History Today

Warmongering anti-semite, or constitutionalist and family man? Marc Morris takes a fresh look at the career of Edward I, whose reputation has suffered a roller-coaster ride over the centuries.

What did Britain and the Britons mean to the Anglo-Saxons, and what did it mean to be their ruler? 

Criminal poisoning at once fascinated and terrified Victorian society. Here Ian Burney shows how the extraordinary case of a doctor, hanged in 1856 for allegedly poisoning an acquaintance, threw up deep-rooted anxieties about poison, detection, and professionalism in Victorian society.

Anthony Smith challenges the modernist view of nationalism that traces its origins to Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary Europe.

Between autumn 1855 and spring 1856, the attitude of Britain’s war leaders underwent bewildering change as their determination to bring the war with Russia to a desirable conclusion was buffeted by doubts about the commitment of the French, and fears about the motives of French policy, as Brian James reveals.

Britain’s concerns over binge drinking are nothing new says Luci Gosling, who describes how the brewing industry united to wreck Asquith’s Licensing Bill of 1908.

The design and building of Salisbury Cathedral, the Gothic masterpiece and pinnacle of English architecture, built in double-quick time.

Chaplin's coffin was stolen from a Swiss cemetery on March 2nd, 1978.

Richard Cavendish marks a failed attempt on the Scottish and English thrones by the last Stuart pretender, on March 23rd, 1708.