Lord Hastings in London Tomorrow!

A reminder, should you like your history and Shakespeare combined, that from tomorrow, actor Matt Hastings from Hastings, is going to be playing the character Lord Hastings in William Shakespeare's play Richard III at The Cockpit, Gateforth Street, London NW8 8EH (website), near Edgware Road and Marylebone railway stations, 12th October to 4th November 2017. 

The character Lord Hastings is one of the many who may well come more than a cropper in this play of intrigue, power play, murder and battle, with Shakespeare following the fortunes of the House of York...

Hastings from Hastings plays Hastings!

What am I going on about? Well, actor Matt Hastings, from Hastings, East Sussex, is going to be playing the character Lord Hastings in William Shakespeare's play Richard III at The Cockpit, Gateforth Street, London NW8 8EH (website), near Edgware Road and Marylebone railway stations, 12th October to 4th November 2017. 

Lord Hastings, by the way, is one of the many characters who may well come more than a cropper in this play of intrigue, power play, murder and battle, with Shakespeare following the fortunes of the House of York...

Harold Godwinson update

In January I reported that, on the 948th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, a scan was carried out at Waltham Abbey in Essex looking for evidence to re-write the history books and help prove that Harold Godwinson (Harold II) had survived the battle.  

The Norman Story

Novelist and amateur historian Peter Burke had asserted that Harold recovered from his wounds of the battle and lived for another 40 years. This theory being based on an early 12th Century document, Vita Harold, that is stored in the British Library.

The scan was carried out by the same team who, 2 years ago, helped to locate the remains of Richard III that were buried under a car park in Leicester, and which were reburied at Leicester Cathedral on Thursday.

Peter Burke has now got back to me and, in his own words, “the scan was positive”. He is having a meeting with the head of English Heritage on Tuesday, to request permission to dig at the abbey.

Any further discovery may, or may not, support Peter's theory, or may even create further questions, we await developments...