The satisfying thing about Richard Lane as a subject of historical research is that although his early life was one of obscurity, the political drama he was swept into brought about a fair number of useful historical artifacts related to him. Perhaps in the end, those bits and pieces will yield a rich and tangible sense of who he was. But, this isn’t Hollywood – history is about building knowledge based on facts, very much like building a legal case. And sometimes, the facts you need simply may not exist. What can really be known about a man who lived 400 years ago? Who was he really? What was important to him? And if you could have met him, what would he have looked like?
Category: LLK-LostPortrait
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Welcome to the (very real) Quest to Find the “Lost Lord Keeper” of the 1600’s English Civil War
In the Spring of 2015, I was browsing the antique book stores in the antiques district of South Broadway in Denver, Colorado. Gallagher’s Books is one of those fun bookshops that just knows what they are doing: interesting books for all tastes, but no room for junk. No matter where you look, you find titles that draw your eye…
I hadn’t really planned on buying anything. I was feeling social, and seeing cases filled with older books, I was curious how far back the inventory of retail antique book stores might go. I took a sip of coffee and playfully asked the proprietor, “What’s the oldest book you have?” I was expecting something in the mid-1800s. Very early 1800s, perhaps? I couldn’t recall – when was the printing press invented again? Sue smiled gamely and replied, “Actually, I think I have one from the middle 1600s…”
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5280 Explorer 