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The Tudor Court
Classic Pamphlet
In 1976, in one of his challenging Presidential addresses to the Royal Historical Society, Professor Geoffrey Elton drew attention to the importance of the court as a ‘point of contact' between the Tudors and their subjects. It was, he suggested, a central and essential aspect of personal government, but in...
The Tudor Court
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'The Generous Turk': Some Eighteenth-Century Attitudes
Article
Notwithstanding the tribal hatred recently shown for each other by a handful of English and Turkish football fanatics, nobody who has travelled in Turkey or taken a holiday in that country can have failed to notice the courtesy and generosity with which visitors are invariably treated. Indeed, one of the...
'The Generous Turk': Some Eighteenth-Century Attitudes
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Thomas Muir and the 'Scottish Martyrs' of the 1790s
Article
From the 1750s, after more than a century of intense political and religious disputes and of economic stagnation, Scotland began to enjoy several decades of almost unprecedented political stability, religious harmony, economic growth and cultural achievements. Jacobitism had been crushed and most propertied and influential Scots rallied to the Hanoverian...
Thomas Muir and the 'Scottish Martyrs' of the 1790s
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John Knox and womankind: a reappraisal
Historian article
"To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion or empire above any realm, nation, or city is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, a thing most contrarious to his revealed will and approved ordinance, and finally it is the subversion of good order, and all equity and justice." John...
John Knox and womankind: a reappraisal
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Podcast Series: The Spanish Golden Age
Multipage Article
An HA Podcasted History of the Spanish Golden Age featuring Dr Glyn Redworth of Manchester University and Dr Francois Soyer of the University of Southampton.
Podcast Series: The Spanish Golden Age
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The Journey to Icarie and Reunion: A Romance of Socialism on the Texas Frontier
Historian article
The viewer of the internationally popular television show Dallas was routinely treated to an aerial tour that skimmed across the open prairie over the distinctive skyscrapers across the fifty-yard line of Texas Stadium and up the manicured pastures of South Fork.
This façade of larger-than-life Texana reflects an urban reality...
The Journey to Icarie and Reunion: A Romance of Socialism on the Texas Frontier
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An Intimate History of Your Home - Lucy Worsley
Historian Article
‘You've gone over to The Dark Side'.
These were the words of a well-respected historian to whom I'd been enthusing about the pleasures and perils of Dressing Up.
During 2009-10 I spent several months in historic costume, recreating the habits and rituals of domestic life in the past. It was...
An Intimate History of Your Home - Lucy Worsley
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Ferninando Gorges and New England
Classic Pamphlet
Sir Ferdinando Gorges (July 1565 - May 24, 1647), by some considered the "Father of English Colonization in North America", was an early English colonial entrepreneur and founder of the Province of Maine in 1622, although Gorges himself never set foot in the New World.
Sir Ferdinando Gorges was born...
Ferninando Gorges and New England
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Bristol and the Slave Trade
Classic Pamphlet
Captain Thomas Wyndham of Marshfield Park in Somerset was on voyage to Barbary where he sailed from Kingroad, near Bristol, with three ships full of goods and slaves thus beginning the association of African Trade and Bristol. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Bristol was not a place of...
Bristol and the Slave Trade
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Radicalism and its Results, 1760-1837
Classic Pamphlet
Radicalism with a large "R", unlike Conservatism with a large "C" and Liberalism with a large "L", is not a historical term of even proximate precision. There was never a Radical Party with a national organization, local associations, or a treasury. But there were, and there are, "Radicals", generally qualified...
Radicalism and its Results, 1760-1837
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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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Adam Smith
Classic Pamphlet
Adam Smith 1723-1790
Adam Smith was so pre-eminently one of the master minds of the eighteenth century and so obviously one of the dominating influences of the nineteenth, in his own country and in the world at large, that is somewhat surprising that we are so ill-informed regarding the details...
Adam Smith
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The Great Powers in the Pacific
Classic Pamphlet
This pamphlet covers a very large period of history in a very important region with great detail and focus. Themes that are covered include the transition of power and dominance in the pacific region, the conflicts that frequently arose in the struggle for pacific dominance throughout the centuries, as well...
The Great Powers in the Pacific
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Henry VIII
Classis Pamphlet
What shall we think of Henry VIII? However that question has been or may be answered, one reply is apparently impossible. Not even the most resolute believer in deterministic interpretations of history seems able to escape the spell of that magnificent figure; I know of no book on the age...
Henry VIII
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Oliver Cromwell 1658-1958
Classic Pamphlet
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...
Oliver Cromwell 1658-1958
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The London Charterhouse
Historian article
Four hundred years ago, in 1611, Thomas Sutton was reputed to be the wealthiest commoner in England but he was nearing the end of his life. He had been a financier and he was formerly the Master of Ordnance in the Northern Parts. He decided to take up good works...
The London Charterhouse
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Diagrams in History
Historian article
One of the gifts of the social sciences to history is the use of expository diagrams; but attention is rarely given to the history of diagrams. Maps - schematized representations of locations in spatial relation to one another - can be dated back to Babylonia in the late third millennium...
Diagrams in History
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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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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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Tudor Government
Classic Pamphlet
On 21 August 1485 Henry Tudor won the battle of Bosworth in Leicestershire and established himself as Henry VII, King of England. He had landed in Wales two weeks before, the Lancastrian claimant to the throne against the incumbent Yorkist, Richard III. He had received assistance from Charles VIII of...
Tudor Government
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The myths about the 1745 Jacobite revolution
Historian article
The harsh reality
The 1745 Rebellion has become part of the romantic heritage in both British and Scottish history. At the time there was little romance to it. The many myths and misconceptions about Bonnie Prince Charlie and his followers need to be corrected and the glamorous image of the...
The myths about the 1745 Jacobite revolution
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Louis XIV
Classic Pamphlet
Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 and became King on May 14 1643 at the age of four years and eight months on the death of his father Louis XIII. He attended the Conseil d'en haut from 1649 when he was eleven years old. He announced his coming...
Louis XIV
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The Council of the North
Classic Pamphlet
"The king, intending also the suppression of the greater Monasteries, which he effected in the 31st of his Reign for the preventing of future Dangers and keeping those Northern Counties in Quiet, raised a President and Council at York, and gave them his several Powers and Authorities, under one great...
The Council of the North
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Wellington's Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars
Historian article
Wellington's Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars
The war with France, which began in 1793, had moved to the Iberian Peninsula by 1808. This year is therefore the two-hundredth anniversary of the commencement of the Peninsular War campaigns. War on the Peninsula demanded huge resources of manpower in order to defeat...
Wellington's Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars
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Joan Vaux: a remarkable Tudor lady
Historian article
Joanna Hickson is a hugely successful novelist, specialising in historical fiction, and she describes herself as feeling that she actually lives in the fifteenth century. For readers of The Historian she explores and explains how she developed her understanding and knowledge of a highly significant Tudor woman who is a central figure in two of...
Joan Vaux: a remarkable Tudor lady
