Volume 21 Issue 9 September 1971

Queen Victoria’s uncle and immediate predecessor was a good-humoured, simple-minded sovereign, whose bustling amiability much endeared him to his subjects, writes Joanna Richardson.

Anthony Babington describes life in an eighteenth century London prison for felons, debtors and rebels.

John Lehmann presents the grim but fascinating impressions of post-Commune France, by an English schoolboy.

Ivan Morris asserts that, among the legends of the prehistoric Japanese past, it is the aura of failure and tragedy surrounding his end that establishes Yamato Takeru as a model hero.

Desmond Seward describes the abrupt end of a European military and financial institution.

David Jones profiles the man of whom Gibbon wrote: ‘the genius of Rome expired with Theodosius’.