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.
This extract is the first of a series in which Dr. Arthur Bryant describes the evolution of the English Kingdom, through the invasions of Saxons, Danes and Normans, to its consolidation in medieval times.
From Stubbes' angry Anatomie of Abuses, Sydney Carter unveils a revealing portrait of Elizabethan fashions and pastimes, from high-heeled shoes to football, and from ruffs to dicing and dancing.
At one time a member of Charles II's notorious Cabal, Anthony Ashley Cooper later became the much maligned leader of the Protestant and Parliamentary opposition to the last two Stuart kings. By J.H. Plumb.
A.H. Burne describes how, 500 years ago at the Battle of Castillon, where the Great Talbot lost his life, the English crown forfeited its 300-year-old dominion over Aquitaine.
