Black-face of Holland, Misinformation or Racism

Most truths are half-false and most falsehoods are a half-truth. Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.

Blackface Enactment in Holland

 In fact, the statements in the five paragraphs below are 20% and 80% false, hence calls for the banning of  Sinterklass (Santa Claus) holiday based on falsehood and fabricated fallacy.

The act of dressing in blackface stems from the Sinterklass holiday which takes place on December 5th each year. At first glance, the celebrations seem identical to that of an Irish Christmas Day. Gifts are exchanged, Sinterklass (Saint Nicolas) delivers presents to the children, and time is spent with family. Yet it is not all a fairy tale; there is a stark difference of opinion on the tradition. Sinterklasses helper is Zwarte Piet, or Black Pete. Black Pete first appeared in a children’s novel by Jan Schenkman, written in the mid-10th century. His duty was to reward the good kids with treats and punish the naughty ones. This was done by either beating them with a chimney sweep or throwing them in a sack and shipping them off to Spain.

Zwarte Piet is seen as a representation of Dutch colonial history and slavery, particularly in his appearance. Ignorance is a disease and a very infectious disease once perpetually asserted by people who knew no difference.

Blackface Enactment in Holland

The fact that he is a Moor, followed by the way he dresses, is a reference to the colonisation that took place. In 2015, a United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination urged the Netherlands to ditch the tradition of Zwarte Piet, after publishing a report which found that “the character of Black Pete is sometimes portrayed in a manner that reflects negative stereotypes of people of African descent and is experienced by many people of African descent as a vestige of slavery”.

The Dutch government refused to ban the tradition but said it would encourage discussion and debate, even if “uncomfortable”, about racism. In recent years, anti-racism protesters have demonstrated at parades with blackface all around the country, while white extremists are using blackface as a means of protesting against immigration. I met my first young Zwarte Piet at a vintage clothing shop.

St Nicholas AKA Father Christmas

 I was rummaging through the rails attempting to find a winter coat that met my student budget when a young child emerged from the curtain of clothing. He was kitted out in Moorish dress, an afro wig, large creole earrings, big red lips and was smeared with black paint from head to toe.

Later that week my station manager told me about the Zwarte Piet tradition, explaining how it divides the Dutch population between those who associate it with racism and those who see it as a harmless custom. I was intrigued and decided to focus my next podcast on the arguments for the pro and anti-Zwarte Piet sides. Speaking to those who support the tradition, I heard their main argument for defending the custom is that Piet is a fictitious character who is just part of a ‘children’s holiday’. But after interviewing Larice Schuurbiers (lariceschuurbiers.nl), an anti-Zwarte Piet activist and photographer,

St Patrick AKA the Irish Patron Saint

I learned how this tradition is merely a catalyst for a much larger conversation, tackling institutionalised racism which has accompanied the refugee crises, and the Netherlands’ unaddressed colonial hangover.

The Black-faces being enacted over the years in Holland is not racist at all. It is only mimicking the culture and people of Holland in the medieval Netherlands mixed with a lot of misinformation. You see Holland is getting tangled up in its own web of lies. The 3 nations that did the most to write and paint Black people from their history are England, Germany, and Holland. In maintaining every medieval black person in Europe at that time were slaves including their descendants? Absolute lies, poppycock, and balderdash and piffle.

A Description of THE WESTERN ISLANDS of Scotland (CIRCA 1695) By Martin Martin, Gent.
Including A Voyage to St. Kilda By the same author and A Description Of THE WESTERN ISLES Of Scotland By Sir Donald Monro Edited with Introduction by Donald J. Macleod, O.B.E., M.A., D. Litt., Officer d'Académie Foreword

This pre-Celtic recognition of motherhood only, shows its influence in the acceptance by the Picts, a people with some Aryan culture since they spoke a Celtic language, of the principle of matriarchy, and we have an echo of it to this day in common expressions in Gaelic, such as that of which the English equivalent is "I’ll call no man brother except the son of my mother."

Isle of Sykes

Various rivers, such as the Lochy, noted by as early a writer as Adamnan as the abode of the "Black Goddess" ("loch" in old Celtic means "black"), the Ness, etc., mountain tops, fords, valleys, locks and tarns were all looked upon by this earlier race as the abodes of local deities, benevolent or otherwise, and to this day one may listen to tales of water-horses, river kelpies, sprites and such like, from the lips of old people who speak Gaelic only, and who, though living in the midst of a Christian culture, is still thoroughly in touch with the traditional pagan beliefs of their earliest youth. These old people are nowadays extremely reluctant to speak of such things, and it requires much tact and the most careful approach in homely Gaelic to excite their memories and set them a-speaking.

