Feature

Elisabeth Darby and Nicola Smith look at the impact of the death and funeral of Prince Albert, on both Queen Victoria and the nation.

Gladiatorial shows turned war into a game, preserved an atmosphere of violence in time of peace, and functioned as a political theatre which allowed confrontation between rulers and ruled.

‘Kill not Moth nor Butterfly, For the Last Judgement draweth nigh’ wrote William Blake in Auguries of Innocence, reflecting the changing perception of man’s relation to the natural world.

Rudyard Kipling’s imperialism was more complex than the line, ‘Oh, East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.’

If the British Empire were to be saved, it would take a renewal of Britain’s youth. Robert Baden-Powell had the answer: self-reliance, patriotism and the Boy Scouts.

The wastelands of Siberia provided Tsarist Russia with ‘a vast roofless prison’ for criminals and political prisoners banished into exile. 

When the British and Maori signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, Governor Hobson declared: 'We are one people'. Today, as Professor Keith Sinclair shows, this hope has still to be realised.

Anne Roberts explores the incidence of plague in England from 1348 to 1679.

Thomas More is often thought of as a family man who died for his principles, not as a burner of books and heretics.