Britain & Ireland

The Tudors continue to fascinate and some of their story is told here along with the other dynasty of the period the Stuarts. Alongside those resources are the podcasts on the ideas that transformed British society during that period and created a United Kingdom for the first time. The industrial revolution is explored through poetry as well as technology. Religious collapse, change and diversity are all themes explored in this section. Read more

Sort by: Date (Newest first) | Title A-Z
  • King James’s Book of Sports, 1617

    Article

    Forty years after his higher degree research into the history of sport, Trevor James explores the much wider context in which that research now stands. Four hundred years ago, in 1617, James I made a decisive intervention into the simmering debate which had existed since the puritanical upsurge in Queen...

    Click to view
  • Lecture: Gender, place and power in controverted 18th century elections

    Article

    Click to view
  • Lecture: The doctor’s garden

    Article

    The late Georgian British garden was a place of botanic and agricultural enquiry as much as a place of pleasure and leisure. This talk will highlight this use of gardens by medical practitioners. As a group of men who had access to botanical training and, for those at the top...

    Click to view
  • Limited Monarchy in Great Britain in the Eighteenth Century

    Article

    There was hardly anything in Great Britain which political thinkers on the continent of Europe in the eighteenth century admired more than its limited monarchy. But what were the limitations? Were they deliberate or not? Were they effected by acts of parliament or by the silent encroachments of usage? Did...

    Click to view
  • London and the English Civil War

    Article

    In the spring of 1643 William Lithgow, a Scot born in Lanark in 1582, who had spent most of his life travellingaround Europe, often on foot and having many fantastic adventures, decided to return to Britain. Having just turned sixty, he was obviously feeling pretty gloomy. ‘After long 40 years...

    Click to view
  • Lord North: The Noble Lord in the Blue Ribbon

    Article

    In the last weeks of his life Lord North, we are told, expressed anxiety about his place in history - ‘how he stood and would stand in the world'. This, he owned, ‘might be a weakness, but he could not help it'. It was a weakness one suspects that he...

    Click to view
  • Lord Rochester's Grand Tour 1661 - 1664

    Article

    The late Frank Ellis was working on a full biography of John Wilmot, earl of Rochester, at the time of his death in 2007. He had contributed a life of Wilmot to the Oxford Dictionary of  National Biography which appeared in 2004. In it he wrote that ‘on 21 November...

    Click to view
  • Losing sight of the glory: five centuries of combat surgery

    Article

    Michael Crumplin traces developments in surgery that can be directly attributed to changes in the conduct of war. Little doubt exists that war accelerates and innovates medical care. Today, our armed services can rely upon sound medical treatment if they are sick or wounded, with survival rates of above 90%. This...

    Click to view
  • Mr Adams' Free Grammar School

    Article

    Adams’ Grammar School, Newport, Shropshire, was founded during the Commonwealth in 1656 towards the end of the great impetus of founding such schools in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Despite many setbacks and threats to its existence it continues in the twenty first century as one of the 164 surviving...

    Click to view
  • My Favourite History Place: A Short History of Brill

    Article

    In this article Josephine Glover discusses the long history of her ‘favourite history place’, the Buckinghamshire village of Brill. She explains how there has been a human settlement there since Mesolithic times. Using various fragments of evidence, she pieces together the extent to which the village was important to early...

    Click to view
  • My Favourite History Place: Castle Hill, Huddersfield

    Article

    Alison Hramiak tempts us to visit Castle Hill, south of Huddersfield, to look for traces of our long dead ancestors, to contemplate the passing of the centuries on that site and to enjoy the lovely views. It’s often the way that we ignore what’s geographically close to us when we visit...

    Click to view
  • My Favourite History Place: Llanelly House and Saint Elli’s Church

    Article

    There are so many delightful places of historical interest in Wales that it is very difficult to select just one or two as favourites but among contenders must be those visited by the Pontllanfraith Branch of the Gwent Historical Association in August 2018...

    Click to view
  • My Favourite History Place: Swarkestone Bridge

    Article

    Trevor James reveals his continued fascination with this major Midland scheduled monument. Almost 40 years ago, my role as a Nottingham University extra-mural tutor took me to Melbourne in Derbyshire. For the first few weeks I followed a cross-country route to Melbourne, via Burton-upon-Trent, Woodville and Hartshorne, but, on a dark November...

    Click to view
  • My Favourite History Place: The Holburne Museum

    Article

    Jane A. Mills describes in this article how the fascination of Holburne Museum in Bath comes partly from the historical objects on display but also from the varied history of the building itself. She explains how the recent development of the museum illustrates the ongoing issue of trying to resolve...

    Click to view
  • National distinctions entirely laid aside?

    Article

    Bethan M. Jenkins considers why it was important to Lewis Morris and others to have the distinctive Welsh contribution to British history and culture properly acknowledged.

    Click to view
  • Occult and Witches

    Article

    Occult and Witches: Some Dramatic and Real Practitioners of the Occult in the Elizabethan and Jacobean Periods One purpose of this paper is to show a correspondence between real-life Elizabethan and Jacobean practitioners of the occult and the depiction of their theatrical counterparts, with particular reference to perceived differences between,...

    Click to view
  • Oliver Cromwell 1658-1958

    Article

    Ever since the death of Oliver Cromwell 300 years ago his reputation has been the subject of controversy. The royalist view of him was expressed by Clarendon: "a brave bad mad," an ambitious hypocrite. This interpretation was supported by many former Parliamentarians: Edmund Ludlow regarded Cromwell as the lost leader...

    Click to view
  • Opinion: Who was ‘the man of his time’?

    Article

    In this new, occasional section of The Historian, contributors share their thoughts on matters of public historical debate. We invite our readers to respond, either by writing to the editors at thehistorian@history.org.uk or by writing their own opinion piece. Here, Lorenzo Kamel shares his thoughts on why saying ‘he was a...

    Click to view
  • Out and About in Derry/Londonderry

    Article

    Jenni Hyde was out and about in Derry in 2016 and describes how the sights of the city tell the story of a history which is so much more than just the legacy of the Troubles.

    Click to view
  • Out and About in Hull’s Old Town

    Article

    Sylvia Usher explores a hidden gem in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Wenceslaus Hollar’s map of seventeenth century Hull can be a street guide for the Old Town even today. Modern Hull sprawls along the Humber estuary with residential areas fanning out for three miles or more. Hull as it was...

    Click to view