Sir Robert Peel

W. Bruce Lincoln finds that, though at first extremely against the visits, Queen Victoria was much impressed by the Russian Emperor’s dignity, civility and grace.

Dorothy George looks at the development of political - and often satirical - public artwork in early modern Britain.

Asa Briggs evaluates the impact of Sir Robert Peel, a great Prime Minister unwilling to become a popular politician.

Stephen Bates on the divisions that split Peel’s Tory administration in the mid-1840s, resonant of splits in the Conservative Party today.

Douglas Hurd looks at the way in which a Tory leader took a defeated and demoralized party, and reinvented it to appeal to a different and much more modern constituency.

Robert Peel suffered a fatal fall from his horse on June 29th, 1850. He died three days later.

He marketed himself as a man of principle - a public image of which David Eastwood exposes the inaccuracy.

David Eastwood considers how the myth of the great statesman, who put country and Corn Law Reform before partisan advantage, is standing up in the light of modern scholarship.