1254 :: Eleanor marries Edward in Spain

On or about this date in our family history . . . the 1st day of November . . . in the year 1254 . . . at the Monastery of Las Huelgas in Burgos, Spain . . . Princess Eleanor de Castile becomes the bride of Sir Edward I of England.
This Eleanor and Edward are currently believed to be ancestors of . . . George H.W. Bush . . . Walt Disney (1901-1966) . . . Stanley Ann Obama Soetoro nee Dunham (1942-1995) . . . as well as 22nd and 23rd and 24th and 25th great-grandparents of the Keeper of this family history blog. . . . 



The Dictionary of national biography,
Volume 6
By
Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee,
Robert Blake, Christine Stephanie Nicholls

Saint Margaret / Queen Margaret of Scotland

On this date in our family history . . . the 16th day of November . . . in the year 1093 . . . Queen Margaret of Scotland dies at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. Later venerated as Saint Margaret, this 11th century granddaughter of King Edmund Ironside is currently believed to be a 25th great-grandma of our Josephine (1842-1899) . . . who is a 2nd great-grandma to the Keeper of this family history blog. 

Margaret's death came shortly after she received the news that her husband, King Malcolm III of Scotland, and their 1st-born son, Edward of Scotland, had been killed while trying to capture Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, England. 

Sharpe's London Magazine  A Journal of Entertainment  & Instruction for general reading  May 1846 to October 1846    

The following clip is only a small part of the info about Saint Margaret that is available in The Book of Days, edited by Robert Chambers, and viewable at Google Books. 

1842 :: Josephine's Birth

On this date in our family history . . . the 10th day of May . . . in the year 1842 . . . Josephine Wingfield Davis is born to Milton Grant Davis (1811-1863) and America James Fears (1810-1857) in Morgan County, Georgia . . . and sometime . . . somewhere . . . somebody penned her name and date of birth on the pages of a family Bible . . . based on the timing of the changes in the handwriting on those Bible pages, it would seem that quite a few of these entries were made at the same time . . . which may well have been quite some time after the recorded events actually occurred . . . see also . . .

• The Birth of America in the Family Bible to read about Josephine's Mother and their family Bible
• Tombstone Tuesday :: Carved in stone? to read about Josephine's death

The date of our Josephine's birth fell on the 439th anniversary of the death of a historical figure who is currently believed to be one of Josephine's ancestors . . . that being Katherine de Roet . . . aka Katherine Swynford . . . aka Katherine, Duchess of Lancaster . . . who was the long-time mistress, and mother of the children of, and brief wife, and then brief widow, of Sir John of Gaunt, King of Leon and Castile . . .

Béla IV of Hungary

 
On this date in our family history . . . the 3rd day of May . . . in the year 1270 . . . King Bela IV of Hungary dies . . . he is believed to be a 22nd great-grandpa to our Josephine . . . who is a 2nd great-grandma to the Keeper of this family history blog . . . 

. . . The last years of Bela's life were embittered by the ingratitude of his son Stephen, who rebelled continuously against his father and ultimately compelled him to divide the kingdom with him, the younger prince setting up a capital of his own at Sarospatak, and following a foreign policy directly contrary to that of his father. Bela died on the 3rd of May 1270 in his sixty-fourth year. With the people at large he was popular to the last; his services to his country had been inestimable. He married, while still crown-prince, Maria, daughter of the Nicaean emperor, Theodore Lascaris, whom his own father brought home with him from his crusade. She bore him, besides his two sons Stephen and Bela, seven daughters, of whom St Margaret was the most famous. From the 1911 Encyclopedia.

1014 :: Brian Boru dies at Battle of Clontarf

On or about this date in our family history . . . the 23rd day of April . . . in the year 1014 . . . the aging Irish King, Brian Boru, is attacked and killed on Good Friday while alone in his tent following the Battle of Clontarf near the present Dublin, Ireland . . . this King of Ireland is currently believed to be a 28th great-grandpa of our Josephine (1842-1899) . . . who is a 2nd great-grandma to the Keeper of this family history blog . . . 


The Charm of Ireland By Burton Egbert Stevenson:
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1152 :: Aquitaine Sundial Ring

Aquitaine's Ring
Originally uploaded by
Prestidigitizer

In our family history . . . in the spring of the year 1152 . . . the 15-year marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to King Louis of France is annulled at Beaugency . . . famous for her beauty and wit, this Eleanor is believed to be a multiple great-grandma to our Josephine . . .

And in the spring of the year 1152, it is said that the 30-year-old Eleanor gave to a 20-year-old Henry Plantagenet (King Henry II) of England, a special "portable" sundial . . . known as an Aquitaine Sundial or Aquitaine Ring . . . supposedly because when he was out hunting (which he frequently did) he tended to forget about scheduled appointments, and was frequently late for their "dates." Apparently the "pocket watch" helped, because negotiations continued between Eleanor and Henry of Anjou . . . and soon Eleanor marries Henry II at Poitiers . . . the story told in "A Lion in Winter" is a part of the tale of this Eleanor and Henry . . .

ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE, queen of France and afterward of England: b. 1122; d. Fontevrault, France, 1 April 1204 . . . married to Louis VII. She was gay, frivolous, a lover of poetry and art . . . accompanied him on the second crusade to the Holy Land in 1147 . . . they were divorced 18 March 1152. A short time afterward she bestowed her hand upon Henry Plantagenet, the future Henry II of England. . . . She bore him many children, but his infidelities and neglect changed her love into hatred. She incited her sons Geoffrey and Richard Cœur de Lion to rebel against their father, was imprisoned in 1174, and remained in confinement until after Henry's death in 1189, when she was released by his successor, Richard I, who placed her at the head of the government on his departure for the Holy Land. She negotiated his marriage with the daughter of the king of Navarre, and went to Germany with his ransom from captivity. She afterward retired to the abbey of Fontevrault and surviving Richard, lived to see him succeeded by one of her other sons, John Lackland, the signer of Magna Charta. She was a favorite personage with the troubadour poets of the day and appears in a very different light in their works from that in which she is represented by French and Norman chroniclers. Consult Adams, "History of England, 1066-1216" (London 1905). Google Books. The Encyclopedia Americana: a library of universal knowledge, Published by Encyclopedia Americana Corp., 1918

• Josephine > Eleanor
  
• Famous Descendants
  
• Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor
  
• Not-so-famous Descendants
  
• Great Englishwomen, by the author of "Great Englishmen", By Englishwomen. Published 1884.
  
• The Dictionary of National Biography By Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee, Robert Blake, Christine Stephanie Nicholls
  
• Eleanor of Aquitaine, Courtly Love, and the Troubadours By Ffiona Swabey

Order of the Garter

On this date in our family history . . . the 23rd day of April . . . in the year 1348 . . . the founding of the Order of the Garter by King Edward III of England is announced on St George's Day . . . this King Edward the father of Edward the Black Prince . . . as well as father of John of Gaunt . . . who is believed to be a 16th great-grandpa to our Josephine (1842-1899) . . . who is a 2nd great-grandma to the Keeper of this family history blog . . .



The Gentleman's Magazine


Flags of the World, Past and Present
Their Story and Associations
By William John Gordon, Frederick Edward Hulme, W J Stokoe



Memorials of the Order of the Garter,
from Its Foundation to the Present Time
Including the History of the Order;
Biographical Notices of the Knights
in the Reigns of Edward III. and Richard II.,
the Chronological Succession of the Members ...
By George Frederick Beltz



Life of Edward the Black Prince
By Louise Creighton, Louise von Glehn Creighton