricket ground by Kent County Cricket Club. The house is set in a park maintained by Maidstone Borough Council with support from the Mote Park Fellowship, a group of volunteers. History The park's name is derived from 'moot' or 'mote' in Old English meaning "a place of assembly".Entry for Maidstone (referencing Mote Park) in the Im ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Park
A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside towns and cities. National parks and country parks are green spaces used for recreation in the countryside. State parks and provincial parks are administered by sub-national government states and agencies. Parks may consist of grassy areas, rocks, soil and trees, but may also contain buildings and other artifacts such as monuments, fountains or playground structures. Many parks have fields for playing sports such as baseball and football, and paved areas for games such as basketball. Many parks have trails for walking, biking and other activities. Some parks are built adjacent to bodies of water or watercourses and may comprise a beach or boat dock area. Urban parks often have benches for sitting and may contain picnic tables and barbecue gr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Medieval Hunting
Hunting was the preeminent recreational pastime of the aristocracy during the Middle Ages. History Hieratic formalized recreational hunting has taken place since Assyrian kings hunted lions from chariots in a demonstration of their royal nature. In Roman law, property included the right to hunt, a concept which continued under the Frankish Merovingian and Carolingian monarchs who considered the entire kingdom to be their property, but who also controlled enormous royal domains as hunting reserves (''forests''). The biography of the Merovingian noble Saint Hubert of Liège (died 727/728) recounts how hunting could become an obsession. Carolingian Charlemagne loved to hunt and did so up until his death at age seventy-two. With the breakup of the Carolingian Empire, local lords strove to maintain and monopolize the reserves and the taking of big game in forest reserves, and small game in warrens. They were most successful in England after the Norman Conquest, and in Gascony from ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Starkey
Dr. David Robert Starkey (born 3 January 1945) is a British historian, radio and television presenter, with views that he describes as conservative. The only child of Quaker parents, he attended Kirkbie Kendal School, Kendal Grammar School before reading history at University of Cambridge, Cambridge on a scholarship. There he specialised in House of Tudor, Tudor history, writing a thesis on King Henry VIII's household. From Cambridge, he moved to the London School of Economics, where he was a lecturer in history until 1998. He has written several books on the Tudors. Starkey first appeared on television in 1977. While a regular contributor to the BBC Radio 4 debate programme ''The Moral Maze'', his acerbic tongue earned him the sobriquet of "rudest man in Britain"; his frequent appearances on ''Question Time (TV programme), Question Time'' have been received with criticism and applause. Starkey has presented several historical documentaries. In 2002, he signed a £2 mil ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was List of English royal consorts, Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the Wives of Henry VIII, second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and execution, by beheading for treason, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that marked the start of the English Reformation. Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, Thomas Boleyn (later Earl of Wiltshire), and his wife, Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire, Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Seventeen Provinces, Netherlands and Kingdom of France, France. Anne returned to England in early 1522, to marry her cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; the marriage plans were broken off, and instead, she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's wife, Catherine of Aragon. Early in 1523, Anne was secretly betrothed to Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy, son of Henry Percy, 5th Ear ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disagreement with Pope Clement VII about such an annulment led Henry to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal authority. He appointed himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and dissolution of the monasteries, dissolved convents and monasteries, for which he was List of people excommunicated by the Catholic Church, excommunicated by the pope. Born in Greenwich, Henry brought radical changes to the Constitution of England, expanding royal power and ushering in the theory of the divine right of kings in opposition to papal supremacy. He frequently used charges of treason and heresy to quell dissent, and those accused were often executed without a formal trial using bills of attainder. He achi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Henry VII Of England
Henry VII (28 January 1457 – 21 April 1509), also known as Henry Tudor, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizure of the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death in 1509. He was the first monarch of the House of Tudor. Henry was the son of Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, and Lady Margaret Beaufort. His mother was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, an English prince who founded the Lancastrian cadet branch of the House of Plantagenet. His father was the half-brother of the Lancastrian king Henry VI. Edmund Tudor died three months before his son was born, and Henry was raised by his uncle Jasper Tudor, a Lancastrian, and William Herbert, a supporter of the Yorkist branch of the House of Plantagenet. During Henry's early years, his uncles and the Lancastrians fought a series of civil wars against the Yorkist claimant, Edward IV. After Edward retook the throne in 1471, Henry spent 14 years in exile in Brittany. He attained the throne when his f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richard III Of England
Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty and its cadet branch the House of York. His defeat and death at the Battle of Bosworth Field marked the end of the Middle Ages in England. Richard was created Duke of Gloucester in 1461 after the accession to the throne of his older brother Edward IV. This was during the period known as the Wars of the Roses, an era when two branches of the royal family contested the throne; Edward and Richard were Yorkists, and their side of the family faced off against their Lancastrian cousins. In 1472, Richard married Anne Neville, daughter of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, and widow of Edward of Westminster, son of Henry VI. He governed northern England during Edward's reign, and played a role in the invasion of Scotland in 1482. When Edward IV died in April 1483, Richard was named Lord Protector of the realm for Ed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richard Neville, 16th Earl Of Warwick
Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, 6th Earl of Salisbury (22 November 1428 – 14 April 1471), known as Warwick the Kingmaker, was an English nobleman, administrator, landowner of the House of Neville fortune and military commander. The eldest son of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, he became Earl of Warwick through marriage, and was the wealthiest and most powerful English peer of his age, with political connections that went beyond the country's borders. One of the leaders in the Wars of the Roses, originally on the Yorkist side but later switching to the Lancastrian side, he was instrumental in the deposition of two kings, which led to his epithet of " Kingmaker". Through fortunes of marriage and inheritance, Warwick emerged in the 1450s at the centre of English politics. Originally, he was a supporter of King Henry VI; however, a territorial dispute with Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, led him to collaborate with Richard, Duke of York, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers
Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers (1405 – 12 August 1469), also Wydeville, was the father of Elizabeth Woodville and father-in-law of Edward IV. Early life Born at Maidstone in Kent, Richard Woodville was the son of Richard Wydeville (Woodville), chamberlain to the Duke of Bedford, and Joan Bittlesgate (or Bedlisgate), the daughter of Thomas Bittlesgate of Knightstone"Woodville Family", http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/WOODVILLE.htm. Accessed on 10-4-2015. in the parish of Ottery St Mary in Devon. He was also a grandson of John Wydeville who was Sheriff of Northamptonshire (in 1380, 1385, 1390). Marriage and courtly career Woodville followed his father into service with the Duke of Bedford. In 1433 the Duke had married the 17-year-old Jacquetta of Luxembourg; she was the Duke's second wife and he was significantly older and in ill health. When the Duke died in 1435, Jacquetta was left a childless and wealthy widow. She was required to seek permission from King Hen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Elizabeth Woodville
Elizabeth Woodville (also spelt Wydville, Wydeville, or Widvile; c. 1437Karen Lindsey, ''Divorced, Beheaded, Survived'', p. xviii, Perseus Books, 1995. – 8 June 1492), known as Dame Elizabeth Grey during her first marriage, was Queen of England from 1 May 1464 until 3 October 1470 and from 11 April 1471 until 9 April 1483 as the wife of King Edward IV. She was a key figure in the Wars of the Roses, a dynastic civil war between the Lancastrian and the Yorkist factions between 1455 and 1487. At the time of her birth, Elizabeth's family was of middle rank in the English social hierarchy. Her mother, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, had previously been an aunt-by-marriage to King Henry VI, and was the daughter of Peter I, Count of Saint-Pol. Elizabeth's first marriage was to a minor supporter of the House of Lancaster, John Grey of Groby. He died at the Second Battle of St Albans in 1461, leaving Elizabeth a widowed mother of two young sons. Elizabeth's second marriage, in 1464, to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Queen Consort
A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king, and usually shares her spouse's social Imperial, royal and noble ranks, rank and status. She holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles and may be crowned and anointed, but historically she does not formally share the king's political and military powers, unless on occasion acting as regent. In contrast, a queen regnant is a female monarch who rules ''suo jure'' (Latin for, "in her own right") and usually becomes queen by inheriting the throne upon the death of the previous monarch. A queen dowager is a widowed queen consort, and a queen mother is a queen dowager who is the mother of the current monarch. Titles When a title other than king is held by the sovereign, his wife can be referred to by the feminine equivalent, such as princess consort or empress consort. In monarchies where polygamy has been practised in the past (such as Morocco and Thailand), or is practised today (such as the Zulu people, Zulu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Edward IV Of England
Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England fought between the Yorkist and Lancastrian factions between 1455 and 1487. Edward inherited the Yorkist claim to the throne at the age of eighteen when his father, Richard, Duke of York, was killed at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460. After defeating Lancastrian armies at Mortimer's Cross and Towton in early 1461, he deposed King Henry VI and took the throne. His marriage to Elizabeth Woodville in 1464 led to conflict with his chief advisor, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known as the "Kingmaker". In 1470, a revolt led by Warwick and Edward's brother George, Duke of Clarence, briefly re-installed Henry VI. Edward fled to Flanders, where he gathered support and invaded England in March 1471; after victories at the ba ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |