England

Michael Howard records the relish with which Oliver Cromwell ended a particularly famous session in the House of Commons.

Arthur Bryant continues his series on the historical development of the country at the United Kingdom's heart.

A man of deep convictions, George III ruled at a time “when kings were still expected to govern. That he failed to acquire “true notions of common things”, Lewis Namier writes, was “perhaps the deepest cause of his tragedy.”

Four hundred years ago the Duke of Northumberland made his vain attempt to exclude Mary and Elizabeth Tudor from the succession in favour of Jane Grey. S.T. Bindoff reconstructs the circumstances and development of this daring and ingenious plot and produces a new document, throwing light on it, which he recently discovered in the Archives at Brussels.

The problem of writing local history, R.H. Hilton suggests, can seldom be solved on the basis of parishes or even of counties; regions with a distinctive character and economy, such as the Cotswolds, are the natural units for the local historian’s attention.

Sir Lewis Namier shows how, through the growth of mining and the coal-trade, the social and economic character of North-Eastern England was entirely transformed.

Revolutionary impulses do not always originate in proletarian discontent. Hugh Trevor-Roper's article traces 17th-century radicalism to a very different social source.

In these extracts Arthur Bryant describes the glorious reign of King Alfred, 871-99

The seat of monarchs almost since English monarchy began, Windsor Castle owes its familiar outlines to the architect commissioned by King George IV.

When Richard II succeeded his grandfather, Edward III, he turned to alchemy to create a more pious ideal of kingship. His reign left us one of medieval England’s most enduring and complex images.