England

Romney Sedgwick describes how, under the pen-name of Junius, Sir Philip Francis ‘threw his firebrands’ at King and Government during the years 1769-72.

W.N. Bryant introduces Bede, the ‘Father of English History’, a Northumbrian Monk who devoted his life to study, teaching and church services.

‘On the winning side, yet subject to all the former tyrannies,’ the radical Winstanley in 1649 protested against Cromwell’s rule. By A.A. Mitchell.

David Green describes how, during her long life, the Duchess of Marlborough ceaselessly sought for a panacea against illness and disease.

Eveline Cruickshanks tells the tale of a French secret agent and his works in England during the mid-eighteenth century.

From the fourteenth century until the building of the railways, writes D.J. Rowe, the Newcastle keelmen were indispensable and pugnacious carriers between collieries and sea-going ships.

Meyrick Carre introduces James Howell; an enquiring disciple of the new astronomers who enlivened the British seventeenth-century scene, and ended his life as historiographer-royal to Charles II.

C.G. Cruickshank describes bows and fire-arms in the early sixteenth century.

Philip Ziegler describes how the devastating Plague reached South-west England in the summer of 1348.

Stuart Andrews describes how the founder of Methodism shared the encyclopaedic concern with science that characterizes the eighteenth century.