England

H.T. Dickinson profiles a polished, intrepid and versatile military man; Peterborough was one of the most dashing soldiers who fought in the War of the Spanish Succession.

Although Pepys often refers in his Diary to Thomas Hill, he remains a somewhat shadowy figure. It is now possible to reconstruct his portrait. Hill emerges as a man after the diarist’s own heart—learned, inquisitive, sociable, garrulous. D. Pepys Whiteley recalls their friendship, which had begun in 1664 and continued until the merchant left England for Portugal.

Born near Leeds, a builder of bridges, canals and an inventor of mechanical equipment, George John Smeaton was an eminent forerunner of his profession.

Overshadowed by the reputation of his brilliant elder brother, Robert Sidney “was not one of the flamboyant Elizabethans,” but a capable soldier and an industrious administrator.

J.L. Kirby describes how, early in the fifteenth century, King Henry IV of England ordered three trusted servants to conduct delicate negotiations with the rich cities of the Hanseatic League, whence England imported such precious commodities as dried fish, furs, tar and timber.

During the Wars of the Barons in the reign of Henry III, writes Margaret Wade Labarge, everyday life and tastes are recorded in the household rolls of Eleanor de Montfort.

Zwingli’s influence on Protestantism in England and the Netherlands was profound and lasting; G.R. Potter profiles the Swiss Reformer and his social background.

Soldier, dramatist and architect, Vanbrugh has left a magnificent legacy of palatial building to the country of his Flemish grandfather’s adoption. By Christopher Lloyd.

An accomplished Latin poet, no less distinguished in “council and prudent matters of state,” an expert cartographer and an enterprising ship-builder, William Petty was a many-sided man, typical of the scientific spirit of the later seventeenth century. By K. Theodore Hoppen.

Maurice Ashley describes how, divided by a vast gulf from the prospering gentry, seventeenth-century cottagers and labourers lived a poor and harsh life. After 1660, their standard of welfare seems to have declined.