The Longest-Running Newspaper
The ancestor of the London Gazette was launched on 16 November 1665, surviving its bitter rival to become the oldest newspaper in the English-speaking world still in print.
England
How Medieval Scribes Balanced the Books
As the medieval book trade declined, Oxford scribes had to turn their hands to other crafts to get by.
Bringing Down the Curtain on the Touring Theatre
For most of the late 16th and early 17th century, theatre companies touring England were welcomed in provincial towns. But as tastes changed, players found themselves take second billing to moral concerns.
The Radical John Wilkes
Parliament’s champion of the people or scandalous, self-serving politician? Georgian radical John Wilkes kept a foot in both camps.
‘Fenwomen’ by Mary Chamberlain review
Mary Chamberlain’s groundbreaking oral history turns 50. This new edition of Fenwomen: A Portrait of Women in an English Village invites reflection on half a century of change.
The Battle of Stamford Bridge
On 25 September 1066 the ‘Viking Age’ came to a close when Harold Hardrada was slain at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.
‘The Rage of Party’ by George Owers review
They go low, we go lower. The Rage of Party: How Whig Versus Tory Made Modern Britain by George Owers offers up the origins of Britain’s fractious political culture.
‘The First King of England’ by David Woodman review
The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom by David Woodman looks beyond the empty tomb to find perhaps the most consequential monarch of the Anglo-Saxon age.
Get Out: Excommunicated in Medieval England
In 13th-century England excommunication was akin to spiritual leprosy. How did it work?
Did It Matter That Elizabeth I Was a Woman?
Whether as ‘Gloriana’ or ‘Good Queen Bess’ Elizabeth I is one of England’s most iconic monarchs, but did her gender shape her reign?