The Medieval Christmas
2025-12-07 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York) | Zoom
Speaker: Toni Mount. Author and Researcher
To Register, Email: membership@r3.org
At the time of Richard III, Christmas in England was celebrated with as much enthusiasm as it is now, perhaps more so, as the belief in God and the birth of Christ were very real to everyone. But how did they celebrate without turkey, roast potatoes or Santa Claus – all yet to be discovered and imported from North America?
Toni Mount is a 40-year member of The Richard III Society, a long-standing member of the society’s research committee and a regular contributor to the Ricardian Bulletin. She is a history teacher and the author of several best selling history books including Everyday Life in Medieval London and How to Survive in Medieval England. her speciality being the lives of ordinary people from the middle ages. Her Masters degree was in medieval medicine and her latest book, The Colour of Darkness, is her next medieval murder mystery.
We are happy to announce that the Scottish Branch of the Richard III Society will be joining us for this special presentation, so please make sure you grab a seat as space will be limited.

The Battle of Towton - Britain's Bloodiest?
2026-02-15 12:00 - 13:30 | Zoom
Join us for an engaging talk about the Battle of Towton which ushered in the Yorkist dynasty.
What happened on Palm Sunday in March 1461 was a significant event in English history. With the resounding victory of the Yorkists over the Lancastrians, Edward IV was able to solidify his claim to the crown and reorganize government. However, this battle remains deeply misunderstood. From its snowy weather to its massive troop strength to its appalling mortality rates, the battle has fostered countless legends and misconceptions. Dr David Grummitt will take us through the true history of Towton, using original sources and the latest in scholarly research.

Dr. Grummitt is a Staff Tutor at The Open University (UK) and has written extensively on the Wars of the Roses. He was a Senior Research Fellow on the 1422-1461 section of the History of Parliament Trust, before taking up a lectureship at the University of Kent. He now works at the Open University and continues to publish extensively on the fifteenth century. In 2024, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the Richard III Society (UK). In 2025, Oxford University Press published his latest book, The Wars of the Roses: War and Martial Culture in England, 1455-1487.

Annette Carson Demystifies Richard III
2026-04-19 12:00 - 13:30 | Zoom
In her new book, Richard III Unspun, Annette Carson continues to shine a spotlight on the months following the death of Edward IV, a time during which centuries of spin have painted his actions as motivated by a grab for the throne. In previous books and talks, citing evidence in contemporary documents, she has demonstrated that he was actually forced into reacting, with legitimate and long-standing legal powers, to a series of unanticipated moves by hostile actors. Annette’s latest talk is designed to bring these investigations to life by illustrating the ‘how, when and why’ of two well-recorded incidents: the arrests at Stony Stratford, and the Hastings conspiracy. These events are often taken together and viewed as perplexing by Ricardians. But each incident will be shown to be the culmination of cynical plans to oust Richard from his position in the government, carried out by different factions who faced being toppled from their easy lives of corruption and venality.

Annette Carson is a non-fiction writer with a preference for history and biography. She has written on the history of aviation and contributed on the subject in Encyclopaedia Britannica. In 2001 she published an acclaimed biography of the late giant of the guitar, Jeff Beck. She is well known to Ricardians for her book Richard III: The Maligned King (first published 2008, updated in 2023 with an extra chapter on the reappearance of the princes), and she was a member of the team led by Philippa Langley that found his grave in 2012.
Richard III Unspun is her sixth Ricardian book, the last one being a new and accurate translation of the important 1483 report by Domenico Mancini, placing it within the context of modern research. In 2021–2023 she set aside her own work to produce Dr Arthur Kincaid’s History of King Richard the Third (1619) by Sir George Buc, working from Arthur’s files during his last illness.
Arthur applauded her book on Richard as Lord Protector and High Constable as ‘an absolutely vital book for Ricardian studies’, and wrote of her analysis of the Stony Stratford incident that it ‘confirms my sense that you are the most important writer on Richard today. It (along with Protector and Constable) makes absolute sense of something previously muddled and worrying’.

