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Edward the Confessor and the Norman Conquest
Classic Pamphlet
Nine hundred years have elapsed since the death of Edward the Confessor, the last English king descended directly from Cerdic, king of Wessex in the sixth century - and so from the pagan gods. Nine hundred years are a long time; and if Edward had been succeeded by a son,...
Edward the Confessor and the Norman Conquest
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William the First and the Sussex Rapes
Classic Pamphlet
During his reign, and in particular in the five years after the battle of Hastings, William I carried out the most thorough reallocation of land in England ever to take place in so short a period of time; the results were summarized in Domesday Book in 1086.That great record shows...
William the First and the Sussex Rapes
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Anti-Americanism in Britain during the Second World War
Historian article
The Second World War saw the development of significant anti-Americanism in Britain. This article locates the centre of wartime anti-Americanism in the politics of Conservative imperialists, who believed the USA was trying to deliberately dismantle the British Empire in order to fulfil its own imperial ambitions.
The Second World War...
Anti-Americanism in Britain during the Second World War
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Foreigners in England in the later Middle Ages
Historian article
In an era when there are great debates about immigration and what constitutes nationality, Mark Ormrod introduces us to a new research database which reveals that immigration was an important feature of economic, cultural and political debate in the period 1330-1550...
In the Middle Ages, the political configuration of the...
Foreigners in England in the later Middle Ages
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Exploring Twentieth-Century History
Article
For a long time, history curricula on the 20th century prioritised the narrative of a slide from World War I to World War II and fascism above many other topics. But the history of the 20th century is both far more complicated and far more interesting than that. For the historians writing here, the...
Exploring Twentieth-Century History
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History Abridged: The Berlin Conference 1884–1885
Historian feature
History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. Think Horrible Histories for grownups (without the songs and music). See all History Abridged articles
In 2020 there was lots...
History Abridged: The Berlin Conference 1884–1885
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Kilpeck Church: a window on medieval 'mentalite'
Historian article
In the village of Kilpeck, about eight miles south-west of Hereford, may be found the small parish church of St Mary and St David, justifiably described by Pevsner as ‘one of the most perfect Norman village churches in England’ (Pevsner 1963, 201). Seemingly remote today, in the twelfth century the...
Kilpeck Church: a window on medieval 'mentalite'
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A woman of masculine bravery: the life of Brilliana, Lady Harley
Historian article
Sara Read introduces us to a woman who challenged expectations during the turbulent years of the early seventeenth century.
In 1622 a pious young woman with a highly unusual first name, Brilliana Conway, sat at her desk doodling her signature on her commonplace book. She had lofty ambitions for her self-development...
A woman of masculine bravery: the life of Brilliana, Lady Harley
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Film: The Kennedys and the Gores
HA Conference 2019 - Keynote Speech
This film was taken at the HA Annual Conference 2019 in Chester and features the HA's President: Professor Tony Badger who presented Friday's keynote lecture.
Find out more about the HA Conference.
In a country that prides itself on its egalitarianism and its democracy, it is perhaps surprising that family...
Film: The Kennedys and the Gores
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Queen Anne
Classic Pamphlet
In this pamphlet, James Anderson Winn, author of a recent biography of Queen Anne, recommends a new approach to historians writing about this successful and popular queen. Female, overweight, and reticent, Anne has long been underestimated. Her letters, however, show how well she understood the motives of her ministers, and...
Queen Anne
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Lord Rochester's Grand Tour 1661 - 1664
Historian 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...
Lord Rochester's Grand Tour 1661 - 1664
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Podcast Series: The Early Georgians
Multipage Article
In this podcast Lucy Worsley of Historic Royal Palaces looks at the early Georgians, the changing relationship between Parliament and Monarchy and Court Politics under George I and George II.
Podcast Series: The Early Georgians
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100 years of the 19th Amendment
US history
When the Founding Fathers of the US created their Constitution in 1787 (formally starting in 1789) they were keen to make the US a modern and fair place to live, a new start away from the restrictions of the Old World and its antiquated forms of rule. However, they also...
100 years of the 19th Amendment
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Queenship in Medieval England: A Changing Dynamic?