The Complexion of the Islanders of the Isle of Skye:
The inhabitants of this isle are generally well proportioned, and their complexion is for the most part black. They are not obliged to art, in forming their bodies, for nature never fails to act her part bountifully to them; and perhaps there is no part of the habitable globe where so few bodily imperfections are to be seen, nor any children that go more early.

Isle of Arran

I have observed several of them walk alone before they were ten months old; they are bathed all over every morning and evening, some in cold, some in warm water, but the latter is most commonly used and they wear nothing strait about them.

The mother generally suckles the child, failing of which a nurse is provided, for they seldom bring up any by hand; they give new-born infants fresh butter to take away the miconium, and this they do for several days; they taste neither sugar, nor cinnamon, nor have they any daily allowance of sack bestowed on them, as the custom is elsewhere, nor is the nurse allowed to taste ale. On the north-west side of Strath lies that part of Skye called Macleod’s Country, possessed by Macleod. Genealogists say he is lineally descended from Leod, son to the Black Prince of Man. He is head of an ancient tribe.

The Complexion of the Islanders of the Isle of Arran
The inhabitants of this island are composed of several tribes.

The most ancient family among them is by the natives reckoned to be MacLouis, which in the ancient language signifies the son of Lewis. They own themselves to be descended of French parentage. Their surname in English is Fullerton, and their title Kirk-Mitchell, the place of their residence.

If tradition is true, this little family is said to be of 700 years standing. The present possessor obliged me with the sight of his old and new charters, by which he is one of the king’s coroners within this island, and as such he hath a halbert peculiar to his office. He has his right of late from the family of Hamilton, wherein his title and perquisites of the coroner are confirmed to him and his heirs.

He is obliged to have three men to attend him upon all public emergencies, and he is bound by his office to pursue all malefactors and to deliver them to the steward, or in his absence to the next judge. And if any of the inhabitants refuse to pay their rents at the usual term, the coroner is bound to take him personally or to seize his goods. And if it should happen that the coroner with his retinue of three men is not sufficient to put his office in execution, then he summons all the inhabitants to concur with him; and immediately they rendezvous to the place, where he fixes his coroner’s staff. The perquisites due to the coroner are a firelet or bushel of oats and a lamb from every village in the isle, both which are punctually paid him at the ordinary terms.

The inhabitants of this isle are well proportioned, generally brown, and some of a black complexion. They enjoy a good state of health and have a genius for all callings or employments, though they have but few mechanics. They wear the same habit with those of the nearest isles and are very civil. They all speak the Irish language, yet the English tongue prevails on the east side, and ordinarily, the ministers preach in it, and in Irish on the west side. Their ordinary asseveration is by Nale, for I did not hear any oath in the island.

Next Blog 27/11/18: Donald Trump, Truth and Lies, and Hermetic Principles Explained

Multicultural Britain, Cheddar Man, Meghan Markle

A cutting-edge scientific analysis shows that a Briton from 10,000 years ago had dark brown or black skin, and blue eyes.

Rachel Meghan Markle

The new addition to the royal family Rachel Meghan Markle, is not the first black blood in the English royal family. The fact of the matter is that there were many Mixed race and Black kings, queens, princesses and princes in European history, period. True Blue Blood is Caucasian and Negroes blood mixed.

These blog has proved to you on many occasions that these Aristocratic Negroid were deliberately obscured from European history to maintain the spurious assertion that Black people only came to Europe as slaves.

Even many of those that migrated from the West Indies to England in the 1950s are already British citizens or subjects because most of their Islands were already colonised and exploited by the British.  Even BBC the British Bullshit Corporation misled a lot of people every time they referred to these people as immigrants without stating the colonial factor, in which many of the so-called immigrants already possessed British passports before boarding the ship referred to as the Windrush. The Windrush scandal cost the previous home secretary her job.

Researchers from London's Natural History Museum extracted DNA from Cheddar Man, Britain's oldest complete skeleton, which was discovered in 1903. Cheddar Man's remains had been unearthed 115 years ago in Gough's Cave, located in Somerset's Cheddar Gorge.

