History Today

Luxemburg under the Dutch

After centuries of Habsburg rule, writes Elka Schrijver, the Grand Duchy came under the Orange-Nassau dynasty in 1815 and, in reduced size, is still independent.

Lieutenant General Sir Harry Smith

William Seymour describes the fifty-four years Harry Smith served as a Rifleman, with service at Buenos Aires, Badajos, and in India and South Africa.

Lord Odo Russell and his Roman Friends

Odo Russell, writes Alec Randall, was Britain’s unofficial diplomatic agent at the Vatican during the years when Italy was unified and when the controversy took place over the Papal Syllabus.

Lord Odo Russell and Bismarck

For thirteen years, writes Alec Randall, Odo Russell was British Ambassador in Berlin where he was an appreciative critic of Bismarck’s policies.

Lord Derby of the Oaks

On June 9th, 1774, a fête champêtre, magnificent even by eighteenth-century standards, attracted an appreciative concourse of the English nobility and gentry. Olive Fitzsimmons describes the event.

London Life in the 1790s

Frances Austin reads the lively late eighteenth century letters of a great surgeon’s apprentice to his family in Cornwall.

Ladakh: Barrier or Entrepot?

An island in a sea of mountains, as Sarah Searight describes it, the Indian region of Ladakh was once a cosmopolitan centre of pilgrimage and trade.

Kings in the Tower of London

From Norman times until the fifteenth century, writes L.W. Cowie, the Tower was often a royal residence as well as a fortress and armoury.