History news in brief
Haul of rare medieval gold coins identified
A dozen gold coins found as part of a hoard in 2019 have now been identified as rare “nobles” minted by Edward III. The cache, secreted in the wake of the Black Death and located by detectorists in Hambledon, Buckinghamshire, also included more than 600 silver pennies. The nobles were produced in 1346 and 1351, and only 12 such coins made during the king’s reign were previously known to survive.
Vikings “sailed to Britain with animal companions”
Bones from a ninth-century burial suggest that Viking people enjoyed a close bond with their animals, according to experts. Analysis of cremated remains from an excavation in Heath Wood, near the Derbyshire hamlet of Ingleby, indicates that horses and dogs may have been burned on the same funeral pyre as humans, having been transported from Scandinavia rather than acquired locally in England, as previously believed.
Long-lost letters from Mary, Queen of Scots decoded
Dozens of secret messages from Mary, Queen of Scots have been deciphered more than four centuries after her execution in 1587. The newly decoded documents, discovered in the National Library of France in Paris, were identified as written by the ill-fated monarch after analysis by cryptographers. They were written to supporters between 1578 and 1584, during Mary’s imprisonment by Elizabeth I, and reveal Mary’s complaints about her living conditions, her feelings of abandonment by France and her attempts to secure her release.