Historian article
In the winter of 1235-6, Eleanor, the 12 year old daughter of Count Raymond-Berengar V of Provence and Beatrice of Savoy, left her native homeland. She travelled to England to marry King Henry III, a man 28 years her senior whom she had never met. The bride and her entourage...
Queenship in Medieval England: A Changing Dynamic?
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Recycling the Monastic building: The Dissolution in Southern England
Historian article
The dissolution of the monasteries was one of the most dramatic developments in English History. In 1536, the religious orders had owned about a fifth of the lands of England. Within four years the monasteries had been abolished and their possessions nationalised by Henry VIII. Within another ten years, most...
Recycling the Monastic building: The Dissolution in Southern England
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Aristotle and Dudley: what can books tell us about their owners?
Historian article
Books as evidence
The study of books as objects can reveal a great deal about their owners and the society in which they lived. By examining why the books were printed in the first place, and by whom; why they were acquired and for what purpose; how they were bound;...
Aristotle and Dudley: what can books tell us about their owners?
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Film: Religion and Tudor Royal Authority – discussion
Development of Tudor Royal Authority film series
In this film Professor Sue Doran, Jesus College, University of Oxford and Professor Steven Gunn, Merton College, University of Oxford, look at the role religion played in defining the reigns and authority of the Tudor monarchs.
Film: Religion and Tudor Royal Authority – discussion
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Enter the Tudor Prince
Historian article
Shakespeare's identity is an issue historians normally avoid - with 77 alternatives to Shakespeare now listed on Wikipedia, it has become a black hole in literary studies. Denial of the orthodox (Stratfordian) view* that William Shakespeare was the Bard dates back a century and a half, but has escalated in...
Enter the Tudor Prince
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Women, education and literacy in Tudor and Stuart England
Historian article
To booke and pen: Women, education and literacy in Tudor and Stuart England
As a student in the early 1970s, I became acutely aware that formal provision for women's education was a relatively recent development. I was at Bedford College, which originated in 1849 as the first higher education institution...
Women, education and literacy in Tudor and Stuart England
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The mechanical heroes of the Battle of Britain
Historian article
The Battle of Britain is often described as the point at which the Nazi threat began to diminish and cracks began to form in Hitler's regime. The air campaign launched by the Germans in the summer of 1940 intended to wipe out the existence of the British Royal Air Force...
The mechanical heroes of the Battle of Britain
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Sir Francis Dent and the First World War
Historian article
Not your typical soldier, not your typical service
The term ‘citizen soldier' evokes a particularly powerful image in Britain. The poignant histories of the ‘Pals' Battalions' cast a familiar, often tragic shadow over the popular memory of the First World War. Raised according to geographical and occupational connections, names such...
Sir Francis Dent and the First World War
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Faster, Higher, Stronger: The Birth of the Modern Olympics
Article
As the leading athletes of all nations prepare to come together this summer in Atlanta, the global communications media of the late twentieth century are constantly reminding us that 1996 marks the first centenary of the modern Olympic Games. The worldwide impact now made by these sporting festivals is all...
Faster, Higher, Stronger: The Birth of the Modern Olympics
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The commercial architecture of Victorian Liverpool
Article
In 1857 the Builder enthusiastically described the thriving state of architecture on the banks of the Mersey: 'The impression from a walk through the principal quarters of the town, after visiting other towns, is that more [building of a superior kind] must be doing in Liverpool than at any other...
The commercial architecture of Victorian Liverpool
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The Eighteenth Century in Britain: Long or Short?
Article
W. A. Speck reviews an historical debate central to the interpretation of the eighteenth century in Britain. Few British historians treat the eighteenth century as consisting simply of the hundred years from 1701 to 1800. Until recently political historians tended to end it in 1783. Many textbooks reflect this treatment...
The Eighteenth Century in Britain: Long or Short?
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Towards Reform in 1809
Historian article
Two hundred years ago it must have seemed to some as if the time for political and economic reform in Britain had arrived. A number of the necessary conditions appeared to be in place:
recent examples from America and France showing how readily and rapidly established systems could be overturned...
Towards Reform in 1809
