Issue 31 September 1998

Many have dismissed the last Stuart monarch as a nonentity or a figure of fun. Yet according to Richard Wilkinson she does not deserve her tarnished reputation.

The 1867 Reform Act did not set the British electoral system in stone until the Third Reform Act of 1884-85. John Walton reveals that its effects were complex, varied and quite often unintended.

To mark the quincentenary of Louis Xll's accession in 1498, Glenn Richardson examines the French king's reign and suggests significant points of comparison with Henry Vll of England.