Political

The Merovingians have a reputation for long hair and barbarity. Instead, the dynasty, born out of the chaos of civil war, was one of peace, diplomacy, and bureaucracy.

Teodoro Castro or Iosif Grigulevich? Costa Rica’s ambassador to Yugoslavia was a Soviet spy sent to kill Tito.

The German chancellor Otto von Bismarck saw himself as a puppet-master, engineering British politics from afar in his feud with Gladstone.

Bolesław Chrobry was finally crowned king of Poland on 18 April 1025. It was an elevation two decades in the making.

King Charles I’s execution in 1649 turned the world upside down – were other outcomes possible?

Eager to be first in line, the astute James VI of Scotland responded to the question of the English succession with a war of words.

A male heir might have saved Queen Mary’s reign, and changed the shape of global Catholicism for good.

King Lewanika’s invitation to the coronation of Edward VII was intended to stabilise British relations with the Barotse nation. Instead, it exposed the cracks in the imperial veneer.

Friends in Youth: Choosing Sides in the English Civil War by Minoo Dinshaw views the conflict through the sad case of Bulstrode Whitelock and Edward Hyde.