History Today

The year 1265 marked the climax in the fortunes of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Having defeated the forces of King Henry III during the previous summer, and captured his son and heir, Prince Edward, the Earl was the effective master of baronial England. But his dominance did not endure for long. In May, Prince Edward escaped from his guards and, on August 4th, he overwhelmed Montfort's army at the Battle of Evesham; the Earl himself was killed in the engagement. For six months of this period, the Montfort household rolls have survived. Originally compiled for his wife, the Princess Eleanor, sister of Henry III, they present a remarkably intimate picture of domestic and social life in a powerful thirteenth-century nobleman's family, writes Margaret Wade Labarge.

Though he was a less inspired architect than Wren or Vanbrugh, writes Tudor Edwards, Hawksmoor’s life and work are inextricably interwoven with theirs and he contributed largely to their great achievement.

Lawrence Stone describes how, towards the close of Queen Elizabeth's reign, a young nobleman laid violent and successful suit to the only daughter of a wealthy merchant and money-lender, whose will he is thought to have advantageously suppressed.

C.R. Boxer writes that, taken in conjunction, the Portuguese and Spanish voyages of discovery in the fifteenth century form one of the watersheds of history, comparable to the twentieth-century conquest of space.

During the minority of Louis XV, France was ruled by his predecessor’s nephew, a good-natured and quick-witted prince, but indolent, indifferent and self-indulgent. Philip’s ascent to power raised high hopes of a radical reform in French domestic policy, writes J.H.M. Salmon.

Possibly some innate realism prevented the Mesopotamians from seeing death other than objectively. But the Epic of Gilgamesh remains an eloquent witness to the poignancy of their interrogation of the meaning of human life and destiny. S.G.F. Brandon.

Gnosticism was one of those developments of religious thought that, although finally rejected by Christians as heretical, played a major part in the formation of Christian theology during the first three centuries of the Church’s life, writes S.G.F. Brandon.

In the year AD 60, Boudicca, a woman of the royal house of the Iceni led a fierce British revolt against the Roman occupation, during which Londinium was reduced to ashes.

The duality of Chopin's nature, divided between the claims of an unsatisfied idealism and a deep inbred pessimism, is reflected in his music. Noel Goodwin profiles the great composer and musician.

The importance of these much-debated scrolls is here interpreted by Cecil Rothin the light of the events that took place during the first-century Jewish Revolt against the power of Rome.