1953

Allen Cabaniss investigates rumour, propaganda and freedom of thought in the ninth century life of the late Carolingian empire.

Alan Smith relates the tale of the Cato Street conspirators.

Index of all the articles published in Volume: 3

Stephen Coleman traces the history of smoking, from its American beginnings to the twentieth century mass market.

Motives of commerce and trade, Eric Robson suggests, carried just as much weight in the founding of the 13 American colonies as the desire of Puritan emigrants for...

Wolf Mankowitz discusses the life and times of one of Britain's most radically successful Georgian industrialists.

J.H. Plumb documents the life of Rhodes - an empire-builder, arch risk-taker, megalomaniac mine-owner and namesake of Zimbabwe's pre-independence...

His refusal to learn by experience, C.S. Forester suggests, was largely responsible for Napoleon’s ultimate failure

Revolutionary impulses do not always originate in proletarian discontent. Hugh Trevor-Roper's article traces 17th-century radicalism to a very different social...

C.H. Brown presents his study of the political and economic background to mid-twentieth century Egyptian nationalism.

Bernard Lewis writes that the fall of Constantinople in was no “victory of barbarism, but rather of another and not undistinguished civilization.” 

Charles Dimont traces the background and development of the English nation's favourite song.

To an official court painter we owe the most harrowing records of the effects of revolution and war. W.R. Jeudwine discusses Goya and his times.

Up to the reign of James II, the College of Heralds, besides the part they played on state occasions, had the important duty of regulating the kingdom’s social...

A leading actor in the civil war, Clarendon in his History offered an interpretation of the causes of the conflict which has been much debated by later...

John Wheeler-Bennett's account, with many illuminating details, of the attempt that nearly put an end to the Third Reich.

Even after the Bomb-plot had failed, John Wheeler-Bennett shows how the Wehrmacht conspirators in Berlin had it in their grasp to overthrow Hitler and stop the war...

Only the infirmity of purpose displayed by the key-figure at the top, John Wheeler-Bennett writes, prevented the revolt against Hitler, which had failed in Berlin...

Peter Quennell says Hogarth’s great survey of the Humours of an Election is one of the masterpieces of English 18th century painting

The contemporary of Queen Elizabeth I, Ivan IV was the real founder of modern Russia, and, Jules Menken writes, the originator of the disciplinary system by means...

S. Pollard discusses one of history's most controversial financial reformers.

A man of deep convictions, George III ruled at a time “when kings were still expected to govern. That he failed to acquire “true notions of common things”, Lewis...

Arthur Waley describes Chinese civilization in the first and second centuries AD.

Accused of cowardice at the Battle of Minden, and often-cast for the role of villain when he was Colonial Secretary, Lord George Germain, writes Eric Robson,...

“If ever a house radiated cheerfulness, that house is Versailles." Miss Mitford writes of the palace in the middle years of King Louis XV.

Peter Laslett charts the descent of a near forgotten family of English nobles.

J.A.R. Pimlott studies the development of the Christmas Spirit—from Pagan Saturnalia to Victorian family party

Sir Lewis Namier shows how, through the growth of mining and the coal-trade, the social and economic character of North-Eastern England was entirely transformed....

C.A. Burland describes the highly developed, sprawling and ancient Incan civilisation in the years preceding its conquest by the Spanish seaborne empire.

From Stubbes' angry Anatomie of Abuses, Sydney Carter unveils a revealing portrait of Elizabethan fashions and pastimes, from high-heeled shoes to...

M.G. Brock surveys the political landscape in Britain in 1837.

At first allowed by the British politicians “only just as much space as he could stand upon” Queen Victoria’s Consort, nevertheless, succeeded in setting the...

A.L. Rowse charts how three centuries of British historians have produced many different interpretations of the great Queen’s character.

Joseph Hone asks whether, had the Queen shown her Irish subjects greater signs of affection, could the Union have been preserved?

Julian Piggott shows how, with the help of a puppet state on the Rhine, France between 1919 and 1923 attempted to solve the perpetual problem of her eastern...

Member of Parliament, friend of Philip Sidney, local historian, and promoter of American colonization, Richard Carew was one of the important provincial figures of...

The English royal line has included several notable collectors of art, as Doreen Agnew here documents.

Elizabeth Wiskemann recounts the story of one of Europe’s richest and most hotly-disputed industrial territories

G. Goossens recalls the Assyrian monarchs, noted for their ferocity, great libraries, and achievements in agriculture and engineering.

