Britain

Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England

End or beginning? Catherine Hills discusses how recent archaeology is filling in the gaps in our knowledge of 5th-and 6th-century Britain, fuelling the debate about just how important marauding invaders were to the changes that followed the legion's departure.

Gentlemen & Thugs in 17th-Century Britain

Keith M. Brown questions the extent to which humanism and Renaissance courtliness had weaned the Stuart aristocracy from random acts of violence and taking the law into their own hands.

Quacks and Cash

The British Medical Journal is 150 years old this autumn and has witnessed in its time a kaleidoscope of changing attitudes towards medicines, their ethics and efficiency. Peter Bartrip looks at its campaign against patent medicines at the turn of the century and the ambiguities of attitudes in the medical profession it reveals.

The RAF on Screen 1940-1942

During the early days of UK involvement in World War II, official British films deliberately created a particular view of the air war, perhaps distorting our perceptions of some key phases.

Scotland's Neglected Enlightenment

Glasgow's role in the Enlightenment is often overshadowed by Edinburgh, but Roy Campbell shows that the impetus came from the West with the pioneering work done in the city from the early years of the eighteenth century. 

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King John's Maundy

England's royal black sheep may well turn out to be the instigator of the ancient ceremony linking Church and Crown. Arnold Kellett explains how this came about.

London's Charity Schools, 1690-1730

'The greatest Instances of publick Spirit the Age has produced', but confessional strife between Anglicans and Nonconformists, as well as the bitter battles of Whigs and Tories, was the stimulus for an educational programme for the poor. Craig Rose investigates.