Map of Britain

Subsequent examination has shown that the man was short by today's standards - about 5ft 5in - and probably died in his early 20s.

Prof Chris Stringer, the museum's research leader in human origins, said: "I've been studying the skeleton of Cheddar Man for about 40 years

"So to come face-to-face with what this guy could have looked like - and that striking combination of the hair, the face, the eye colour and that dark skin: something a few years ago we couldn't have imagined and yet that's what the scientific data show."

Fractures on the surface of the skull suggest he may even have met his demise in a violent manner. It's not known how he came to lie in the cave, but it's possible he was placed there by others in his tribe. The Natural History Museum researchers extracted the DNA from part of the skull near the ear known as the petrous. At first, project scientists Prof Ian Barnes and Dr Selina Brace weren't sure if they'd get any DNA at all from the remains.

But they were in luck: not only was DNA preserved, but Cheddar Man has since yielded the highest coverage (a measure of the sequencing accuracy) for a genome from this period of European prehistory - known as the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age. They teamed up with researchers at University College London (UCL) to analyse the results, including gene variants associated with hair, eye and skin colour.

Stone Age Black Briton
They found the Stone Age Briton had dark hair - with a small probability that it was curlier than average - blue eyes and skin that was probably dark brown or black in tone. 

Cheddar Man

This combination might appear striking to us today, but it was a common appearance in western Europe during this period.

Steven Clarke, director of the Channel Four documentary, said: "I think we all know we live in times where we are unusually preoccupied with skin pigmentation." 

Prof Mark Thomas, a geneticist from UCL, said: "It becomes a part of our understanding, I think that would be a much, much better thing. 

I think it would be good if people lodge it in their heads, and it becomes a little part of their knowledge." Unsurprisingly, the findings have generated lots of interest on social media. Cheddar Man's genome reveals he was closely related to other Mesolithic individuals - so-called Western Hunter-Gatherers - who have been analysed from Spain, Luxembourg and Hungary. 

Dutch artists Alfons and Adrie Kennis, specialists in palaeontological model-making, took the genetic findings and combined them with physical measurements from scans of the skull. The result was a strikingly lifelike reconstruction of a face from our distant past.

Right, reconstruction of Caucasian Cheddar Man before the latest scientific method

Pale skin probably arrived in Britain with a migration of people from the Middle East around 6,000 years ago. This population had pale skin and brown eyes and absorbed populations like the ones Cheddar Man belonged to. No-one's entirely sure why pale skin evolved in these farmers, but their cereal-based diet was probably deficient in Vitamin D. 

This would have required agriculturalists to synthesise this essential nutrient in their skin using sunlight. "There may be other factors that are causing lower skin pigmentation over time in the last 10,000 years. But that's the big explanation that most scientists turn to," said Prof Thomas.

Cheddar Man Burial Site

Can't Drink Milk Yet
Hello again everybody it is good to be back. They tried to silence me because of my research, they made me homeless, they tried to make me a stranger from my children, they tried to frame me and they even tried to kill me, in all their evil and unholy endeavours they failed miserable. I do not compromise and neither bend nor yield, when it comes to telling the truth. The truth is the track to traversing the stars, The truth is like a shining star, if it touches darkness, it makes it glow, if mixed with darkness, it can only make it temporarily dim. The image below on its own makes all the suffering worth it because we are making progress.

The genomic results also suggest Cheddar Man could not drink milk as an adult. This ability only spread much later, after the onset of the Bronze Age. Present-day Europeans owe on average 10% of their ancestry to Mesolithic hunters like Cheddar Man. Britain has been something of a boom-and-bust story for humans over the last million-or-so years. Modern humans were here as early as 40,000 years ago, but a period of extreme cold known as the Last Glacial Maximum drove them out some 10,000 years later.

Africans in Britain before the English

There's evidence from Gough's Cave that hunter-gatherers ventured back around 15,000 years ago, establishing a temporary presence when the climate briefly improved.  However, they were soon sent packing by another cold snap. Cut marks on the bones suggest these people cannibalised their dead - perhaps as part of ritual practices.

Britain was once again settled 11,000 years ago; and has been inhabited ever since. Cheddar Man was part of this wave of migrants, who walked across a landmass called Doggerland that, in those days, connected Britain to mainland Europe. This makes him the oldest known Briton with a direct connection to people living here today.

