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Bloodbath at the Lionheart’s Coronation
We remember Richard the Lionheart as a crusader king, a warrior who fought Saladin, and whose name resounded across Christendom. But for England’s Jews, his reign began in fire and betrayal.
Benedict of York’s story embodies that betrayal. Beaten at the doors of Westminster Hall, baptised by a friend who meant him no harm, denied even a grave among his people, his fate symbolises the peril of being both essential and despised in medieval England.
The Secret Is Out: The Heroine of Rachel’s Upcoming Novel is… Nicola de la Haye
My protagonist is Nicola (Nicholaa) de la Haye: the woman who saved England.
Nicola isn’t a creation of legend or folklore. She was real — a formidable 12th- and 13th-century noblewoman who defied the expectations of her age. She inherited power in her own right, commanded a castle garrison, and twice (at least) defended Lincoln Castle from siege.
Most famously, in 1217, when England teetered on the edge of conquest by Prince Louis of France, Nicola — then nearly seventy years old — refused to surrender her castle. She held the fortress until William Marshal’s army turned the tide in what chroniclers called the Battle of Lincoln Fair (or the Second Battle of Lincoln). Without her, England’s story might have ended very differently.
The Battle of Fornham: When a Countess Rode to War and Changed Medieval England Forever
In the mist-shrouded dawn of October 17, 1173, near the quiet Suffolk village of Fornham St. Genevieve, history was about to witness something remarkable. Not just another medieval battle between king and rebels, but the extraordinary tale of a countess who donned armor, took up lance and shield, and rode into battle alongside her husband against the Crown itself.
This is the story of Petronilla de Grandmesnil, Countess of Leicester – a woman whose courage would echo through the centuries, and whose fall into a muddy ditch would become one of the most memorable moments of medieval English warfare.