England

On June 9th, 1774, a fête champêtre, magnificent even by eighteenth-century standards, attracted an appreciative concourse of the English nobility and gentry. Olive Fitzsimmons describes the event.

Anthony Dent describes how this rich French province remained a royal English vineyard for a good three centuries.

Uniquely of engineers, the reputation of Brunel lives on, commemorated by a university, dockyards, steamships, and countless other works of his discipline. But what, asks Walter Minchinton, were his achievements?

Helena Snakenborg came to London in the train of a visiting Swedish Princess. Appointed a Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth, writes Gunnar Sjögren, she married twice and lived in England for seventy years.

William Cobbett, English political reformer, was himself was largely self-educated. Molly Townsend describes how he regarded contemporary schooling as ‘a melancholy thing to behold’.

C. Northcote Parkinson describes the life and times of Jeffery Hudson of Oakham, Rutlandshire, a remarkable member of Charles I's court who nonetheless measured under three feet tall.

 Turner describes how, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, this exclusive London club was presided over by a feminine oligarchy, equal in power to the Venetian Council of Ten.

M. Foster Farley describes how, during his five years in the Vatican, Nicholas Breakspear had important dealings with the Holy Roman Empire, England and Ireland, and the Norman kingdom of Sicily.

C.R. Boxer describe show, three centuries ago, the great Dutch commander was mortally wounded in battle off the coast of Sicily.

A.L. Rowse pays tribute to the founding editors of History Today magazine.