Britain

David Lance on the history of food in the Royal Navy, from canteen messing to professional catering.

Michael Langley describes how, until a mid-eighteenth century innovation, navigators seldom knew exactly where they were when at sea.

Since ownership passed from Spain to Britain in 1713, the Rock of Gibraltar has played an ambiguous – sometimes unwelcome role – in British history.

During the forty-one years he spent in China, writes Gerald Morgan, Thomas Francis Wade learned to understand the Chinese mind and culture without being absorbed by it.

Behind the frothing petticoats and high kicks of this most Parisian of dances, the history of the can-can is a story of Anglo-French exchange.

Iris Macfarlane describes how the East India Company in 1714-17 sought to flatter the Mughal Emperor.

‘Larger than a peahen and smaller than a peacock’, Jahangir wrote in 1612. Geoffrey Powell describes how the bird reached England from America some decades before the Indian knew it.

J. LaVerne Anderson describes how the post of British Ambassador to the rulers of France has been a difficult assignment, and not only in the eighteenth century.

Robert W. Kenny describes how, on the death of Elizabeth I, an appeasing spirit entered British diplomacy.

G.W.S. Barrow describes how, 260 years ago, the Scottish people made a difficult but necessary choice.