This is not the first attempt to analyse DNA from the Cheddar Man. In the late 1990s, Oxford University geneticist Brian Sykes sequenced mitochondrial DNA from one of Cheddar Man's molars.Mitochondrial DNA comes from the biological "batteries" within our cells and is passed down exclusively from a mother to her children.

Prof Sykes compared the ancient genetic information with DNA from 20 living residents of Cheddar village and found two matches - including history teacher Adrian Targett, who became closely connected with the discovery. The result is consistent with the approximately 10% of Europeans who share the same mitochondrial DNA type.

Recently in London there has been significant rise in Black and mixed race boys stabbing each other to death. Many of these boys came from single black and white mothers that filled and brought them up with pure hatred for the male figure especially their fathers. including social exclusion and little knowledge of their own history. These children grew up on black history based purely on slavery. They have no respect for anyone or anything, especially each other. British family law equates to cultural genocide. It would have been much worse if they can access guns. I was a volunteered youth worker for at least a year.

Next blog 23/34/11/18.

Multiculturalism Of Occultism

Multiculturalism Of Occultism

Hello to everyone, and it is good to be back. Being the purveyor of true black history is a dangerous profession. It was never my intention to be offline for so long. We are making progress.

DNA Research

I have had to fight all sorts of battles with different organisations and individuals Black and White alike because of my research into Black history. Please support our you-tube channel by subscribing or sponsor it and get all the advantages that come with it. I intend to create a Facebook page to support this blog.

Please enjoy the music dedicated to my follower as a testament of me being genuinely sorry for not blogging for over a year, while you persevere. May all of you have peace, security, good health, prosperity and general pleasantry in your life. Thank you. Words are spells, spelling from right to left. Please subscribe or like or both to my YouTube channel. Thank you for your support.



The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of Understanding"— The Kybalion.
From old Egypt have come the fundamental esoteric and occult teachings which have so strongly influenced the philosophies of all races, nations, and peoples, for several thousand years. Egypt, the home of the Pyramids and the Sphinx, was the birthplace of the Hidden Wisdom and Mystic Teachings. From her Secret Doctrine, all nations have borrowed.

India, Persia, Chaldea, Medea, China, Japan, Assyria, ancient Greece and Rome, and other ancient countries partook liberally at the feast of knowledge which the Hierophants and Masters of the Land of Isis so freely provided for those who came prepared to partake of the great store of Mystic and Occult Lore which the masterminds of that ancient land had gathered together.

In ancient Egypt dwelt the great Adepts and Masters who have never been surpassed, and who seldom have been equaled, during the centuries that have taken their processional flight since the days of the Great Hermes. In Egypt was located the Great Lodge of Lodges of the Mystics. At the doors of her Temples entered the Neophytes who afterward, as Hierophants, Adepts, and Masters, traveled to the four corners of the earth, carrying with them the precious knowledge which they were
ready, anxious, and willing to pass on to those who were ready to receive the same.

The Seven Principles of the Natural Law (Lore) for things that are created

All students of the Occult recognise the debt that they owe to these venerable Masters of that ancient land.

Just like history, all the religion in the world came from one source. Most truths are half-false and most falsehoods are a half-truth. Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.

Texts that should have been added to the bible but are not and we will deal with every one of them and much more. 1. The Gospel of Thomas, 2. The Gospel of John, 3. The Book of Baruch, 4. The Secret Book of John, 5. The Reality of the Rulers, 6. The Revelation of Adam, 7. Three Forms of First Thought, 8. The Three Steles of Seth, 9. The Vision of the Foreigner, 10. The Sermon of Zostrianos, 11. The Baptismal Ceremony of the Gospel of the Egyptians, 12. Thunder, 13. The Letter of Peter to Philip, 14. The Gospel of Truth, 15. The Gospel of Philip, 16.

The Letter to Flora • Ptolemy, 17. Commentary on the Gospel of John • Herakleon, 18. The Treatise on Resurrection, 19. The Prayer of the Messenger Paul, 20. Valentinian Liturgical Readings, 21. The Secret Book of James, 22. The Round Dance of the Cross, 23. The Songs of Solomon, 24. The Song of the Pearl, 25. The Book of Thomas, 26. The Exegesis on the Soul, 27. On the Origin of the World, 28. The Paraphrase of Shem, 29. The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, 30. The Gospel of Mary, 31. The Naassene Sermon

Rap music was invented, discovered or created in the USA, between 1960 and now, 2018. This statement is half true and half false. For example, Ancient Programmers generally referred to today as Divination Priests. These priests were using binary numbers to communicate with the All-mighty, in China, India, and Africa, via Chinese Hexagram, Indian oracle systems, and African oracle systems, incorporating Ifa and Sikidy systems. In addition, these priests also have to learn vast amounts of sacred texts.

