Feature

For all its faults C.E Hamshere’s account of Francis Drake’s 16th-century circumnavigation, published in History Today in 1967, applies a historical imagination lacking in more recent studies, argues Hugh Bicheno.

How Victorian gentlemen’s clubs in London’s West End played a role in oiling the nation’s political wheels.

Charles I had ‘the authority to plan and initiate a policy, but he had not the power to enforce it.’

Michael Rix takes an historical and architectural look at England's second city.

The trial of Captain William Kidd raised uncomfortable questions for the state about the pirate’s role in the consolidation of England’s early overseas empire.

Celebration of Christmas was curtailed by England’s Puritan republic but the methods and results varied considerably.

At the dawn of the 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte liquidated the French empire in America, selling the vast Bourbon heritage along the banks of the Mississippi to the United States. Why?

When Richard II succeeded his grandfather, Edward III, he turned to alchemy to create a more pious ideal of kingship. His reign left us one of medieval England’s most enduring and complex images. 

The outrage that Christmas was tarnished by the ugliness of the First World War was felt by both British and German soldiers. In some cases, it led to a brief moment of truce.

The Battle of Milvian Bridge is remembered as the moment when Constantine I secured the future of Christianity. The real turning point took place a few months earlier.