Edwardian

The crisis of 1909-11 involved two General Elections and a threat to flood the House of Lords with newly created Liberal peers. It ended, as Steven Watson notes here, in a triumph for the progenitors of the modern welfare state.

As London gears up for the start of the Olympics next month, David Runciman compares the 2012 games with the London Olympics of 1908 and 1948 to see what they reveal about the changing relationship between politics and sport over the last century.

The abdication crisis of 1937 forced a royalist magazine to present a different face to the world, as Luci Gosling reports.

As the final preparations are made for the Royal Wedding on Friday April 29th, we explore the history of regal marriages, from Tudor times to the twentieth century, through a selection of articles from our archive, historic photographs and videos.

Rowena Hammal examines the fears and insecurities, as well as the bombast and jingoism, in British thinking.

Graham Goodlad reviews the career of A.J. Balfour, an unsuccessful Prime Minister and party leader but an important and long-serving figure on the British political scene. 

Ian Garrett shows that well-informed counter-factual speculation can help us understand better the causes and consequences of what did happen.

Frances Borzello seeks to explain the rise of women’s clubs in London before the First World War – and their equally swift demise.

On the centenary of her election as Britain’s first female mayor, Andrew Mackay looks at the life of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.

Graham Goodlad surveys the career of one of the most controversial figures in late Victorian and Edwardian politics.

Richard Cavendish marks the anniversary of Sherlock Holmes' most famous case, March 25th, 1902.

Eric Ives looks at the cases of two English monarchs who broke with convention by selecting spouses for reasons of the heart, rather than political convenience.