Take the West-African Ifa Divination systems for example: within each of the 256 (2 raised to the power of 8) Odus or corpus, there are 1680 sacred verses all presented in parable format. Thus, the body of Ifa contains 430,080 (1680x256) encrypted messages for mankind. However, for the deep meditation-al Ifa Master priests extended their divination systems into 3 raised to the power of 8 (6561). If you multiply 6561 by itself, you get 43,046,721. This is a vast amount of texts for any individual human-being to memorise but these priests have a sacred technique in trying to memorise these mammoth texts. These ancient verse rapping priests took rapping from the physical plane to the spiritual plane. Amazing!!!

Attention: I will like to sincerely apologise for the dead links to my old website. it will be fixed ASAP. We are looking for sponsors, patron and subscribers to the YouTube history channel.  More details pertaining to this will be published soon. Next Article: Is Rachel Meghan Markle the first Black blood in the English royal family? 21 of November 2018

Negroid Knight: John Gromont

HENRY OF GROSMONT
Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster, 4th Earl of Leicester and Lancaster, KG = Order of the Garter, (c. 1310 – 23 March 1361), also Earl of Derby, was a member of the English nobility in the 14th century, and a prominent English diplomat, politician, and soldier.

Portrait of Henry Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster (1310-1361), a Knight Founder of the Order 
of the Garter, wearing a blue Garter mantle over plate armour and surcoat with his
 arms. A framed tablet displays painted arms of successors in his Garter stall at St.
George's Chapel, Windsor

The son and heir of Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster, and Maud Chaworth, he became one of Edward III's most trusted captains in the early phases of the Hundred Years' War and distinguished himself with victory in the Battle of Auberoche.

He was a founding member and the second Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1348, and in 1351 was created duke. An intelligent and reflective man, Grosmont taught himself to write and was the author of the book Livre de seyntz medicines, a highly personal devotional treatise.

He is remembered as one of the founders and early patrons of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, which was established by two of the guilds of the town in 1352. Grosmont's uncle, Thomas of Lancaster, was the son and heir of Edward I's brother Edmund Crouchback. Through his inheritance and a fortunate marriage, Thomas became the wealthiest peer in England, but constant quarrels with King Edward II led to his execution in 1322. Having no heir, Thomas's possessions and titles went to his younger brother Henry – Grosmont's father.

Earl Henry of Lancaster assented to the deposition of Edward II in 1327, but did not long stay in favour with the regency of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer. When Edward III took personal control of the government in 1330, relations with the Crown improved, but by this time the older Henry was already struggling with poor health and blindness.

Blanche of Lancaster one of the daughter of Henry Grosmont, wife of John of Gaunt mother of,
Philippa, Queen of Portugal and the Algarve, Elizabeth, Duchess of Exeter,
Henry IV Bolingbroke, King of England.

Little is known of Grosmont's early years, but that he was born at Grosmont Castle in Grosmont, Monmouthshire, Wales, and that he was born c. 1310, not around the turn of the century as previously held.

According to his own memoirs, he was better at martial arts than at academic subjects, and did not learn to read until later in life. In 1330 he was knighted, and represented his father in parliament.

The next year he is recorded as participating in a royal tournament at Cheapside.

In 1333 he took part in Edward's Scottish campaign, though it is unclear whether he was present at the great English victory at the Battle of Halidon Hill. After further service in the north, he was appointed the King's lieutenant in Scotland in 1336. The next year he was one of the six men Edward III promoted to the higher levels of the peerage. One of his father's lesser titles, that of Earl of Derby, was bestowed upon Grosmont.

With the outbreak of the Hundred Years' War in 1337, Grosmont's attention was turned towards France. He took part in several diplomatic missions and minor campaigns and was present at the great English victory in the naval Battle of Sluys in 1340. Later the same year, he was required to commit himself as hostage in the Low Countries for the king's considerable debts.

