Free Republic

A manuscript once considered an unofficial copy of the Magna Carta is now believed to be a genuine version and ''one of the world's most valuable documents'', according to UK academics. Harvard Law School paid $27.50 (then about £7) for it in 1946 and for years it has remained tucked away in its library, its true identity unknown. But two medieval history professors have concluded it is an extraordinarily rare and lost original Magna Carta from 1300, in the reign of King Edward I, that could be worth millions. ''This is a fantastic discovery," said Prof David Carpenter from King's...

A breakthrough in one of the most intriguing, historic who-dunnit cases by Professor Tim Thornton, discovered buried deep in a Register of Wills held at The National Archives.It's Summer 1483, and one of the most infamous and shocking crimes in English history is about to take place. Two young princes are brought to the Tower of London under the protection of their uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. A few weeks later they vanish without a trace. The mystery of what happened to the Princes in the Tower has obsessed us for centuries. Why did these boys, aged just nine and...

Lady Godiva was married to Leofric, the 'grim' Earl of Mercer and Lord of Coventry, a man of great power and importance. The chronicler Florence of Worcester mentions Leofric and Godiva, but does not mention her famous ride, and there is no firm evidence connecting the rider with the historical Godiva. In 1043 the Earl and Countess founded a Benedictine house for an abbot and 24 monks on the site of St Osburg's Nunnery, which had been destroyed by the Danes in 1016... Earl Leofric laid his founding charter upon the newly consecrated altar, which not only granted the foundation,...