Version 1.0.0

Why the Haste with Hastings?
2026-05-17 12:00 - 13:30 | Zoom
Join us for another engaging Social Hour, where members can discuss the 1483 execution of Sir William Hastings. Why was he accused of treason? What happened at that fateful council meeting? Was there a proper legal basis to the charge against him? Historians have widely different interpretations and we will delve into them in an open discussion led by our chair, Susan Troxell. Pour yourself a cup of coffee, tea, or other favorite beverage, and let’s explore one of the most controversial events in Richard’s life.
Materials will be distributed in advance to help focus our discussion. This is not a formal lecture, but an opportunity to talk to other members of the American Branch and share your thoughts on Hastings’ demise.

The Duke of York & Wakefield: Shocking New Insights
2026-06-14 12:00 - 13:30 | Zoom
What really happened at Wakefield?
Traditional accounts of the Wars of the Roses describe the Duke of York losing his head, and the Earl of Rutland his life, after a martial conflict with the forces of Henry VI in Wakefield, Yorkshire. These deaths were a pivotal moment in English history, as they paved the way for Edward IV and the Yorkist dynasty. Some historians say there had been a pitched battle; others say it was an ambush not far from Sandal Castle where duke was residing with his family. Exciting new research into medieval archives, however, reveals another interpretation that busts almost all the myths and legends about the duke’s death and the events of 30 December 1460.
Paul Lindsey Dawson will talk about his research and how it shows the duke was not killed in Wakefield but rather Pontefract, under circumstances very different from a pitched battle. He will also talk about his new biography on the Duke of York, which reveals him to be a man with profound flaws that threw England into turmoil and cost him his own life.
Dawson is an archaeologist, historian, musician and horseman. Specializing in the long 18th century, 1688-1832, his focus of research is on the interplay of religious and political dissent with notions of state and nationalism. He is perhaps better known for a ground breaking series of books on the Army of Napoleon, Waterloo and the French experience of World War 2.

Picturing the Future: Prognostications and Readers in an Age of Uncertainty
2026-08-23 12:00 - 13:30 | Zoom
Beginning in 1400, English men and women gained increasing access to practical medical and scientific knowledge, first in vernacular manuscript collections, and later in inexpensive, printed books. More than two hundred years of engagement with this knowledge—much of it very old—in recipes, prognostications, almanacs, and other pragmatic texts, gradually encouraged readers to see themselves as adjudicators and even progenitors of knowledge in their own right. This talk explores how 15th century readers developed creative means of using an unusual genre of manuscript to manage their health, understand their environment, and even predict the future. Through analysis of a small group of folding almanacs, this talk will show how communities of monastic readers developed a shared visual language for making sense of an uncertain and unpredictable world. We will see how this visual language spread more widely to those who sought to impose order in society that was unsettled by war, dynastic feuding, and religious conflicts.
Dr. Melissa Reynolds is a historian of later medieval and early modern European medicine and science, with research interests in the history of material texts and the history of the body in relation to its environment. She is an Assistant Professor in the History department at Texas Christian University and was formerly a postdoctoral fellow in the Society of Fellows at Princeton University and the Wolf Humanities Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Her first book, Reading Practice: The Pursuit of Natural Knowledge from Manuscript to Print, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2024, was awarded the John Ben Snow Prize from the North American Conference on British Studies, and was recently shortlisted for the William H. Welch Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine. She is currently at work on a new project, exploring the relationship between commerce, environment, and conceptualizations of the body in later medieval and early modern England.
In 2013, Dr. Reynolds won a Schallek Award from the Richard III Society-American Branch while she was working on her PhD at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Margaret of York: Medieval Powerbroker
2026-10-18 12:00 | Zoom
Dr Lacey Bonar Hull, popular podcaster and educator at The History Desk substack, will speak about Richard III’s sister, Margaret, the Duchess of Burgundy and a stalwart enemy of Henry Tudor. Despite being a woman, Margaret fearlessly blazed her own destiny as well as that of the Burgundian state.
Stay turned – details forthcoming!
William Caxton offering book to Margaret of York, MS at Huntingdon Library, US (public domain)

General Membership Meeting in New Haven, CT
2026-10-30 - 2026-11-01
Save the Date!!! The Board of Directors has set the next GMM for October 30 through November 1, 2026.
The venue of the meeting will be the Omni Hotel in New Haven, CT, which is right on the edge of Yale University’s campus. We are currently planning a very special event at the Beinecke Library, pictured above, one of the largest and most important collections of medieval manuscripts in North America. More details of the program, including how to book your room and tickets, will be announced in May 2026, so keep an eye out then.
Yale Campus in New Haven
