Lovely to have Ros back on The Pink Sofa once more. Ros is a talented writer, poet and blogger. Her best-selling children's book on Richard III is out and selling like hot-cakes, and she is here to share some fascinating facts about this mysterious but much in the news monarch.
A Few Fascinating Facts
Hello Carol and a big thank you for
inviting me onto your delightfully squelchy sofa. I’m sure that The Pink Sofa could
list out a few fascinating facts about all the visitors who have sat here
before me. Oooh! I can see that Pink Sofa is determined to keep the gossip to
itself. What a spoil sport! Never mind. I haven’t arrived empty handed. I’ve
come armed with some snippets about Richard III.
You see, I reckon there’s something
compulsive about snippets, those bits of information that you find in tiny Fact
Boxes in non-fiction books. This is why I was determined to ensure that my
non-fiction books would have copious Fact Boxes.
The Children’s Book of Richard III is my
second non-fiction book. It tells of a life of battles, accusations and
enemies, a bloody death, a body lost for centuries and rediscovered under a
city car park. What’s more, it has colourful, witty illustrations by Alice
Povey.
As I say, I just happen to have with me
today a selection of snippets, five facts to be precise, about Richard III and,
if you enjoy these, there are plenty more in the book!
Fact
Number 1
Richard III’s prayer book is on display at
Lambeth Palace in London. It contains a personal prayer written by Richard,
himself.
Fact
Number 2
On the day Richard’s wife, Queen Anne, died
there was an eclipse of the sun. In those days this was thought to be a bad
omen and bad omen it turned out to be for Richard who was killed five months
later.
Fact
Number 3
Richard only held one parliament but he
passed a number of laws standardizing weights and measures. In other words, he
decreed that a yard of cloth must measure the same no matter who was selling
it. It seems obvious to us but not to traders in Richard’s time.
Fact
Number 4
In the late 16th century the
Mayor of Leicester had a stone pillar in his garden that bore the inscription,
‘Here lies the body of Richard III, some time King of England.’ So people did
know where he was buried.
Fact
Number 5
The DNA that the scientists used to verify
the recently discovered skeleton was taken from the son of a lady called Mrs
Ibsen. Richard was Mrs Ibsen’s great, great, great, great, great, great, great,
great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great Uncle.
The Children’s Book
of Richard III can be purchased from Amazon at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Childrens-Book-Richard-III/dp/0992930200/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Thank you so much for another visit to that squelchily comfortable sofa of yours. It's always a most enjoyable visit and a good opportunity to put my feet up before the onslaught of next week's gruelling reinterment of a King activities!
ReplyDeleteHow fab is this - Ros and Carol on the same page!
ReplyDeleteI know, Jo. It's almost too much to cope with!! 😂 One day the three of us will sit drinking coffee together, right?!
DeleteFascinating, Ros. I love pieces of information like this! Lovely to see you gracing the Pink Sofa again!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Val. There's something compulsive about snippets of facts, isn't there!
DeleteFascinating - thank you so much. Always thought Richard got a bum rap x
ReplyDeleteHi Cameron, that was down to Shakespeare. We're busy redressing the balance in Richard's favour here in Leicester.
DeleteWhat fascinating snippets! ~Miriam
ReplyDeleteThank you, Miriam :-)
DeleteHi Ros .. love the facts boxes and the snippets herein - so strange to know that an eclipse occurred at the time of Richard's wife death ... and I can believe the omen from those days - must have been quite disturbing.
ReplyDeleteRichard did quite a lot for our way of life that's unknown to many .. so those facts about the weights and measures .. interesting .. cheers to you both - Hilary
Glad you enjoyed the fact boxes, Hilary. My book is littered with them because I love them too :-)
DeleteMost interesting - especially a couple of the facts, which I intend to weave wittily into my Wars of the Roses based WIP!
ReplyDeleteHow fascinating, Terry. Do tell more!
DeleteLoved learning new facts.I didn't know any of them.
ReplyDelete