History Today

Should Cardinal Mazarin be viewed as a great French statesman or as an Italian adventurer whose luck never ran out? The element of paradox is central to Mazarin’s career.

An inspiring leader during the dark days of war, Winston Churchill was losing popularity with the Conservative defeat of the post war years. But despite growing pressure from his cabinet colleagues Churchill chose his own time to relinquish the office of Prime Minister.

Margaret Spufford examines popular fiction in 17th-century England.

Juries are generally believed to be the collective voice of free-born Englishmen, but in the aftermath of Civil War the system was at the centre of debate about the effective governance of England.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century the imposing canvases of battles and military manoeuvres painted by Elizabeth Thompson, later Lady Butler, caught the imagination of a nation keen to celebrate the successes of its Army. Among the artist’s many admirers was John Ruskin, who referred to her as the ‘Pallas of Pall Mall’.

Constantine Gerakis, c 1648-88, better known as Phaulkon, was an exemplar of Europe's burgeoning influence in Asia in the seventeenth century. He played the role of intermediary between the representatives of the European powers and King Narai of Siam with great success, argues Robert Bruce, but paid for eventual failure with his life.

From 1858 until 1945, explains Frances Stewart, the Andaman Islands served as a penal colony for the British Empire. The islands were also valued for their good natural harbours. During the Second World War the Andamans were captured by the Japanese.

Maiden Castle, an enormous earthwork two miles from Dorchester, Dorset, dominates the local landscape. The hill-top site, explains William Seymour, shows traces of occupation for three-and-a-half thousand years, and was the scene of a major, much publicised excavation by Mortimer Wheeler in the 1930s.

Roy Porter on the European concept of Enlightenment.

Although Kensington Palace was the official residence of Edward, Duke of Kent, and the birthplace of his daughter, the future Queen Victoria, his attempts to repair and renovate the building, explains Olivia Brand, met with only limited success.