W. H. Chaloner considers how the Lombes “penetrated the secrets” of the closely guarded silk-throwing machines of Piedmont, and successfully introduced them into...

The site of her oldest university and the home of one of her earliest missionary Saints, St. Andrews holds a special position in the history of Scotland, as...

Richard Hare recounts the history of Russia's Western metropolis.

A study of the dangers and difficulties that confronted the young Queen in 1558, and of the courageous strategy by which she overcame them. By J.E. Neale.

A.H. Burne describes how, 500 years ago at the Battle of Castillon, where the Great Talbot lost his life, the English crown forfeited its 300-year-old dominion...

Sir Julian Huxley examines the debates and mysteries that surround humanity's earliest moves towards mass society.

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...

Taking a historiographical angle, Marcus Cunliffe describes how, in 1861, the American federal experiment broke down, and there ensued the greatest and most hard-...

On October 23, 1812, the Emperor Napoleon, campaigning in Russia, was for six hours threatened with dethronement by a theatrical coup d'etat back in Paris. Godfrey...

On January 15th, 1559, England’s twenty-five-year-old sovereign left Whitehall to be crowned Queen. This article, by A.L. Rowse, was first published in May 1953,...

The problem of writing local history, R.H. Hilton suggests, can seldom be solved on the basis of parishes or even of counties; regions with a distinctive character...

James Joll attempts to unearth the deep roots of modern Germany.

Long excluded from public business, King Edward showed, when he came to the throne, a remarkable grasp of foreign affairs. He was, as A.P. Ryan says, “a good...

The Italian prince who boasted that the Pope was his chaplain, and the Emperor his condottiere, ended his days in 1508, forgotten in a foreign prison

In an age of opportunity, G.E. Fussell describes how the Elizabethan farmer lived under pioneer conditions.

Christopher Sykes revisits Compiègne during the hunting season, the scene of some of the most splendid and ostentatious diversions of the Second Empire.

Five hundred years ago Constantinople—long a bastion of the Western world—fell to the armies of the Grand Turk. G.R. Potter gives his account of how the last...

At one time a member of Charles II's notorious Cabal, Anthony Ashley Cooper later became the much maligned leader of the Protestant and Parliamentary opposition to...

The observations of Edmond Geraud, a schoolboy pursuing his studies in Paris-, throw fresh light on the stormiest years of the French Revolution.

Arnold Whitridge recounts how, at the dawn of the 19th century, General Bonaparte sold to the United States the vast Bourbon heritage along the banks of the...

Michael Grant asks whether Caesar Augustus, sole ruler for forty-five years, was honest and sincere, or a “hypocrite of genius”?

Nicholas Lane documents how the big branch banks of today have their origins largely in the numerous private banking partnerships, founded in the 17th and 18th...

Charles Seltman traces the idea of the ruler not only great but good—helper and protector of his subjects—back to Alexander of Macedon.

Michael Howard records the relish with which Oliver Cromwell ended a particularly famous session in the House of Commons.

David Woodward recounts how, after a voyage from the Baltic of 11,000 miles, the Russian Second Pacific Fleet was dramatically destroyed off the coast of Korea by...

Eric Linklater finds that among medieval champions of Scottish independence was an ancestor of Elizabeth II, the heroic Robert the Bruce

J.W.N. Watkins illustrates how the great individualist thinkers of the 17th century had a profound effect upon the development of modern Europe.

In these extracts Arthur Bryant describes the glorious reign of King Alfred, 871-99

Arthur Bryant continues his series by examining the background to the Magna Carta.

This extract is the first of a series in which...

Arthur Bryant looks at how “The Bones of Shire and State” were formed before the Normans came.

Arthur Bryant continues his series on the historical development of the country at the United Kingdom's heart.

Arthur Bryant relates how Becket’s death, at the hands of Henry II's servants, made this once worldly prelate a popular religious hero.

In the twelfth-century conflict between Church and State, Henry II found his most determined opponent in his formerly devoted servant, Thomas Becket, as Arthur...

R.J. White introduces Humphry Davy: the inventor of the safety-lamp and one of Britain's greatest chemists was by temperament a romantic poet and philosopher....

C.R. Boxer profiles the naval adventures of the Netherlands' Tromp family - a thorn in the side of mid-17th century English maritime activity.

According to this Essay in Archaeological Detection by Jon Manchip White, the famous legend of the loves of Tristan and Isolt may very well rest on a solid...

D.H. Pennington uses the diary notes of a contemporary MP to give readers a real sense of the dramatic atmosphere in the pre-Civil War House of Commons.