The Day History Brought Me to Tears
Have you ever had a moment when you truly felt connected to history?
I don’t mean when standing before a monument or exploring a centuries-old site, but in an ordinary moment that somehow reached across time and felt different, as if history itself brushed quietly against your present.
The extraordinary happened to me on a perfectly ordinary afternoon. I had finished work for the day and was driving up the highway to visit my daughter and her twin babies. It was a trip I had done many times before, one of those familiar stretches of road where your mind wanders a little even as your eyes stay fixed on the traffic ahead.
I was listening to The Autumn Throne by Elizabeth Chadwick, a book I know very well as I have listened to it twice before. It had come to the part where Eleanor of Aquitaine is called to her son Richard’s bedside as he lies dying. I have read and listened to the scene many times in different books, so there was nothing unusual that should have caught me off guard. If anything, I was happy, excited to see my family, with the story simply playing in the background.
As the story unfolded, the scene reached the actual moment of Richard’s death when Eleanor was forced to say goodbye to what was undoubtedly her favourite son. With no warning at all, I was suddenly totally overwhelmed. One moment I was driving, focused on the road and the traffic around me, and the next I was in tears. Not the quiet kind you can blink away, but rather ugly crying, the kind that takes your breath and blurs your vision. I had to pull into a service centre because I could no longer see the road ahead through my tears.
I remember sitting in the car, trying to steady myself, wondering what on earth had just happened. It was not grief for Richard exactly. It was something deeper. It felt like a mother’s heartbreak. As a mother myself, I could feel Eleanor’s pain as she sat by her son’s bedside, the unimaginable weight of watching a child slip away.
It reminded me of watching The Passion of the Christ many years ago, when I realised I did not feel the suffering of Jesus nearly as much as the agony of Mary. It was that same echo, the empathy of one mother for another, across centuries.
When I finally reached my daughter’s house, I was still a little shaken but managed to laugh about it as I told her what had happened. She listened, then grinned and said, “Mum, that is hilarious. Maybe in a previous life you were one of Richard’s mistresses!” We both burst out laughing, and just like that, the heaviness lifted. The rest of the afternoon was filled with baby cuddles, gentle conversation, and the simple joy of being together. That strange emotional moment on the road completely forgotten.
That was however, until the following day!
Once again, on an ordinary day, in my lunch break at work, I picked up my current “real” book, Lords of the White Castle by Elizabeth Chadwick. I often have two books going at once, an audiobook for the car and a paperback for my lunch hours, usually set in similar periods but often telling very different stories.
This one followed a minor character, Fulke FitzWarin and his long-running conflict with Prince John over Whittington Castle. I was completely absorbed when I came across a short passage explaining that King Richard had been struck by a crossbow bolt on March 26 and died eleven days later, on April 6. It was written almost in passing, included simply to demonstrate how the balance of power had dramatically shifted now that Prince John had become King John.
It was then that it hit me. All morning I had been writing the date, April 7, again and again in my work documents, without a single thought about what it meant. Yet as I read that paragraph, it was as if the two moments suddenly collided. April 6. The day before. The exact date of my strange, emotional drive up the highway.
Even now, I cannot fully explain what happened that day. I am not someone who leans toward ideas of reincarnation or past lives, and yet the intensity of my reaction still takes my breath away when I think about it. It was so unexpected, so powerful, and so far beyond logic that it has stayed with me ever since.
Was it an extraordinary coincidence, or something more, some invisible thread that reached across 817 years? I honestly do not know. What I do know is that it was real, and it felt deeply personal.
The strangest part is that I have never had a particular fondness for Richard the Lionheart. He is not one of my heroes. My admiration has always rested more with others of his family, Eleanor, the Young King Henry, and the people who shaped the world around them like William Marshal. Perhaps that is why the moment struck me so hard. It was not about him, but about his mother. About Eleanor’s grief, her love, and her strength.
This all happened long before Plantagenet Discoveries ever existed, yet I often wonder now if it was one of those quiet turning points that plant a seed long before you recognise what it will grow into. Maybe that moment was a reminder of what history really is, not just facts and timelines, but the human emotion that endures through centuries, waiting for someone to feel it again.
And perhaps moments like these moments truly are stepping stones we do not notice until we look back. The moments that nudge us toward who we are meant to become. I often think now that what happened on that April afternoon was not only about history or emotion, but about connection. A reminder that every experience, every spark of feeling, and every encounter with the past becomes part of the story that shapes us.
Maybe you have had a moment like that too, one that made you pause and wonder if the past was somehow reaching for you. If so, I would love to hear from you. After all, these stories are what connect us, not only to history but to each other.
And if my story resonates with you, I would love to have you join me on one of my journeys into the heart of the Plantagenet dynasty. You can find the latest details on our Tours page.
