Volume 27 Issue 2 February 1977

William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland

William Augustus was he first of the house of Hanover to be born in England. Rex Whitworth describes how, politically, the Duke became almost First Minister of the Crown.

The English in Padua: 1222-1660

Over four centuries the University of Padua attracted a large number of foreign students, writes Alan Haynes, among whom the English were prominent.

Northumberland House

L.W. Cowie takes a visit to the last of the great Elizabethan and Jacobean mansions of London, that once looked south across the Thames and survived until 1874.

Madame: Elisabeth Charlotte of Orleans

The ungainly princess from the Palatinate was an unlikely bride for Louis XIV’s brother, writes Nis A. Petersen, but her frank nature and resourceful intelligence commended her to the King.

Commissioner Lin and Opium

Chinese Emperors banned the importation of opium, writes M. Foster Farley, but it was smuggled into the country by East Indian traders and led to the Opium War of 1840.