Historyland Ferdaws

 Mumtaz Mahal was  the Empress consort of the Mughal Empire from 19 January 1628 to 17 June 1631 as the chief consort of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.The Taj Mahal in Agra, often cited as one of the Wonders of the World, was commissioned by her husband to act as her tomb. Mumtaz Mahal was born Arjumand Banu Begum in Agra to a family of Persian nobility. She was the daughter of Abu'l-Hasan Asaf Khan, a wealthy Persian noble who held high office in the Mughal Empire, and the niece of Empress Nur Jahan, the chief wife of Emperor Jahangir and the power behind the emperor. She was married at the age of 19 on 30 April 1612 to Prince Khurram, later known by his regnal name Shah Jahan, who conferred upon her the title "Mumtaz Mahal". Although betrothed to Shah Jahan since 1607, she ultimately became his second wife in 1612. Mumtaz and her husband had fourteen children, including Jahanara Begum (Shah Jahan's favourite daughter), and the Crown prince Dara Shikoh, the heir-appa

 Henry Fitzroy: how Henry VIII’s “bastard son” rocked the Tudor court Five centuries ago this summer, Henry VIII got the thing he craved most: a son. But the baby boy was illegitimate – and that, says Mathew Lyons, had serious ramifications for king and country 1.He hoovered up England’s titles On 18 June 1525, a six-year-old boy made a dazzling entrance onto England’s public stage. In a ceremony at London’s grand Bridewell Palace, the boy was made Earl of Nottingham and then Duke of both Richmond and Somerset. The “right high and noble prince”, as the youngster was now styled, had become the highest ranking member of the English nobility. The boy’s name was Henry Fitzroy and the doting father who had bestowed the titles upon him was none other than King Henry VIII. This seems to have been a proud moment for both monarch and offspring. But there was a problem: Fitzroy was illegitimate – and that raised all kinds of awkward questions for the succession and the king’s relationship with h

  Jane Seymour was the third of Henry VIII's six wives, and the only one to bear him a son, the future Edward VI. She is the queen who 'died', passing away shortly after giving birth. Explore the story of how Jane Seymour came to Henry's attention, whether she really was meek and demure, and whether Henry really did love her most of all Jane Seymour,  Henry VIII ’s third wife, was born in around 1508. Her kinsman, the courtier Sir Francis Bryan, secured a place for her in the service of Queen  Catherine of Aragon . Jane later transferred into the household of Catherine’s successor,  Anne Boleyn . By 1535, Jane was in her late twenties, with few marriage prospects. One contemporary considered her to be “no great beauty, so fair that one would call her rather pale than otherwise”. She nonetheless attracted the king’s attention – perhaps when he visited Wolfhall in September 1535. Anne Boleyn blamed her miscarriage, in late January 1536, on the developing relationship, com

If there's one thing Napoleon Bonaparte is known for, it's that he was short – and very unhappy about it. But how tall was he really?  The image of Napoleon as an angry, and undeniably squat military leader was by the 20th century so widespread that he even has a psychological complex named after him. During the Napoleonic Wars his apparently diminutive height was a favourite tool of English propagandists, who depicted ‘Boney’ as dwarfed by his hat, struggling to reach his dinner or needing a leg-up from one of his officers to see how his troops fared. And yet, in 1815 he was described by an English captain as ‘a remarkably strong, well-built man, about five feet seven inches high’ (then above average height). 168 cm So where did the idea of the ‘Little Corporal’ come from? The nickname in fact came from his tendency as a young officer to micromanage on the battlefield, and in later years he was at a disadvantage when surrounded by the lofty members of the Imperial Guard. At hi

  Henry VIII  was King of England from 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages Despite having married six women and seduced countless more, Henry VIII is often depicted as something of a prude. But, as historian and author Amy Licence reveals, the story may have been quite different for the women who shared his bed… When it comes to Henry VIII’s love life, the biographical focus usually falls on Henry’s wives and is dominated by his quest for a son. This is no surprise given its dynastic importance and the comparative paucity of material surviving on Henry’s mistresses. Indeed, Henry is often compared to his lusty and syphilitic contemporary, Francis I of France, whose antics leave the English king in the shade. Henry certainly had no official mistress in the French style, although he did offer this title to Anne Boleyn, who refused it. There is also the question of Henry’s health, as when considering his personal life images of his obesity and injuries

  What happened to Katherine Parr’s daughter, Mary Seymour, after her mother’s death? Following Katherine’s death a matter of days after Mary’s birth, the newborn’s father, Thomas Seymour, placed Mary in the household of his brother, the Duke of Somerset But the brothers’ relationship deteriorated and as Thomas faced death for treason, he appointed the Duchess of Suffolk, Katherine’s close friend, as Mary’s guardian. The Duchess of Suffolk’s main estate was at Grimsthorpe in Lincolnshire and Mary moved there with her little retinue. Her guardian resented the cost of looking after Mary and petitioned William Cecil, then in Somerset’s household, for additional funds to support her. These were granted in autumn 1549, and in January 1550 an act of parliament restored Mary’s title to her father’s remaining property. There was, however, very little left. The Privy Council’s grant to Mary was not renewed in September 1550 and she never claimed any part of her father’s estate, leading to the c

Such mixing of the sexes was not confined to myth, since Egypt’s women were portrayed alongside men at every level of society. This no doubt explains why the Greek historian Herodotus was forced to conclude that the Egyptians “have reversed the ordinary practices of mankind” when visiting Egypt around 450 BC. So while the most common female title in Egypt’s 3,000-year history was ‘lady of the house’ (housewife), many women worked in the temple hierarchy. Other women were overseers and administrators, or they held titles ranging from doctor, guard and judge to treasurer, vizier (prime minister) and viceroy. And some women were also monarchs, from the regents who ruled on behalf of underage sons to those who governed in their own right as pharaoh, a term simply meaning ‘the one from the palace’. Yet some Egyptologists still downgrade female rulers by defining them by the relatively modern term ‘queen’, which can simply refer to a woman married to a male king. And while the c15th-century