History Today

Game Preservers and Poachers

Charles Chevenix Trench explains how, from the reign of William the Conqueror until the beginning of the nineteenth century, the poacher was restrained by savage penal laws.

Jews and Romans in the Early Empire, Part I

In dealing with her often refractory Jewish subjects, writes E. Mary Smallwood, Rome followed a policy of toleration and protection but insisted that the Jews must “repay toleration with toleration.”

Malacca: the Key to the East

George Woodcock describes how Malacca was once a city so rich that “its merchants valued garlic more highly than gold,” and how it has slowly dwindled in wealth and importance since the middle of the seventeenth century.

The Divine Right of Kings

Although the theory of Divine Right may seem difficult nowadays to take seriously, W.H. Greenleaf describes how it has exerted a profound influence upon the thoughts and lives of many Englishmen.

Gibbon in Rome 1764

“... At the distance of twenty-five years,” wrote Edward Gibbon, “I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first ... entered the Eternal City.” By J.J. Saunders .