Annals of Kings Richard II and Henry IV 1393-1406

The Annals of Kings Richard II and Henry IV offers a vivid contemporary account of one of the most turbulent periods in late medieval England. Covering the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV, the chronicle records royal ceremonies, political conflict, rebellion, war, taxation, religious controversy, executions, popular unrest and remarkable portents. Its pages include a detailed description of Richard II’s coronation, the fall and deposition of the king, Henry IV’s seizure of the throne, the Percy rebellion, the execution of Archbishop Richard Scrope, the campaigns of Owain Glyndŵr, and England’s relations with Scotland, France, Portugal and Scandinavia. Alongside affairs of state, the annalist preserves reports of miracles, eclipses, prophecies, supernatural events and the experiences of ordinary townspeople, clergy, soldiers and travellers. Written from a monastic perspective, the work combines political observation with moral judgement, presenting victories and disasters as evidence of divine favour or punishment. At once a historical record and a reflection of medieval belief, the Annals provides an invaluable window into the challenges, ceremonies and conflicts of England at the turn of the fifteenth century.

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The Reliquary Volume 18 1878

The Reliquary Volume 18 1878 is in The Reliquary.

The Reliquary Volume 18 Page 49

On Arbor Low [Map] IV by William Henry Goss.

Caesar, speaking of human sacrifices among the Gauls, says, "Those who are afflicted with any grievous distemper, or whose lives are hazarded in war or exposed to other dangers, either offer up men for sacrifices, or vow to do so; and they make use of the Druids for their priests on such occasions, imagining their gods are to be satisfied no other way for sparing their lives than by offering up the life of another man." We have learned that the Druids of Gaul came into Britain for initiation into the mysteries of their dreadful office. Is it not possible that some of them took lessons within this same circle of Arbor Low [Map]? Tacitus mentions that the ancient Germans sacrificed human victims to their gods, and Procopius Ceesariensis affirms that in his day, in the sixth century of our Lord, the Druids of Gaul still offered human sacrifices, and I have already referred to Charlemagne's edict against the practice so late as the year 789 A.D.