He remained hostage until the next year and had to pay a large ransom for his own release. On his return he was made the king's lieutenant in the north and stayed at Roxburgh until 1342.

Bishop Henry Beaufort, the second of the
four children of John of Gaunt and his
 mistress (later wife) Katherine Swynford.

The next years he spent in diplomatic negotiations in the Low Countries, Castile and Avignon.

In 1345 Edward III was planning a major assault on France. A three-pronged attack would have the Earl of Northampton attacking from Brittany, the king himself from Flanders, while Grosmont was dispatched to Aquitaine to prepare a campaign in the south. Moving rapidly through the country, he confronted the Comte d’Isle at Auberoche on 21 October and there achieved a victory described as "the greatest single achievement of Lancaster's entire military career".

The ransom from the prisoners has been estimated at £50,000. The next year, while Edward was carrying out his Crécy campaign, Grosmont laid siege to, and captured, Poitiers, before returning home to England in 1347.

In 1345, while Grosmont was in France, his father died. The younger Henry was now Earl of Lancaster – the wealthiest and most powerful peer of the realm. After participating in the Siege of Calais in 1347, the king honoured Lancaster by including him as a founding knight of the Order of the Garter in 1348. A few years later, in 1351, Edward bestowed an even greater honour on Lancaster when he created him Duke of Lancaster. The title of duke was of relatively new origin in England; only one other ducal title existed previously. In addition to this, Lancaster was given palatinate status for the county of Lancashire, which entailed a separate administration independent of the crown.

This grant was quite exceptional in English history; only two other counties palatine existed: Durham, which was an ancient ecclesiastical palatinate, and Chester, which was crown property.

Coin of John of Gaunt

It is a sign of Edward's high regard for Lancaster that he would bestow such extensive privileges on him. The two men were second cousins through their great-grandfather Henry III and practically coeval (Edward was born in 1312), so it is natural to assume that a strong sense of camaraderie existed between them. Another factor that might have influenced the king's decision was the fact that Henry had no male heir, so the grant was made for the Earl's lifetime only, and not intended to be hereditary.

Lancaster spent the 1350s intermittently campaigning and negotiating peace treaties with the French. In 1350 he was present at the naval victory at Winchelsea, where he allegedly saved the lives of the Black Prince and John of Gaunt. The years 1351-2 he spent on crusade in Prussia. It was here that a quarrel with Otto, Duke of Brunswick, almost led to a duel between the two men, narrowly averted by the intervention of the French king, John II. In the later half of the decade campaigning in France resumed.

Coin of Jean or John II of France

After a chevauchée in Normandy in 1356 and the siege of Rennes in 1358, Lancaster participated in the last great offensive of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War: the Rheims campaign of 1359–60. Then he was appointed principal negotiator for the Treaty of Brétigny, where the English achieved very favourable terms.

After returning to England in November 1360, he fell ill early the next year, and died at Leicester Castle on 23 March. It is possible that the cause of death was the plague, which that year was making a second visitation of England.

Edward III

He was buried in the Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of the Newarke, Leicester, the church which he had built within the religious and charitable institution founded by his father next to Leicester Castle, and where he had re-buried his father some years previously.

Lancaster was married to Isabella, daughter of Henry, Lord Beaumont, in 1330. The two had no sons, but two daughters: Maud and Blanche.

While Maud was married to William I, Duke of Bavaria, Blanche married Edward III's son John of Gaunt.

Gaunt ended up inheriting Lancaster's possessions and ducal title, but it was not until 1377, when the dying King Edward III was largely incapacitated, that he was able to restore the palatinate rights for the county of Lancaster.

When Gaunt's son Henry of Bolingbroke usurped the crown in 1399 and became Henry IV, the vast Lancaster inheritance, including the Lordship of Bowland, was merged with the crown as the Duchy of Lancaster.

We know more about Lancaster's character than of most of his contemporaries through his memoirs, the Livre de seyntz medicines (Book of the Holy Doctors).

Coin of Henry III

This book is a highly personal treatise on matters of religion and piety, but it also contains details of historical interest.

It, among other things, revealed that Lancaster, at the age of 44 when he wrote the book in 1354, suffered from gout.

The book is primarily a devotional work though; it is organised around seven wounds which Henry claims to have, representing the seven sins.

Lancaster confesses to his sins, explains various real and mythical medical remedies in terms of their theological symbolism, and exhorts the reader to greater morality.